casa Ricordi
durand salabert eschig
Ricordi berlin
Ricordi london
Editio Musica Budapest
n ew in si g h ts in to o u r c la ss ic a l
c ata lo g s, c o n te m po r a ry
c o m po se r s
a n d th e m u si c sc en e. UMPC : g iv in g m u si c a u n iv er sa l pe r sp ec ti ve
Table of contents Foreword....................................................................................................................... 1 site-specific music-making............................................................................................ 2 focus on mankind Klaus Huber Celebrates his 90th Birthday.. ............................................... 8 martin grubinger on xenakis.. ..................................................................................... 12 péter eötvös Interviewed by László Gyori.......................................................................... 16 Digitized but not entirely: Italy’s Composers Under-40.. .................................................. 22 getting to the core of things Q&A with Graham Fitkin................................................... 26 fabien lévy A Portrait.. ..................................................................................................... 30 contemporary music for education........................................................................... 32 composer/pianist Baptiste Trotignon and Jean-Frédéric Neuburger...................................... 38 Fausto Romitelli: six keywords Drawn from Romitelli’s own Descriptions of his Music. . ....... 42
sirenEn, a new opera Rolf Riehm in Frankfurt................................................................... 46 machine poetry The Music of László Vidovszky.. ................................................................. 50 alexandre desplat & François meïmoun New Signings.................................................. 56 The new Puccini critical edition. . ................................................................................ 58 World Premieres in 2014 . . ............................................................................................. 64
the home for composers from across the globe A successful Verdi-anniversary year is behind us, and in 2014 we are ready to celebrate the next milestone anniversaries, those of Eötvös (70), Globokar (90), Huber (90), and Nono (90).
working alongside the other Universal Music Group publishing and recording colleagues. Our newly-designed web portal www.umpgclassical.com will soon
In this, the third edition of our yearbook, we will keep you up to date
be followed by new websites for our individual offices. A blog and
on important anniversaries, as usual, but also on our new composers
other social media presence have been added to a redesigned On The
and projects, such as the launch of our Puccini Critical Edition series.
Dial e-newsletter to help you keep up with our composers and publish-
Our lead article, “Site-Specific Music-Making,” explores new trends in
ing activities. We cordially invite you to join the conversation on both
composing for unusual venues and sites.
Facebook and Twitter.
2014 is also the first full year our German office will be operating from Berlin, instead of Munich, where a (mostly) new team is now
We hope you “follow” and “like” us and, most importantly, that you like the great works we have the privilege of publishing!
Antal Boronkay, Managing Director, Editio Musica Budapest Silke Hilger, General Manager, Ricordi Berlin Cristiano Ostinelli, General Manager, Casa Ricordi, Milan Nelly Quérol, General Manager, Durand–Salabert–Eschig, Paris James M. Kendrick, Consultant, Head of Classical Publishing, New York and London
Specific
Site-
Dusapin: OpĂŠra de Feu - Deauville 2010 2
Music-
Operas in car parks. Symphonies in airfields. Concerts in barns, beaches, caves, and underground stations.
- Making Where we might come across contemporary classical music has
each November. Heiner Goebbels’s Ruhrtrienniale, meanwhile, contin-
become increasingly difficult to predict. It’s premature to talk of
ues its annual take-over of the post-industrial wastes of west Germany.
us entering a post-concert hall world. But the scene is certainly Grou pe F - Th ier ry Nava
BY Igor Toronyi-Lalic
getting restless.
Not all this site-specific bed-hopping is without precedent. Pascal Dusapin’s Opéra de Feu (2010), for example, deals with a familiar ritual:
A rising number of new music festivals have taken up residency
that of writing music for firework displays. It’s a reminder that every
in resolutely un-classical venues. The London Contemporary Music
musical event, before the concert hall explosion of the late 1700s, was
Festival (LCMF) took over a car park in summer of 2013. The festival
once site-specific. The current trend, then, for classical music tailoring
Sonica, now in its second year, explores the urban wilds of Glasgow
itself to specific structures, which has gathered such momentum over 3
Dusapin: OpĂŠra de Feu - Deauville 2010
4
What suits spatial adventurism best is opera. opera has always rewarded experimentation.
the past few years, is simply a return to
by Gyorgy Kurtag, Laurie Anderson, Gerald Barry, and Jennifer Walshe,
an older norm.
it was a natural fit.
Some of this has been driven by the
One of the most notable historic models for this interaction between
chase for new audiences. Most, how-
architecture and opera is Luigi Nono’s Prometeo. Needing a space that
ever, has been about using non-stan-
would radically redefine the relationship between listener and per-
dard space to free music, performer,
former, Nono asked Renzo Piano to create a specially designed “musi-
and listener from the constraints and
cal space” for the opera. The result was a space that worked like “a
conventions of the concert hall and to
gigantic lute,” the music causing the wooden structure in which the
reconfigure the musical experience.
audience sat to vibrate like a sound board.
This was the aim of the London
A redefinition of what opera could be and do by composers like
Contemporary Music Festival (LCMF)
Giorgio Battistelli—whose 1981 Experimentum Mundi, for example, sees
2013, which teamed up with the
16 artisans lay bricks, shape stones, forge, grind knives, cobble shoes,
summer arts festival Bold Tendencies
build barrels, and make pasta over the course of the evening—also has
to put on concerts on the sixth floor of a little used multi-storey car
helped the art form escape the opera house.
park in South London. The decision was part practical (it was a large,
Spatial awareness has been a central part of a composer’s job since
free space), part acoustic (famously good), part aesthetic, and part
at least Edgar Varèse’s Poème Électronique (1958), which was created
musical. Few spaces could have chimed as well with the early avant-
for the futuristic curves of Le Corbusier’s Philips Pavilion at the Belgian
garde timbre works by Ennio Morricone or the thunderous piano
Expo and was recently resurrected (along with the rest of the Varèse
recital given by Mark Knoop on the final night, which included Iannis
oeuvre) at the Holland Festival and put on in a disused gas works
Xenakis’s brutal Evryali.
building in west Amsterdam.
Nava - Th ier ry Grou pe F
What suits spatial adventurism best, however, is opera. Intrinsically
Post-Varèse, space began to be addressed and played with as much as
unstable as an art form, opera has always rewarded experimentation.
timbre and pitch. Alongside several acoustic experiments with orches-
The immersive movement of the past decade, for example, has found
tral set up (Musivus was composed for a four-voice polyphonic space),
an enthusiastic partner in it. When LCMF 2013 embedded itself in
Emmanuel Nunes explored the spatial phenomena of music in works
the nooks and crannies of the car park space for Gesamtkunstwerk
such as Wandlungen, which sees each pitch triggering a spatial response. 5
6
Complete breaks with the concert hall were rarer. One of the first
explains Gábor Csalog, artistic director of the barn concerts in Vértesacsa,
to do so was the Scratch Orchestra, a politically minded collective
Hungary, which celebrate the work of Kurtág. “Neither the noise of the city,
set up by the maverick Marxist composer Cornelius Cardew, whose
nor the artificial silence of concert halls or studios can disturb absorption.”
“environmental events” in the early 1970s included “an ambulatory
But many have left the concert hall to get closer to the sonic cor-
concert” around south-west London and “a concert in the forecourt
ruptions of urban life. LCMF 2013 rejoiced in the leakage of city sound
of Euston railway station.” The gallery space and art scene has often
into the concert environment. The trains, traffic, and sounds of social
been the site of classical music’s most radical ideas. Many works that
life were appreciated by many of the composers in the Cage tradi-
have attempted to think spatially—like Salvatore Sciarrino’s work for
tion who performed in the car park, especially experimentalists like
massed amateurs, Il cerchio tagliato dei suoni, which sees a hundred
Charlemagne Palestine, who had performed in five car parks before.
flautist schoolchildren perform while circling the audience—have
Site specificity can be political. It can be aesthetic. It can be nostal-
found themselves seeking out gallery partners. The Guggenheim
gic. It can be practical. It can be cynical. It can also be monumental.
