Back from Spain with an on-song sonata

After a four-year stint in Spain, Benjamin Dwyer is back with a new concerto - but don't mention castanets, writes Arminta Wallace.

If guitars could talk, they'd speak Spanish. That, at least, is what the guitarist and composer Benjamin Dwyer claimed when he decided to relocate to Spain just over four years ago.

Dwyer had been performing Spanish music for years and had many Spanish friends; he loved the food, the weather, the lifestyle. It seemed like he was on course for hasta la vista and happy ever after. But Dwyer has just moved back to Ireland. Why?

"I realised I couldn't just go around Spain sipping coffee for the rest of my life," he says, with a rueful smile. "It was probably a rather naive thing to do at the age of 37, anyhow. But I had a ball. I learned lots of Spanish, and that was one of the main reasons I went - to develop another dimension of myself. In that sense, it was mission accomplished."

In retrospect, Dwyer achieved more during this relatively brief Spanish sojourn than he might have dared to hope. He met the Argentinian singer Claudia Atrio, and they collaborated on a CD of tango music, La Historia del Tango, together with the saxophonist Kenneth Edge. He played with a Basque rock group for a while, guesting on their new CD. "All of that was great," he says. "I think the whole Spanish experience has had a big effect on me as a composer - though I don't know, yet, exactly what that effect is. Even so, it was time to come back and face the music - get things organised in my life."

Things seem to be going well in Dwyer's life at present. Having just had one new guitar piece, Passacaille: An 18th-Century Stroll, premiered at the recent Handel Festival in Dublin's Temple Bar, he is about to unveil his second guitar concerto, which will be performed by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall (NCH) tomorrow. "I got the commission around the time I came back from Spain," he says, "and I was delighted, because RTÉ offered me a choice. They said, 'You can have a guitar concerto or an orchestral piece.' I said, 'Let's go for the guitar concerto.'"

He chose the guitar option for two reasons. First, he had been promising a concerto to the virtuoso Brazilian guitarist Fabio Zanon for some time. "I was at college with Fabio in London, and we were good buddies then," says Dwyer. "He subsequently went on to win two or three of the top guitar competitions - he's in the top five in the world, and he has a very distinctive style. I maintained my friendship with him over the years; in fact, he's becoming quite a good exponent of my music because he's having my Études published in his own Xanon editions through Chanterelle, which is quite a big music publisher. So he genuinely believes in my stuff, which is very important."

The second reason has to do with the guitar concerto repertoire - or, more precisely, the lack of it. "There are lots of piano concertos and violin concertos, but while there are one or two classic guitar concertos, I still think it's up for grabs. So I thought maybe I could still write something that might make a difference."

When it comes to guitar repertoire, all the best stuff is old stuff: Rodrigo, Vivaldi, that sort of thing. Dwyer doesn't want to be comparing himself to the old masters, or even the new ones. "But," he repeats. "I do think it's up for grabs. And there's another thing. I don't have that many orchestral works to my name. I don't blame RTÉ for that - there are so many composers working in Ireland now that the commissions have to be shared out, so that's fine. But I haven't written an orchestral piece since my percussion concerto 10 years ago. And the trouble with orchestral writing is, if you don't do it, you don't learn it. So I'm very happy to get this opportunity to redress the balance."

There arrives a moment in every interview with a composer about a new piece of music where there's little option but to ask the idiotic question - well, what's it like then, this new piece?

"Well," Dwyer says, "it's not really . . . Spanish-y. Or maybe it is. I don't know. The guitar tends to conjure up ideas of Spain, or Hispanic countries, anyway - but I certainly didn't try to write anything consciously Spanish, which is the trap every composer falls into. You know the one: 'Oh, let's use castanets.' It's awful - and they all do it."

Instead, he says, he began with a quote from the great Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia. "Segovia used to have this great saying: 'The guitar is a miniature orchestra.' He exaggerated, of course - but still, you know what he means. It has a bass, it has an accompaniment, and it has lots of different colours. So I took that idea for a start, and tried to get the orchestra to amplify the latent orchestral qualities in the guitar. At one stage near the end of the piece, for instance, I ask for all the strings to strum; even the violins and the violas have to hold their instruments like guitars. It's a bit of a coup de theatre, which I like in concertos, and it's a play on Segovia's idea. Because instead of making the guitar into the orchestra, the idea is to make the orchestra into a very large guitar."

In terms of form, he says, the piece has the usual three movements - fast, slow, fast - with the lengthy second movement, a passacaglia, at its heart. Fans of Spanish guitar style needn't fear that the guitar's homeland is going to be excluded, however, as the scherzo-like finale builds to a big, rhythmic finish. It also has a folksong tucked in there somewhere. "Which is really not cool for contemporary composers, but anyhow - it's a little tune of my own invention which I've warped into a carousel type of thing. A little bit of a tribute to Rodrigo, and a nod towards the tradition. But certainly no castanets. It's more like a dream of other concertos. And it's very virtuosic. I'm glad I'm not playing it."

Dwyer is unlikely to be busy composing for the foreseeable future, as he has a number of commissions in hand. "I have a commission from Music Network for the Syrius Piano Trio - Elizabeth Cooney's piano trio - and I have a big commission from Ensemble Madrid, for a septet," he says. "That's going to keep me busy for the year - and there are other things coming in as well."

Wearing another hat, as an artistic director, he's working hard to get the Mostly Modern concert series back on track after it lost both a sponsor and its venue, the late, lamented Bank of Ireland Arts Centre. There's also a one-off festival planned for November to celebrate the music of the Hungarian composer György Ligeti, who died last year.

But first, there's the guitar concerto, and Dwyer's pre-concert talk on the evening of the premiere, which will take an unusual form. For part of his time in Spain he lived at the Malaga home of the man who makes his guitars, 75-year-old Joaquín García; and while he was there another friend and colleague, Brian Kavanagh, made a 25-minute documentary film about the guitar-maker, which is due to be shown at a guitar festival in New York in June. But it too will receive its premiere at the NCH tomorrow.

"Joaquín is a wise old man, and a great friend," says Dwyer "The film is called Six Swords at the Crossroads, which is a quote from a famous poem by Lorca about the guitar, and how its strings are swords which cut through your soul. It has footage of Joaquín making my new guitar, and some stuff from concerts at the Hugh Lane Gallery, and spectacular images of Andalucia.

"So people might like to come along to see that. Better than me rabbiting on - don't you think? Although I'll talk a little bit about the concerto, as well."

Benjamin Dwyer's second guitar concerto will be premiered by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by William Eddins, with Fabio Zanon, at the NCH tomorrow night.Six Swords at the Crossroads and the composer's pre-concert talk are at 6.45pm in the John Field Room