Artist Spotlight: Benjamin Bagby

Composer, harpist, and performer of medieval music, Benjamin Bagby is currently touring the country performing “Beowulf” in its original Old English. On April 10, Bagby took his act to Harvard, performing in Paine Hall and teaching at the English Department. Before his show, Bagby sat down with The Crimson to discuss his work.

The Harvard Crimson: What would you call your style of medieval music? What about this genre draws you to it?

Benjamin Bagby: We have “medieval music,” and that’s a very global term. It describes a huge number of different kinds of music—church, choral, pop, you name it. But what I’m performing at Harvard is an epic poem. It’s more of a traditional music from an oral tradition that is only loosely related to medieval music. In fact, it’s more in the domain of storytelling: “epic poetry.” It’s not concert music by any means. What interests me about it is how music plays a role in a type of communication that is supposed to transmit information, feelings, and stories that tell people about where they come from. In an oral tradition, where we have no written scores that have survived, I try to find a way to make music serve as a means of reconstructing that story.

THC: Why your specific interest in “Beowulf?”

BB: What interests me is that texts like “Beowulf” were always perceived aurally in the time when they were told. At some point, scribes wrote them in manuscripts, and we transcribed those manuscripts, which is when they became for us by default “literature.” My job is to take “Beowulf” out of that literature box and put it back into the oral tradition, so it becomes like a performance as it was originally meant to be.

THC: Can you perhaps go into a little detail regarding your thought process in writing the piece you will perform?

BB: I never set out to compose anything. In fact, it’s all about the text and its meaning. I narrow down my performance parameters using what we know about performances from that time. This understanding is heavily influenced by what we can know about instruments used. The harp became the focal point of my work as I learned how it was employed as a partner with the voice. Once you can establish that instrument’s role, it answers all kinds of questions. So what you call my “thought process” is actually a discovery based on musical decisions without really “composing” anything.

THC: What in your personal beliefs do you think has contributed most to your perspective as an artist?

BB: I believe very strongly in the power of language, not only in the way they are spoken but also in the way they are uttered. For example, the greatest actors have fabulous voices and a fabulous relationship to their texts, and that’s an important aspect to any kind performance. And if the words themselves are also powerfully made and beautifully done with a great sense of sound, it creates music, regardless of what the tones may be. The tones are in a way secondary to the music that the language creates.

THC: How did the band Sequentia come about? Where does the name come from?

BB: I was in grad school finishing my degree with other music students, and we were all very motivated to perform medieval music, so we founded the ensemble. The Latin word Sequentia refers very specifically to a poetic and musical style which was very important between the ninth and 13th centuries. It is an idea of how music and text fit together. In fact, it influenced hundreds of years of musical creation during that time. You could think of it as a new musical form of the Middle Ages.

THC: I understand your wife is a scholar of Croatian chant. How would you say your unique interests complement each other?

BB: She’s definitely more interested in southern Europe, while I’m more interested in northern and southern European sources. But we’ve actually collaborated in the past. Ten years ago we did a recording project here at Harvard and used our time to put together a new project for our two ensembles called “Chant Wars.” It’s about the Carolingian globalization of chant.

THC: Have you ever considered any new directions that you’d like to pursue in your career—a new genre or perhaps a new subject matter?

BB: Medieval music is a very huge area that expands over a thousand years. You already have people concentrating in classical music who spend their whole lives dedicated to 100 years of work. And I’m dedicating my life to a variety of styles over an even longer period of time. While there are some elements of jazz and other music forms in my work, that is plenty for me!

THC: What advice would you give to aspiring musicians just starting to establish careers as artists?

BB: Art picks you. If you can’t imagine doing anything else, that’s a very good sign. Anyone involved in the arts should honestly ask himself or herself if this chose them. If the answer is “This chose me,” then you’re good. If the answer is “I chose this,” you should think about it some more.