Museum, for example, hosted the U.S. premiere of the Sciarrino.
Dusapin’s Opéra de Feu, in which he teamed up with France’s foremost
One of the oldest drivers behind the exodus from civic concert halls has
pyrotechnicians, Groupe F, for a beach-side extravaganza, is one kind
been about flight from city life. “Only the chirp of crickets can be heard
of epic. Luca Francesconi’s FRESCO (2008) is another. The work sees
in this semi-open, semi-closed and in the summer relatively cool place,”
300 city-scattered musicians (made up of five wind and brass marching
Facing page: Péter Kiss and Péter Szűcs on the stage of a barn in Vértesacsa. This page: Salvatore Sciarrino: Il Cerchio tagliato dei suoni for 4 flutes and 100 migrant flutists Leghorn, April 2013
bands) perform while slowly and separately winding their way through the streets of town to a central plaza, the music fashioned by the town plan. This is civic thinking taken to an extreme, where the city itself has become a kind of score. This may all seem a long way from the focused concert experience of the 19th and 20th century. Yet every one of these experiments is about creating artworks that respond to the new ways in which we, today, organize ourselves, our stories, and our thoughts. Twenty-first-century society and narrative is a scattered thing; it’s no surprise that, increas-
An dr ea Fe lv ég i
ingly, concerts are too.
Igor Toronyi-Lalic is a critic and curator. He writes regularly on music
using non-standard space to free music, performer, and listener from the constraints and conventions of the concert hall and to reconfigure the musical experience...
for, among others, The Times and Sunday Telegraph. He is the author of Benjamin Britten (2013) for Penguin, co-founder of theartdesk.com, and co-director of the London Contemporary Music Festival. 7
by Till Knipper
Focus on Mankind
Klaus Huber Celebrates his 90th Birthday
Klaus Huber, born November 30, 1924, in Switzerland, is one of the
Reflecting on Social Conditions
last living representatives of the so-called post-war generation. He
When starting the composition of his full-length oratorio Erniedrigt…
was a late starter, as he says himself. Since the end of the Fifties his
geknechtet…verlassen…verachtet… (1975, 1978-83), he found a fitting
works have been performed successfully by excellent musicians. But
home in Ricordi, the publisher of Italy’s left-wing composers like Nono
he was no opinion-shaper like Stockhausen, Boulez, Nono, or Cage,
and Maderna. Coming after a long period of composition, its premiere
even though Huber’s writings are extensive, stimulating and, not rarely,
in Donaueschingen in 1983 marked a climax in his public impact. The
polemical. As professor of composition in Freiburg, he became one
music put its finger right on the pulse of the peace movement: aestheti-
of the most influential teachers of his generation. His pupils include
cally overwhelming, with orchestra and choir, paired up with Huber’s own
diverse composers such as Febel, Ferneyhough, Hosokawa, Jarrell,
expression of sharp criticism of the political circumstances, degrading of
Lauck, Pagh-Paan, Platz, Rihm, Saariaho, and Wüthrich.
mankind, in Nicaragua. Up until then, many people had underestimated Huber. The works’ Latin titles, his frequent reference to spiritual, biblical themes, the emphatic interest in Early Music with its contrapuntal
8
Klaus Huber
and isorhythmic techniques struck many as antiquated and unworldly
lent him a book on Sufism. The Second Gulf War began and lead to
– unjustly so. Looking back, it seems more accurate to say that he has
huge anti-war demonstrations, and not just in Germany. This provided
consistently kept his music well apart from compositional fashions, but
the aesthetically fertile ground for his late period. In memory of Nono,
not from historical and intellectual currents, which are reflected in his
Huber wrote his …Plainte… for viola d’amore (1990). Numerous refer-
music both artistically and in terms of aesthetic content.
ences and re-workings have made this piece a sort of seed for his late period, as well as a kind of self-portrait with Nono, and also with Ossip
Nono’s Death and the Second Gulf War The aesthetic change that leads to Huber’s late period is remarkably
Mandelstam, the poet who died in a Russian gulag in 1938; the rhythm of …Plainte… is based on the spoken rhythms of one of his poems.
rst er St efan Fo
novel and was first revealed to the public by the Witten premiere of the string trio Des Dichters Pflug (1989) in third-tone tuning. Shortly
Variants and Interlockings
afterwards, Huber was made professor emeritus, and his friend Luigi
Beneath the surface, Huber’s late works are intricately intercon-
Nono (b. 1924) died on May 8, 1990. At their last meeting Huber had
nected. The solo piece …Plainte… was also intended as one of the 9
20.2.1985 Jury for “Junge Generation in 17 soloist layers in the monumental spatial composition Die umgep-
10
Mozart – Mandelstam – Nono
Europa” in Cologne;
flügte Zeit (1990) which, alongside a choir as well as a third-tone and
An important stage in Huber’s recomposition of …Plainte… lies at the
a quarter-tone ensemble, move through the space, following Nono’s
centre of the string quintet Ecce homines (1998), where it is overlaid
from left:
precedent with compositions like “Hay que caminar” soñando (1989)
with fragments from Mozart’s G minor String Quintet – idealistically
H. Lachenmann,
or Prometeo – Tragedia dell’ascolto (1981-84, 1985). As so often, there
performed in a mean-tone intonation – which are re-instrumented,
M. Lichtenfeld,
are also reductions of Huber’s big pieces. Time and time again, his
and completed by a canon in inversion. The quintet is a sort of model
L. Nono,
pieces have undergone these kinds of variant versions, so that they can
for his major Mandelstam opera Schwarzerde, which sums up the late
I. Xenakis,
reach performance by means of various instrumentations, and in varied
period. At a central point in that work there are seven instrumental-
K. Huber
forms. Superimposed, autonomous layers had already occurred, as in
ists who wander through the audience playing …Plainte… as a canon.
the orchestral piece Protuberanzen, which contains three movements
Mozart, Mandelstam, Nono: for Huber these are the mountains stand-
that, purely “to save time,” can also be played simultaneously – a caustic
ing firm against the surge of time, artists in the sense of an aesthetic of
side-swipe at the ‘snippet-culture’ preferred by concert promoters.
resistance, people who pursue their ideals.
Huber’s father was a musicologist, so it’s not surprising that he cultivates a special interest in Early Music, the “unfulfilled potentials of the past.”
