Organist, composer discusses the mystery, art of musical improvisation

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News staff

Noted organist and composer Naji Hakim told an audience that improvisation requires spontaneous creativity anchored on the underlying melody. Artistic activity, he said, “consists of both intuition and calculation.”

Speaking as part of the President’s Lecture Series, Hakim discussed “The Mystery and Art of Improvisation” Oct. 6 in Stude Concert Hall at the Shepherd School of Music.

Musical improvisation requires multiple immediate decisions, Hakim said. “An improvisation on a theme is generally built from its melodic, rhythmic, harmonic and expressive components,” he explained. “It should be thought out in response to the theme rather than being limited exclusively to a succession of pre-established formulae.”

“The improviser,” he continued, “will then be able to project an artistic thought through the evolution of a theme so as to bring about the magical transfiguration of a moment in time.”

Hakim is among the greatest contemporary composer-organist-improvisers. He became the organist of the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur in Montmartre in 1985 and was chosen by the famous composer Olivier Messiaen to succeed him in 1993 at the Eglise de la Sainte-Trinite. He is a professor of musical analysis at the Conservatoire National de Boulogne-Billancourt, a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music and a composer-in-residence at the Trinity College of Music in London.

In his address at the Shepherd School, he emphasized the universality of musical improvisation, saying it is practiced across all cultures and civilizations. He called it “an art to steer the coincidences, to accept the untamable and welcome the grace of the instant.” It requires respecting three essential criteria: “balance between unity and diversity, control of dramatic interest and balanced proportions.”

All musical forms, Hakim said, are built on rhythm. And that rhythm is derived from the heart. “Both in the performance of a written piece as well as during an improvisation, it is the pulse that creates the metrical organization, harnessing the breathing of the musician and of the music,” he said.

Hakim also urged improvisers not to be thrown off by a poorly chosen or unexpected sound. “In order to be able to apply the qualities of a written work to improvisation, temporal constraints must be taken into consideration,” he said. “Once the improvisation starts, hesitation is not allowed.” Hakim often turned to the Steinway on Stude Concert Hall’s stage to demonstrate his points, and he played a dissonant note to illustrate that “there is nothing bad in itself — it’s a question of context.” He then proceeded to resolve the note, quickly arriving at a pleasing melody.

“It took less than a minute to give these examples,” he joked. “But it took me a few years — several years — to learn how to do it.”

Making mistakes, Hakim noted, is to be expected when improvising. The key, he said, is to “make the best possible use of it by justifying it afterwards, by resolving a foreign note or by merging it to a chord, by continuing with parallel octaves for a more extended passage, by substituting a distorted rhythm for what has gone before.”

The improviser must trust his or her senses in an effort to reach the goal of controlled rhetoric and controlled harmony. “Practically speaking,” Hakim said, “reflex action must come into play as soon as the improvisation starts.

The following nights, Oct. 7 and 8, Hakim presented organ recitals, including improvisations, at Edythe Bates Old Recital Hall and Grand Organ in Alice Pratt Brown Hall.

Supported by the J. Newton Rayzor Lecture Fund, the President’s Lecture Series has long been a distinguished element of Rice’s academic community. The series, open to the Rice community and the people of Houston, embodies founder William Marsh Rice’s commitment to contribute educational opportunities to the broader society. The Office of the President sponsors the series as it continues to bring stimulating speakers who foster understanding about a wide range of topics in the sciences, humanities, engineering, social sciences, architecture, music and public policy.