Musik & Ästhetik, 2000, Jg. 4, Ausgabe 13

Like an Autumn Path. Essay on György Kurtág´s »Stele« op. 33

In an analysis of György Kurtág´s orchestra piece Stele op. 33 (1994) the author focuses his essay on the fundamental question why this music is perceived as both authentic and contemporary despite its outright traditional features. As traditional elements are not simply used but traced back to their basic structure such as triad scale ›archetypal‹ material (fifths for the French horn open strings for the guitar etc) they finally appear as either a direct consequence of a development of those basic structures (as is shown in the first movement of Stele) or as an evocation in a ›magical‹ context (as is shown in the third movement). In his very personal manner of exploring a multi-layered unfolding of memory (»Hommage à . . .« and »Dirge« occur in numerous titles within Kurtág´s oeuvre) Kurtág is regarded as a composer of ›synthesis‹ of it may be said music history as a whole.

Art and Criticism in Adorno´s Aesthetics

This article attempts to clarify the relation between Kantian (formalist) und Hegelian (historicist) elements in Adorno´s aesthetics. In the early part of the 20th century Adorno argued a certain kind of formalism in art had a special historical significance because it allowed art to satisfy its own highest vocation which in the given historical circumstances was to criticize society radically. Schönberg´s music in the period of »free atonality« was a model of this kind of social criticism. Traditional music was a form of affirmation of the society in which it was produced. Schönberg started from traditional aesthetic forms developed them sympathetically and demonstrated that if taken seriously they turned into their opposites; it was precisely the attempt to take the aesthetics of late Romantic art »at its word« that lead to the complete abandonment of tonality. This process could be considered as a kind or at any an image of radical social criticism. Finally the article argues that some of the deficiencies of Adorno´s own later theorizing can be seen to result from the fact that certain features of a basically Hegelian approach – its inherently retrospective nature and fixation on a vocabulary of »truth« »necessity« etc. – make it difficult if not impossible to continue to see it as a useful way of thinking about art.

Josquin Desprez´ »La déploration de Iohan. Ockeghem«

The author examines Josquin´s work from the point of view of structural analysis. By this process the lamentation which was conceptualized at the end of the 15th century is found to be a dialogue between two different compositional styles. The interpretation of the structure of the piece demonstrates not only the transition between the so-called 2nd and 3rd generation of the Netherlands epoch but also from the Middle Ages to Renaissance. The comparison of the two different compositional approaches shows a changing aesthetic sensibility. Finally the author demonstrates that through the combination of Josquin´s compositional techniques and the new aesthetic sensibility the way to an already developing world view a new ideology was paved.

On the occasion of the year 2000 Musik & Ästhetik approached composers from eight different countries about contributions to a forum in order to treat topics that in their opinion are central to their artistic work their aesthetic position or their social position. Walter Feldmann (Going beyond borders and responsible competence in the culture and concert business) warns of an obvious dilettantism in the area of multimedia art and demands more commitment for young ensembles in the field of contemporary music which long ago replaced the ›old‹ pioneers regarding their innovative achievement. Marc André (The question about the architecture of composing) describes the fundamental crisis of the compositional systems today (after the decline of the rationalistic programs which hark back to serialism) criticizes the primitiveness of computer-aided composing and outlines an architecture of musical deconstruction. Ole Lützow-Holm (Distance and Address) rejects a radical modernism which banished the requirements of listening from musical practice discusses the relationship between distance and address with the help of the theater and argues for a precarious perambulation between introversion and connection with the audience. Chaya Czernowin (Chasing the fleeting the fluctuating the uncertain) imagines on the basis of subject-theoretical and physical-therapeutic considerations and beyond the sense of security offered by tonality a new type of musical semantics which breaks down dichotomies and explores new objects beyond these. Frank Cox (Towards a »Projective Art«) discusses the requirements for a radical up-to-date art which in aspects of material technique theory aesthetics and music philosophy tries not only to consistently recognize the problems of the present day but also to drive it to further critical heightening in order to announce a music that expresses a virtual corporeality beyond the familiar expressionistic models thus claiming an immanent critique of the society. Bernd Asmus (Who is a composer?) discusses various aspects of the expansion of the composers´ field of work that took place over the last fifty years (electronics multi-media etc) and states that the common denominator has still to be seen in the essential and indispensible very personal way of combining ›craft‹ (how you do it) with ›experience of life‹ (why you do it). Wolfram Schurig (The composer as trade mark? Contemporary music and its commercialization) describes the systematic integration of the younger generation of composers in commercial entanglements in dependence on »classical« representatives of the musical modernity and in career-determined opportunisms of the festival system. Roger Redgate (Marginalization and Subversion) attacks the reactionary and art-hating system of a pseudo-contemporary music in England which robs contemporary composing of any connection to modern aesthetic or composition-technical problems; instead he supports a subversion that makes a virtue out of the necessity of marginalization. Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf (The composer between memory and authenticity) queries as to whether in a totally »demystified« world to which cultural emptying obviously inevitably belongs a concept of emphatic art and music à la Schönberg is still possible. He does this in order to demand it as it were contrafactually since only composers are in a position to historically continue the matters of composing.

Utrecht the festival Early Music the threat from within and the Philistine at the gate

Early music performance has achieved maturity acceptance popularity and authority. It has a serious and productive centre made up of concerts festivals courses centres of teaching and research and recordings – made and performed by dedicated scholars and musicians. In this report the author welcomes and celebrates some fine historical performances at this year´s Utrecht festival of Early Music. But he regrets the activities of that minority of early music performers who in cynicism or gullibility have embraced the whore of ›crossover‹ or ›world music‹ in an attempt to be trendy rich or at least the momentary subject of attention. Also he castigates all those purveyors of cultural trash in the wider world of ›entertainment‹ who in their occasional collaborations with early music are capable only of vulgar acts of trivialisation. He warns festivals and concert programmers that although the disagreeable effects of bogus performances and crossover CDs (for which the old category ›novelty‹ records should be reintroduced) are only temporary they should exercise vigilance – so that this material is never accepted as what constitutes Early Music but remains what it is the insignificant disposable garbage of the ›post-modern‹ melting pot.

The security of the next-to-best taste. On literary criticism

The essay defines the task of a literary critic as a communicative activity which is primarily committed to the reader. An essential part of this commitment is a clear judgement. Criticism is described as the art of communicating more or less complex things in a gripping and elegant manner to an open-minded audience but one without previous knowledge. With the essayist Moritz Heimann (1868-1925) the author postulates that criticism holds a position beyond (the autonomous) arts and sciences. The text is a plea for comprehensibility at a high level and for the classic feature article.

Death of the orchestra in Italy?

The disbanding of the Radio Symphony Orchestras (RAI) in Italy was taken as a loud alarm signal regarding the complex state of the music system. This report attempts to examine the present situation the problems of bureaucracy and the union and the recent founding of young orchestras with excellent standards. It is rounded off by general thoughts about the loss of the audience and about the rite of classical music.