Pitch Spaces – Human
in Schwarzerde. Huber’s father was a musicologist, so it is not surpris-
Spaces
ing that he cultivates a special interest in early music, the “unfulfilled
What links Huber to
potentials of the past.” It is precisely in the late period that Huber com-
Nono is not just his interest
poses for “forgotten” instruments such as the viola d’amore (a kind
in the performance space,
of seven-string viola) and the baryton (similar to the cello), and also
but also in the pitch space.
for countertenor. Even though it is not directly visible in the scores,
From his very first compo-
the 16th century’s expansion to 19 pitches by means of mean-tone
sitions, Huber set these in
tuning with pure thirds informs many of his compositions, such as
contrast to one another: dia-
his Lamentationes Sacrae et Profanae ad Responsoria Iesualdi (1993,
tonic chorales and twelve-
1996-97). During rehearsals he travelled with the musicians to a key-
tone chromaticism, semitones
board museum to investigate the unfamiliar intervals by consulting a
against
Vicentino harpsichord.
quarter-tones
since
the 1960s, and in the late period third-tones come up
Continuing the Inheritance, but Differently
especially often against Arabian quarter-tone pitch spaces. His music
Though it stresses traditional references, Huber’s music is by no
reveals astonishment at such different but extensive musical traditions
means derivative or nostalgic. There are symbolic points of reference
with hundreds of pitch scales and assemblages of additive rhythms
and aural-sensual insights that he develops further. He seems to be in
which are longer than one could imagine in traditional Western music.
search of a meta-harmonic pitch space, an aura lying beyond the con-
Huber’s reference to the traditional Arabic music draws attention to
crete musical grammar of the historical models. What results from this
an admirable culture whose people have been viewed with hostility
is new ideas with allusions, such as occur in his Lamentationes de fine
in the Western world, who were bombarded, and whose museums
vicesimi saeculi (1991-94, 1995, 2007) wherein he divides the typi-
were opened up for looting.
cal European orchestra, as a supposedly de-individualized mass, into four chamber orchestras which, following his role model Stravinsky,
Re nate Lie sm ann
-B au m
The Unfulfilled Potentials of the Past Huber’s late period is basically microtonal, but Huber dislikes this nomenclature since he relates his music to traditional, historical systems. Traditional chromaticism – for Huber now an embodiment of imperialist violence – is either excluded, or else very sparingly used, as in the “Märschlein der Dienstbefliessenen” (“March of the Submissive”)
make music in maqam pitch spaces, polytonally transposed to different degrees. This gives rise to a supra-chamber music with very varied instrumental colors. We congratulate Luigi Nono and Klaus Huber on the occasion of their 90th birthdays! Translated by Richard Toop 11
interview by eric denut
Do you remember your first encounter with Xenakis’s music?
a long time, but I started with Xenakis very early, and I played all
ing Xenakis’s Rebonds B, and this was so fascinating to me. He was
the pieces: Kassandra, Rebonds A & B, Persephassa, and Pléïades,
playing it at Munich Gasteig, the Munich Philharmonic Hall, and I
plus Psappha. For percussionists, Xenakis is what we call in German
was captivated: the wood-blocks, the combination with the drums,
a “Schutzheiliger” (guardian angel). As a student I performed all
the change between the rhythmic structure and this kind of impro-
these pieces in concerts, Rebonds B of course, Rebonds A. Once we
visation on the wood-blocks and then the roll back to the rhyth-
performed a whole Xenakis program with Okho, Persephassa, and
mic structure again with the sixteenth note on the bongo and the
Pléïades in one night. And people came—two thousand people—
kind of melody on the left hand…. From this day on I was in love
just to listen to Xenakis’s music, and you know this was so intense,
de Fe lix Broe
12
with Xenakis. After that I started to work on his pieces. It took me
I remember I was 6 years old, and I heard Peter Sadlo perform-
on xenakis
Martin Grubinger
Martin Grubinger
13
so special, it had such a power, such an impact—a musical impact—
in this music and, on the other hand deep emotion, and that’s the fan-
but also, his music goes deep into your heart, so I would say that
tastic combination in the music of Xenakis. We did Pléïades in Salzburg
without Xenakis, percussion would be in another situation entirely.
Festival, and at the end there was a standing ovation. People who had never been in contact with Xenakis’s music before were fascinated. We
Is there any model, any master, any interpreter, or any colleague
loved to play it, and we tried to express our emotion about this music
who has influenced you in the way of performing?
to the people.
Two performers did: Sylvio Gualda and Peter Sadlo, and both these
14
Also the form is great, and the rhythm of the work.
recordings, and of course I went to ARD competition and listened to
That’s Pléïades with its four movements and its ending: Claviers,
the different interpretations of Psappha. But at the end, it’s pure fun,
Métaux, Mélanges, and Peaux. In the ending you know the movement
and that’s the fantastic thing. There’s a high, very high intellectual level
with the rolls. Then yes, this is simply something special.
Pe te r Fis ch li
performers really had such a strong impact on me. I listened to all the
Are you still preparing it? Is the music so difficult that you need to keep
on the congas, after this no one should have any power left to play
working on it, or is it now really standing in the repertoire for you?
again. And that is because I want my musicians just to give everything
We have it in the repertoire; we deeply believe that for each concert it
they have until the last Peaux part.
has to be prepared very strictly and very carefully. According to the acoustics, but also according to the tightness of playing that is really perfect.
That’s a kind of meditation in some way.
Do you have any plans to do it in the open air in Bregenz?
with such an impact. The ending must be played really with the last
Yes, and it must be really tight, and then you know it must be played I would love to. I hope we can do it next year or in two years at the
you can give as a performer. After that, there is just nothing because
Salzburg Festival in front of the festival halls or at the Domplatz, with
you cannot play anything as an encore after Xenakis’s Pléïades. It has
the special acoustics, because I think you can express this music to
such a deep impact. I so much look forward to doing it soon because
a very large audience as Xenakis is for everybody. It is contemporary
it’s THE perfect piece.
music with high intellectual character, but it is for everybody, and it should be expressed not just to a small group of people. This sounds a
Did you have talks with conductors explaining to you the same thing
little bit strange maybe but we believe that our Pléïades interpretation
about some symphony works? Is that really only for percussionists,
and our Persephassa interpretation are right now at the level where we
this kind of feeling? You have to manage an economy of … I don’t
really can say: “this is what we want to express to people.”
know, it was the first time I heard from a musician this kind of thing; it was really close to Eastern meditation. You know exactly how to
You’re talking about the Percussive Planet Ensemble; tell us a little bit more as the web is quite silent about it.
manage your time economically and energetically. Yes, that’s interesting. I would say it’s our philosophy of playing
The Percussive Planet Ensemble was founded at the Bonn Beethoven
because we deeply feel and think that it’s our duty just to give every-
Pléïades by
Festival in 2006. The members are all student colleagues and teachers
thing we can give into this piece. And for instance, Métaux in Pléïades,
Xenakis at the
of mine. They are so focused on music by Xenakis, Rihm, Cerha, and
it’s not so easy for people to listen to it. I mean it’s complicated. There
Lucerne Festival,
we just played a new piece by Cerha entitled Étoile at the Salzburg
are high frequencies, and sometimes it’s really loud, but on the other
played by The
Festival and commissioned by the Salzburg Festival. These people are
hand it’s so important for us to play all these different colors you know
Percussive Planet
so dedicated to music by Xenakis because all of them also played the
with the wooden sticks, with the soft mallets, the medium mallets, the
solo pieces, the Rebonds, Psappha, and Okho. They are perfect.
hard mallets, in real pianissimo. I want them to play real pianissimo, and then you can hear six players in pianissimo on the Sixxen, so on
What about the name of the ensemble?
the metal parts.
We have a project that is called The Percussive Planet, and it is a kind of music, a percussive journey through all five continents in one eve-
Can Xenakis’s music be part of the regular repertoire?
ning; so we do samba, salsa, tango, African drumming, contemporary
You know, Xenakis’s percussion works are so popular in Austria;
music, funk, fusion, rock, pop, jazz, just in one evening, minimal music
every student plays Rebonds, Psappha, and all these works. I think
and so on; that’s why we called the project “The Percussive Planet.”
this is maybe the biggest challenge, to ask our contemporary musicians to bring this to the “normal” repertoire. I think this is so impor-
You have spoken about Xenakis’s composition, the form that is very
tant, that our conductors and large orchestras start just to do it as a
structured, the emotions. What is the most difficult thing when you
repertoire piece.
concentrate, when you go on stage and you perform Xenakis? You said on Bavarian TV, that after Pléïades you were all going to bed, even you. I told my colleagues in the Percussive Planet Ensemble that at the end of Xenakis’s Pléïades, when we do the last drumming movement,
Have you performed Xenakis’s music in Paris? My biggest wish would be to perform Pléïades and others Xenakis pieces in Paris once, and this because it is the center of his music. 15
Péter Eötvös ´´ ri interviewed by László GyO
16
Harakiri (1973)
Almost all your compositions since the beginning of your career have
just as it was not easy either to get the rights of Love and Other Demons
been published, and you are involved with four European music pub-
from the representatives of Gabriel Garcia Márquez. Up to the present
lishers. How did your cooperation with them begin and continue?
day I still write every score in pencil, so I need a permanent copyist.
My contact with publishers began with Editio Musica Budapest at
Today the younger generation write their scores by computer. For them
the end of the 1970s. They published Windsequences and Steine. Since
the publication of scores and the function of publishing mean some-
I worked as a conductor in Paris from 1979, Edition Salabert Paris was
thing entirely different than for the older generations. Only a large
most advantageous for publishing my compositions. They published
publisher can settle legal problems which a lonely composer could
Cosmos, 3 Madrigalkomödien, and Intervalles-Intérieurs. After my con-
never resolve. The opportunity to distribute the works is also greater
tract in Paris expired, I started working with Ricordi Verlag in 1992,
with a publisher than if a composer were to do everything on his or
which previously had its headquarters in Munich. A large part of my
her own. At the same time, a significant publishing house presents a
significant compositions were published by them. Korrespondenz for
guarantee for the quality of the works. Since I have not concluded an
string quartet was the first, followed by Atlantis, Replica, and Shadows,
exclusive contract with Schott, I have the opportunity from time to time
and among my operas Three Sisters and As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams,
to work with Ricordi Berlin and Editio Musica Budapest.
as well as Lady Sarashina written to a similar text. Since 2000 I have
do lp h Kl au s Ru
worked with Harrison/Parrott Management, London. They represent
You are celebrating your 70th birthday this year. This signifies a
me, as a composer and a conductor. Since at the time serious legal
career of more than 55 years as a composer, since you wrote a mul-
problems arose concerning the libretti of my new operas, in this respect
titude of music for film and theatre at a very young age, as a student
Schott Music Verlag in Mainz proved to be a good partner. It was very
of composition.
complicated to get the rights of Le Balcon from Jean Genet’s inheritors,
At the Academy of Music in Budapest I was known as someone 17
able to improvise well and was invited to the film studios to impro-
Which of your compositions were performed at the concerts of the
vise music for a student’s graduation film. I watched the film and
New Music Studio?
improvised something for it on a Hammond organ. Then a week later
My work Now, Miss! That was not its world premiere, but it was my
I was again asked to go to the film studio. I first composed music for
most important piece in that period which bore my then stylistic
Büchner’s play Leonce and Lena, performed at the Academy of Drama
marks. The other work I remember had the title Passepied, but since
and Film. I was 17. The directors and I were of the same generation,
I later withdrew it, it is not included in any catalogues. It was per-
so that also connected us to one another. It’s a fact that this work got
formed together with Péter Halász’s company. A man and a woman
hold of me very much at the time. That was where I sensed the diver-
using five shoes each walked a certain distance on the parquet
sity it demanded, since each play required a completely different style
flooring accompanied by five musicians. Each had only one shoe
and each work began with different conditions. I have maintained that
on, while the other foot was bare. There was a boot with spurs, a
practical-oriented thinking I learnt there up to the present.
roller skate, a clown’s shoe, a Dutch wooden clog, and a high-heeled shoe. The rhythm and tempo were dictated by the character of the
Another generation link: you took part in the work of the New Music
shoes. This piece has lost its ‘up-to-dateness’ since then, but the
Studio from its founding in 1970. It was a generation group. What
significance of the New Music Studio meant that such compositions
did you, who already lived in Cologne around the time it was formed,
could be tested.
represent in it? The New Music Studio led by Albert Simon came about due to com-
You studied conducting in Cologne. Did you stay there after graduating?
posers of my generation getting together. We were allowed to organize
No, I returned to Budapest. I lived at home for one-and-a-half years.
concerts in one of the community centres of KISZ (the Hungarian Young
At the time I played in Stockhausen’s Ensemble. The 1970 World Expo
Communist League), where pieces of music could be performed which
in Osaka was a decisive experience of that period. I spent half a year in
could not be included in the programmes of “official” concerts, yet they
Japan. The fact that I could have a taste of another culture had a huge
demonstrated the aesthetics of our generation. Besides our own com-
impact on me.
positions, we had pieces played that provided some information about
18
contemporary music of the time. I played the role of a travelling ambas-
What affected you so much? Theatre? This impact is clearly present
sador, since I was living in Cologne and came home to Budapest from
in some of your compositions.
there. Besides the performances of my own compositions, I also con-
All three forms of theatre—noh, bunraku, and kabuki. But the
ducted. We performed Kontrapunkte by Stockhausen—Zoltán Kocsis
Japanese gardens, the stone, rain, nature, and the silence of temples
played the piano—and we also had compositions by Webern on the
made an impression on me. Perhaps the philosophy of Zen was the most
programme. In addition, I brought technical equipment from Cologne
important. It helped me find myself and become connected with the
to Hungary, which at the time was unknown here.
cosmic world from the position of myself. I became a part of the Earth.
In Budapest we were involved only in the part of the flower that is above ground. But there was no mention of the flower having a part under the ground.
So you wrote music for the
staff of the WDR Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne. I realized the
stage and film as a young
works with the composers, for example with Stockhausen, Pousseur,
man, then took part in the
and York Höller.
work of the New Music Studio.
I had little time to compose in that period. In 1972 I wrote my first
Then you lived and worked in
chamber opera Harakiri, which already represented a new way of
Cologne. You did not compose
thinking, and the effect of Japan was well audible.
much during that time.
Up to 1986 I composed all-in-all three to four works that are
It was a period of collecting
still performed. I wrote the Chinese Opera for the Ensemble Inter-
and orientation. I didn’t know
contemporain in 1986. Kent Nagano, who was appointed the music
what direction I was going to
director of the Lyon Opera at that time, heard about the Chinese Opera
take. Composition interested me,
and thought that it was a “real” opera. When it turned out it was not, he
but I couldn’t make use of the
asked me if I wanted to compose a “proper” opera. I received a com-
knowledge I brought with me from
mission and composed Three Sisters. Thanks to a fateful chance, I began
Hungary. By then in Cologne they
composing operas.
were already ahead and thought in a different way. To use a comparison, at the Academy of Music in Budapest we were involved only in
Your compositions speak in different languages. In the case of operas
the part of the flower that is above ground. But there was no men-
it is obviously due to the thinking of a playwright; the story tells you in
tion of the flower having a part under the ground. The point was that
what language the music should be. Is it possible to talk about changes
the flower should be beautiful, sweet-smelling, and bring joy. With
in styles in your oeuvre?
Stockhausen we were mostly involved in the root and knew that if
Not really about stylistic shifts, but about periods, yes. My composi-
everything was alright there then it would become a flower. You could
tions written in the ’70s and ’80s were fundamentally connected to elec-
learn much from Stockhausen. When I began my studies in Cologne,
tronic music. The synthetic construction of the sound and the structure
I presented myself to him, and he asked me to prepare the score of
were due to the fact that I had to think synthetically in the electronic
his electronic composition Telemusik for publication. I copied it by
music studio. The instrumentation of Chinese Opera, for example, betrays
hand, in pencil and with a ruler. We worked together for about six to
a kind of synthetic orchestrational thinking. My thinking later changed,
eight months. That was the time when I began being interested in live
which was due to the fact that I conducted more. I am basically a com-
electronic music.
poser who works with sound, timbre, and the density of the sound—like an architect who not only deals with form, but has a feeling where con-
Did you only play in Stockhausen’s Ensemble? Not only. From 1971 to 1978 I was part of the technical-music
crete, bricks, wood, or glass are required. These days I mostly compose operas and concertos. I tailor the concertos for the soloist’s character. 19
To what extent do you look after your works? When is it necessary to
would have conducted modern music, with the exceptions of Michael
let a composition go and take its own course?
Gielen and Hans Zender. And—again it was ordained by destiny—one
I take care of my compositions very much. I am pleased for each
day the radio orchestra of Stuttgart gave a concert in Paris. They played
performance, since every time I listen to one there is the opportunity
Stockhausen’s Hymnen, which he composed for audio tape and orches-
for modification. With orchestral pieces a work begins to take a final
tra. I often played it as a pianist. I knew it well, therefore Maestro Gielen
shape after five or six performances. Until then I take something out or
passed the coaching to me, and I also conducted the concert. It was a
may add something. I change mostly the dynamics and the density of
success, and that was how I became the music director of the Ensemble
the sound. This is needed because I’d like them to do well, to maintain
Intercontemporain. I filled that post for 13 years.
their place for centuries. Teaching takes up a significant part of your life. You teach composYou graduated from conducting in Cologne and began conducting
ers and conductors, hold courses, mentor young people, and you vis-
while you were in that city and working in the electronic studio. As a
ibly regard it your mission to pass on your knowledge. Moreover, you
conductor you are one of the most prominent interpreters of modern
have set up two foundations specifically with a teaching purpose.
music across the world. How did your conducting career start? The venue for my diploma concert was at the Cologne radio station. The
The principal idea was for me to help those young conductors who didn’t really know which way to go after finishing their studies. My
musicians in the orchestra and I knew each other and they asked where
career as a conductor began thanks
I conducted. I told them “nowhere”. So they organized a radio recording
to chance. My first foundation in 1991
for me. Then another one. On the third occasion I conducted a concert at
helped musicians and conductors
the RIAS in Berlin. That was followed by one in Stuttgart and all the radio
at the beginning of their careers find
orchestras in succession. I had no problem with the modern repertoire
their way. In 2004 I set up the second
because I could communicate that to the musicians without any difficulty.
foundation for conductors and composers. As a professor of the Cologne and
Do you have an inborn talent with your hands for conducting or have
Karlsruhe academies I had many stu-
you acquired this precision in practice?
dents, and since my retirement I have continued educational work at home in
because I didn’t use it. Yet it is not the hands that are the most important
the Eötvös Institute, which in my own
in conducting but communication: the imparting of information by which
career I consider as important as compos-
you are letting the musicians know what you expect of them. So thanks
ing and conducting.
to the German radio orchestras I began conducting, which was due to the fact that in Germany at that time there were few conductors who 20
Translated by Katalin Rácz and Bob Dent
tt er er Pr isk a Ke
It is a natural endowment with me, but for a long time I didn’t know
I am basically a composer who works with sound, timbre, and the density of the sound—form, but has a feeling where concrete, bricks, wood, or glass are required.
Pierre Boulez and Péter Eötvös in Lucerne
21
DigiTized but not entirely Italy’s composers under-40 by Marilena Laterza
Francesco Antonioni (left), Emanuele Casale (center), Matteo Franceschini (right) 22
hi ni ) (Fr an ce sc ni ), Ma rin e Drou ar d Mo ro (Ant on io Gi an lu ca
The digital revolution is an anthropological one that for some years
to a presence different to the mainstream. Music, for him, is still an
now has been introducing a stream of unheard-of resources into musi-
occasion to invite performers and listeners to reflect together in the
cal thought and practice. These are resources that all composers under
place. And this is true both when that music makes exclusive use of
40 have had to come to grips with as they reflect on their artistic activ-
acoustic instruments, conducting a dialogue with the history that those
ity and reconsider the overall creative tradition. This process has led to
instruments bring with them, and when it uses electronics, provided
outcomes that, although extremely varied, are nonetheless anchored,
that they are able to bring together different worlds and, in the face of
surprisingly, in a series of shared premises, ranging from research into
the virtuality of the digital, safeguard the truth of the work. A neces-
form to the conception of timbre as a fundamental prerequisite, from
sary truth that, in the music of Antonioni, entails the constant expres-
composition understood as an ars combinatoria of pre-existing musical
sion of an emotive content: art, for him, “has the task of directing one
elements to attention for the perceptive result that that combination
towards a path to embark upon,” and the challenge of new music is “to
produces. But perhaps, more than anything else, it is the renewed rela-
place people before an enigma—even furnishing them with the keys to
tionship with history, strongly encouraged by the digital resources and
access it—ineffable but full of sense and gratification for anyone who
the possibilities they afford, that astounds the observer: a relationship
wishes to question it.”
that is no longer traumatic or morbid, but instead, serene and construc-
Born, both actually and musically, before the digital age, Emanuele
tive, which allows us to sense exciting new points of arrival for the
Casale (b. 1974) experiences digital technology as a resource that is
music of the future.
never taken for granted and that influences in equal measure both
Albeit without making concessions to the past, Francesco Antonioni
his “esoteric” music, with electronics, and his “exoteric” music, prin-
(b. 1971) remains tied to his pre-digital artistic roots and bears witness
cipally for solo acoustic instruments. In the former, characterized by 23
Silvia Colasanti (left), Daniele Ghisi (right)
which it is used. Once a tradition has been assimilated, for Colasanti,
receptacle of time in which to collocate the acoustic instrumental
it is necessary to interact with it, setting up a dialogue in which the
sounds, conferring on them a greater temporal precision. But even
past resounds through the chords of modernity. “What is art,” she asks
when, in his “exoteric” pieces, Casale operates from the point of
“if not to continually give a new name to the same meanings, with a
view of a listener who knows very little about the contemporary,
language characteristic of the epoch in which one works, represent-
the digital, albeit in a different way, returns. In fact, the possibility
ing oneself and communicating with the people of one’s own time? If
of making use of an immediately accessible and repeated quantity
we observe the same object under a new light, we seem to see a new
of musical information, passing with extreme rapidity from John
object; it is new, but only in part.”
Lennon to Debussy, translates, in the course of his writing, into
For Matteo Franceschini (b. 1979) the correct approach to the devel-
a greater freedom of expression. Released from the prohibition
opment of a musical idea is still that of an artisan, with pen and paper.
against transgressing certain clichés, reference to traditional music
This approach does not, however, exclude recourse to digital technolo-
in Casale’s works remains nonetheless an affinity of a non-citation-
gies, which, for Franceschini—currently interested in multi-perceptivity
ist nature, something “personal” and involuntary, as in the case of
and multi-sensoriness—are fundamental. Digital technology, in fact,
his affinity with certain Italian instrumental music of the early 18th
permits him to integrate with the same rigor different forms of artis-
century that is recognizable in his more ironic pieces.
tic expression (music, literature, video art) and to render his creativity
Silvia Colasanti (b. 1975) does not make use of electronics in her
synaesthetic, involving not just hearing and sight but also other chan-
compositional production. Music, for her, is a combination—with the
nels of perception, for example, taste. All of this is based on solid tech-
mentality of today—of pre-existing elements that have made the
nique and deep historical awareness, but free from dogma and from
history of Western music. Timbric elements—because Colasanti still
the “weight” of the masters, whose legacy, in Franceschini, is renewed
believes in the possibilities of traditional instruments, and for her the
in those fundamental, almost physiological, archetypes that he col-
challenge lies in making use of already patently connotated instru-
lects and reinterprets, one above all, form, handed down by the “noble
mental make-ups still arousing marvel—and also harmonic elements:
fathers” but managed with the instruments and thought of today. For Daniel Ghisi (b.1984), his first approach to writing music was
tant thing, then, is not the material, but the manner and the context in
digital. Influenced by the processes of computer-aided composition,
li)
“today a cluster is just as historicized as a C-major interval.” The impor-
l (V er un el Jea n Ra de
24
a certain compositional complexity, the electronics act as a sort of
he makes use of the computer, on the one hand, to allow himself to
who takes bits from it and puts them back together without heeding
“be surprised” in his dialogue with the machine as as a creative par-
hierarchies of value. The musical material that he uses is impure, full of
ticipant other than himself and to discover unexpected evolutions of
connotations of an objet trouvé. There is no direct tie with history, and
an idea through the modification of certain parameters. On the other,
so no recognition of any debt to the masters, but rather an uninhibited
he uses the digital technology to manage the meta-musical process
attitude which, often by means of “corpus-based synthesis,” raids the
that lies at the basis of his work. In fact, for Ghisi, writing a piece con-
repertory, breaks it up into pieces and recomposes the rubble, recreat-
sists of re-elaborating a database of musical elements and citations,
ing what might be termed “sonic Frankensteins”.
almost never recognisable when heard, in such a way as to obtain a
Much more than for the continuously evolving outillage that digi-
form one degree removed from the original. The digital techniques,
tal technologies offer to composition, Francesca Verunelli (b. 1979)
then, become a means for interfacing with tradition, within a perspec-
considers the digital techniques fundamental to the extent that they
tive of “open music” in which the work of the fathers takes the form of
constitute an epistemological principle with which it is necessary
live material, and not just at an unconscious level. Nonetheless, when
to come to grips, in particular in respect of time. In fact, according
Ghisi writes for acoustic instruments, there is no computer-aided
to Verunelli, the alternative temporality which, thanks to the digital
orchestration software equal to the job. The translation of a sonic idea
technology, accompanies the biological one, influences and rein-
into acoustic content remains for him an “analog” craft.
forces the perception of what she considers to be the most power-
From the moment he set foot inside IRCAM, where he has become
ful aspect of musical composition: the writing of tempo, or, in other
a teacher, Mauro Lanza (b. 1975) has not written a piece of music
words, the possibility of listening to it, but also of “seeing” it under
without a computer, making use of it to organize a coherent form as
one’s very own eyes, and also of “awakening” the listener. Thanks to
much as to manage the harmonic dimension. He especially appreci-
a formal elaboration that challenges the expectations of the listener,
ates the clarity and impersonal character of formalized processes of
Verunelli provokes in him or her a feeling of surprise that only music
composition. These allow him to get past his own ego and his own
can generate. And if it is true that the rhetorical codes of percep-
cultural background so as to create an “unhuman” music, which stirs
tion are the result of a long sedimentation in time, Verunelli’s music
up a profound and sacred fascination. Within this logic, Lanza has in
reveals itself as a game that cannot avoid taking account of history.
recent times interacted with the history of music as a blind listener
Translated by Nicholas Crotty
Mauro Lanza (left), Francesca Verunelli (right)
25
26
GETTING TO THE CORE OF THINGS a Q&A with Graham Fitkin by Elaine Mitchener
1. Your latest work is linked to Umea, Sweden, which in 2014 will be the European City of Culture. Have you been associated with the city and its orchestra before now? No, I hadn’t worked with Norrlands Operan Symphony Orchestra, and in fact never visited Umea either. They have a fantastic building there with two good halls—one specifically a concert hall, the other a full opera house—and they also have conductor Rumon Gamba who I have worked with before, and it will be great to work with him again. I had done a concert tour in that part of Sweden before and remember deep
St ev e Ta nn er
snow in April, and specifically driving a 15-seater minibus with spiked tyres to an airport in the middle of nowhere, for a 4am flight, without a map, when all the road signs were covered with snow. I visited Umea last September and it was all beautiful warm sunshine, lakes, forests, 27
28
I became more and more keen to use data in this work... which could serve in some background way as a ‘map’ for the music. In the end it seemed to come together in the shape of a tree, the birch tree.
and not a hint of winter. I met with
approach it from this standpoint. I have learned a lot about the area
the orchestra, conductor, lots of local
and of course its traditional links with Sami culture. When I was last
people and had a wonderful time.
there I had good meetings with Marco Feklistoff, Artistic Director at the Noorlandsoperan, and Michael Lindblad, Chair of the Umea
2. The commission calls for the
Sami Association. We talked about the history of Umea, the issues
work to be performed twice with
surrounding integration of Sami culture in Sweden and the present
different instrumentation (the
climate. I travelled out into the larger Vasterbotten County area, and
orchestra and your band). Has
as I’d taken my trainers [running shoes], I also ran around the city and
this presented any particular
countryside which also helped me put things into place.
challenges and how have you
Bit by bit I started to make decisions about what I might and might
structured this new work Birch?
not use in the piece, and I became more and more keen to use data in
The idea behind the com-
this work, specific objective information which could serve in some
mission is to create two com-
background way as a ‘map’ for the music. In the end it seemed to come
pletely different perspectives
together in the shape of a tree, the birch tree.
on the same musical material.
It [the birch tree] is a real omnipresent feature of both the city and
Often when I’m composing
the surrounding landscape. It has been central to the Sami, used very
this is something which natu-
specifically in construction, used for firewood, and it plays a big part in
rally crops up without much
the reindeer herding culture. And then in Umea itself, following a huge
conscious planning, but I generally get rid of it as deviating from the
fire in 1888 which decimated a huge part of the city, the reconstruction
driver of the piece. So I have never done this before with conscious
involved planting thousands of birch trees through the city to prevent
planning. The concert will be a standard two-half event; in the first half
the spread of fire from building to building. So the city has all these
they will perform the new orchestral work (which is about 40 minutes
birch trees spread through it. Okay, that was intriguing, and beautiful as
long), and in the second half, the audience will move to the other hall
they are, I really wanted some hard data about birches, their life cycle,
in the same building, and my own ensemble will perform there, gradu-
growth patterns and so on.
ally joined by members of the orchestra. This part of the commission
And of course it so happens that Umea’s University has a Department
will take the same material but rework it with an entirely different vibe.
of Forest Ecology headed up by one Lars Östlund. Lars and I have been in contact many times and he has been the most incredible help. He has
3. What sources of inspiration have you drawn from the experience
supplied me with all sorts of data, images, graphs, and he has cored a par-
of working in Umea?
ticular birch tree for me which shows the width of the growth rings so that
It’s quite a long story. For me it was important that this work was
we can establish a life cycle over 100 years. This has become my map.
imbued with something specific to the area and the culture there. However I wasn’t born and bred there; I don’t have a great deal of
The World Premiere of Birch by Graham Fitkin will take place 29 August
experience of the area, and so I can’t just assume knowledge of what is
2014, NorrlandsOperan Symphony Orchestra, the Fitkin Band conducted
important or unimportant. In essence I’m an outsider.
by Rumon Gamba NorrlandsOperan, Umea, Sweden.
This has both disadvantages and advantages, and I have to
www.norrlandsoperan.se/eng 29
portrait
Fabien Lévy
30
explores the diversity of musical cultures of the world. While study-
from almost every country, the most compelling musical identities
ing ethnomusicology—in addition to composition, music analysis,
transcend national borders. Fabien Lévy represents a model of today’s
harmony, and orchestration at the Conservatoire National Supérieur
international composer both in his life and his compositional œuvre.
in Paris—he investigated pygmy music in Cameroon. This engagement
Born in Paris in 1968, he has lived in France, England, Italy, Germany,
taught him that listening is culturally conditioned and hence relative,
and the United States and has been engaged in the different local
an awareness that constantly flows through his own music.
music scenes. His delicate music unites influences ranging from spec-
Extra-musical inspirations and sources play a crucial role for Lévy,
tralism, musique concrète instrumentale, and minimalism to the poly-
and he does not hesitate to share them with the listener, as in À propos
rhythmic music of Central Africa and Gagaku of Japan.
(2008) written for the German ensemble recherche. Each of the four
Lévy first studied mathematics and economics before finding mentors
movements is dedicated to a visual artist: Jeff Wall, Giuseppe Penone,
in Gérard Grisey, Jean-Claude Risset and Hugues Dufourt. His œuvre,
Alberto Burri, and Tim Hawkinson. Together they form Lévy’s “little
comprising works for orchestra, vocal and instrumental ensemble, solo
imaginary museum,” as he puts it. The piece also shows his interest
instruments, and electronics shows post-spectral traits in several ways:
in musical form, representing, for Lévy, the influence of the German
it features the composer’s fascination for sound as a sensual experi-
tradition on his musical thinking. In 2001 he first went to Berlin and
ence with all its complexity, ambiguity, and finally ineffability. Lévy is a
remained there until he became Professor of Composition at Columbia
master of surprise, establishing listening expectations only to subvert
University in New York in 2006. Six years later he moved back to Berlin
them and shift the listener’s attention into another direction. The ear,
as Senior Professor of Composition in Detmold, a historic town with a
Lévy seems to suggest, is as susceptible to illusion as the other senses.
well renown conservatory.
He was led to this attitude not only by research on perception by Risset
As in many other works like durch (1998) and towards the door we
but also by his experience with non-Western music. Lévy passionately
never opened (2013), both for saxophone quartet, rhythm is a dominant
© MU TE SOUVE
In our current globalized world, with music effortlessly available
NIR I BIE NER Ts
by Lydia Rilling
feature of À propos. The steady regular pulse and the concern with meter give Lévy’s music the character of flow, of always moving forward. One might hear this as an influence of first generation minimal music, or as a shadow of Lévy’s earlier engagement with jazz. He delights in building complex poly-rhythmical structures and uses a variety of techniques and mathematic models, like cross rhythms and rhythmic canons. Thanks to this strong, rhythmic dimension his music is highly accessible to a broad variety of listeners. With Après tout (2012) for vocal and instrumental ensemble and live electronics, Lévy composed a 50-minute musical meditation on the possibilities of forgiving. It was inspired by a debate between the philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch and a German high school teacher, Wiard Raveling, about whether it would ever be possible to forgive after the Third Reich. The topic touches upon the coordinates of Lévy’s own life as a secular French composer with Jewish roots who lives in Berlin. At the end of his “grand theater of forgiveness,” he refuses a moral judgment but leaves it open to the audience to decide whether forgiving is possible—a powerful statement with a strong impact on the listener as the first performances in Berlin and Stuttgart showed. The experience was equally moving for the audience and for the composer himself, as the fine and subtle music succeeded to reach and deeply affect many listeners who had never been in touch with contemporary music before. One of Lévy’s favorite lessons from Grisey is that composing is not about producing but about creating. This summarizes his own musical credo. In a musical world that prioritizes premieres and always demands more new pieces, Lévy allows himself to focus on writing very few pieces per year and to develop a new approach for each one of them. As a result, none follows the same strategy or method as any others. In Pour Orchestre, written for the orchestra of Komische Oper Berlin, he deconstructs the traditional symphony orchestra as a mirror of the Western world with its implied hierarchies and mechanisms of power. This begins with a “geography of the ensemble” when the harp and woodwind sections take the place of the strings, which must instead move to the background. It continues with the musicians enacting the utopian ideal of a different society, in which 67 individuals interact as equals in a polyrhythmic structure. On both sides of the Atlantic, Fabien Lévy’s music stands out for its rhythmical delicacy and deep sonic sensitivity, multi-dimensionality and perceptual richness. No matter how intellectually charged and philosophically reflected, the music remains playful and joyous, inviting the listener to follow Lévy through his musical world. 31
contempor for educatio by János Malina One of the gems of Editio Musica Budapest (EMB) is its constantly expanding series of piano pieces by György Kurtág entitled Games. Now the EMB catalogue is being enriched with two new related publications: János Bali’s exciting and inspiring work Introduction to the Avant-garde for Recorder Players and György Orbán’s two-volume, completely individual Aulos: Advance-level Piano Pieces for Practising Polyphony. Beyond their basic differences (range, instruments, and target audience), the three works share common features, for example, an intensive connection with the music of the past and the stress on improvised elements, but most of all, going far beyond any educational aim, they enrich the repertoire of contemporary music with significant, exciting, unmistakably unique-sounding compositions. Furthermore, they continue a valuable Hungarian tradition, namely: composers of instrumental tutorials commissioning prominent composers to enrich their works with new concert pieces. For example, Sándor Reschofszky approached Béla Bartók to be the co-composer of his Piano Method (1913). The traditionally strong connection between music composition and music education can of course be realized in other forms, as exemplified by the choral works for children of Kodály and Bartók, those par excellence artistic manifestations which became part of the music teaching curriculum of Hungarian children and at the same time entered the international concert repertoire. 32
György Kurtág
ary music o on
A connection with the past, Improvisation and unique sounds for both students and professional musicians
Kurtág’s Games series bears striking similarities to Bartók’s
only musicians but also, for example, poets and artists) and figures
Mikrokosmos. Both familiarize the pupils or the musicians playing the
quite unknown to the public appear with either their full names or ini-
pieces with the music and with the basic experiences and movements
tials, underlining that ability of György Kurtág to find in everyone that
connected with the arts; and at the very beginning both take the child
personal characteristic and unrepeatable quality which gives rise to
music student by the hand, but after numerous volumes reach valuable
a unique and indispensable element of the universe. Connected with
and even brilliant concert pieces. In the case of Games, these two faces
his well-known passion is that he has always worked with and ardently
of the series outwardly and fittingly separate from each other; the first
involved himself with amateurs and musicians whose talent is modest.
lv ég i An dr ea Fe
four volumes, completed in 1979—in the creation of which a legend-
The eight volumes of Games now before us show a striking symme-
ary piano teacher, Mariann Teöke, participated—primarily serves a
try and closed format in that both parts end with a volume for four
directly educational aim. Over the course of the years further volumes
hands and two pianos (Volumes 4 and 8), though such pieces also
have been published in succession (four up to today) representing an
appear sporadically in the other volumes. Meanwhile, Volumes 9 and
even more personal Kurtág genre, as indicated by the sub-title Diary
10 of the series are already in preparation. However, the greatness of
Entries, Personal Messages. Just as the first volumes contained concert
the series is embedded not only in the structure or the proportions,
pieces of full poetic value, which have even become popular in recent
but also in the inner richness of the pieces, which in the case of the
decades, so the second series of Games is not devoid of technically
first part of the series is primarily manifested in the elucidation of the
quite simple, brief compositions, thus making it possible that through
piano’s traditional and novel possibilities of resonance, while in the
them those who are not professional pianists can enter the shrine of
second part it lies in the limitless diversity of artistic expression, sen-
distinguished art. The second four volumes are simultaneously a per-
sitivity, passion, movement, and content which cannot be expressed in
sonal portrait gallery of Kurtág. You can hardly find in them a work
words—precisely as in the case of Bartók’s Mikrokosmos.
which is not a homage to his models, a deceased or still living com-
While György Kurtág is acknowledged primarily as one of the
poser, friend or colleague, or which is not dedicated to such a person.
world’s greatest living composers, János Bali, the author of Introduction
“Homage” is the key word of these four volumes. Great artists (not
to the Avant-garde, has become noted mainly as a performer (a flute 33
34
player and choirmaster) and as a teacher and outstanding researcher
the technical skill of playing the instrument and also teaches a
of the history of the recorder. The particular and perfectly individ-
responsible attitude toward the performed sounds. Although in some
ual musical conception of Bali, who originally qualified as a math-
compositions greater emphasis is placed on enthusiastic creativity
ematician, has always been defined by early music, primarily by
than on a secure mastery of the instrument, other pieces require a
Renaissance choral polyphony and Baroque instrumental music, as
high-level of skill in playing the recorder. Thus a good teacher can use
well as his intense interest in contemporary music and the avant-
the publication when teaching music students who have the most
garde. It is worth mentioning that in addition to working with younger,
diverse grounding. Furthermore, we can
distinctly avant-garde contemporary composers, as an editor-composer
say that for lower-grade recorder teach-
he has had an intensive working relationship directly with Kurtág and
ing, Bali is primarily addressing music
his works for a long time.
teachers, introducing them to the avantgarde, giving them advice for the jour-
to János Bali, the work is emphatically a collective creation, since a
ney, inspiration, ideas, an open attitude
significant proportion of the pieces are by other composers: Ádám
towards everything new, exciting, and
Kondor, Gábor Kósa, György Kurtág Jr., Csaba Laurán, Dóra Pétery, Vera
challenging, which gives support and
Rönkös, László Sáry, András Soós, Máté Szigeti, and Péter Tornyai. In
help right at the start of the journey.
one section (Photo and Sound) there is not one single piece, rather
The versatile and prolific composer
only ideas, instructions for use, and suggestions for transforming the
György Orbán is known internation-
manifestations of everyday life—from the sound of a concrete mixer
ally primarily for his choral works. His
to the chirping of a bird—into a composition. One of the important
music is always witty and at the same
characteristics of making music from the small details of reality is Bali’s
time it often profoundly touches his
way of looking at things, as shown by the enlarged photograph details,
listeners with a cathartic power. For
which cause you to reflect, in the first section entitled Drawing and
more than a quarter of a century he
Sound. This follows in the footsteps of such eminent predecessors as
taught composition at the Budapest
John Cage and Zoltán Jeney. Besides photographs taken by Olga Kocsi,
Academy of Music, for a decade as
Hanna Tillmann’s graphics—sometimes witty, occasionally thought-
a departmental head. With all cer-
provoking or constituting an organic part of the composition—also
tainty, rigour characterizes him.
form an important part of the volume’s instructions.
György
Orbán’s
compositions
György Orbán
Before the Instructions attached to the first volumes of Games,
thoroughly put performers to the
Kurtág expresses a few words concerning what he would like to
test, be they an amateur choir,
encourage: “Pleasure in playing, the joy of movement—daring and
an instrumental soloist, or a solo
if need be fast movement over the entire keyboard right from the
singer. However, those who know him personally know that he has an
first lessons, instead of clumsy groping for keys and the counting of
exceptionally open personality and is blessed with a wonderful sense
rhythms …. On no account should the written images be taken seri-
of humor, someone who temperamentally cannot compose or teach in
ously, but the written images must be taken extremely seriously
any other way than in the most personal manner on the basis of the
as regards the musical process, the quality of sound and silence.”
most personal experiences and associations.
Overcoming the music student’s inhibitions and encouraging his/her
Orbán’s Aulos: Piano Pieces for Advanced Players to Practise Polyphony
creativity are the most important aims of János Bali’s Introduction.
is an all-embracing personal composition, which was created in the
The collection provides varied opportunities for that, from hint-like
spirit whereby the manifestation of polyphony and the polyphonic
instructions for ‘piece generation’ or graphic scores to the most tra-
view of and approach to music present for him a fundamental per-
ditionally recorded, set compositions. The ensembles performing the
sonal experience, which has to be shared with others; and part of it is
pieces also can be varied, from a solo recorder and very different
thanks to his colleague, the devoted piano teacher Ágnes Lakos, whose
accessories (a jug of water or mobile phone) all the way to a recorder
talented pupils inspired him to give them more didactic piano works
sextet. At the same time, similarly to Kurtág, the collection develops
to help them better understand the wonders of music. The title of the
An dr ea Fe lv ég i
Although the concept of Introduction to the Avant-garde belongs
Gyรถrgy Orbรกn is known...primarily for his choral works. His music is always witty... and at the same time it often profoundly touches his listeners with a cathartic power.
Orbรกn: Aulos Fughetta in A major 35
Speech therapist
PĂŠter Tornyai
for two recorders
1 ' G J
2G
=
'
))) 5
K
' )) 5 ÂŻ
=
' ÂŻ
ÂŻ ÂŻ 5
K
5E5 5E5 5
=
555555555 ÂŻ
quasi Siciliano
5 5E5 5 5E5 5: 5M = 4 J K
))))
The head of a tenor recorder
(Tenor-)Recorder-Head
, 5
))))))
AltoRecorder recorder
FĂşjj leszerelt furulya-fejbe, kĂśzben kezeddel a mĂĄsik levĘatnyĂlĂĄs nagysĂĄgĂĄt! Blowa into the removed head, and at thea same timevĂĄltoztasd alter the size of thevĂŠgĂŠn aperture the other end with your hand. (Ha nyitva van, magas hangot ad, ha teljesen befogod , mĂŠlyet.) (If it teljesen is fully open, it gives a high-pitched sound, and if fully covered, a low one. See the picture on p. 29.) PrĂłbĂĄld minĂŠl pontosabban utĂĄnozni a mĂĄsik furulyĂĄs ĂĄltal jĂĄtszott hangmagassĂĄgokat, dallamokat! Try to imitate as accurately as possible the pitches and tunes played by the other recorder player.
=
5 55 5
=
amikor when you have had megelĂŠgelted enough imitate utĂĄnozd!
32
36
5 5 5 5 5 sub J
5) 5 ) 5)))5 )5)))5))5)))5)) 5 5))5))) 5)))5))))5
rapid glissandi gyors glissandĂłk
))))
=
5M 5M 5M 5M 5M 5M 5M 5M 5M 5M 5M 5M 5M 5M 5M 5M ))))
5 5 5 5 2G 5 :
5 E5 5 5
gyors, rĂśvid hangok fast, short notes, angrily dĂźhĂśsen
improvise improvizĂĄlj motifs motĂvumokat!
)))))
1 G
K
5M
5M
5 ):))))) 5
glissando
=
?
glissando possibile
B
nagyon lassĂş
very slow glissando glissando
'
5
B
5 ?
Z. 14 734
two-volume work refers to the Greek double-reed pipe, known as the
starts off with an inward direction, towards the details. Those technical
biaulos, which for him in European culture symbolizes the first, uncer14734_Bali_ENG_beliv.indd 32
approaches are considered in turn, without which polyphonic music
tain steps on the road of polyphony. The collection of 31 pieces and
making cannot exist.�
two variations also offers short explanations at the start of each vol-
The structure of this collection is more confined than the other two;
ume and introductions and commentaries for each piece. As he writes:
it deals with specific musical phenomena, and in its main part con-
“The first part of Aulos outlines the main features of the basic genres
structions for the alternate preludes and fugues of Bach’s The Well-
of polyphony and their technical procedures. ‌ The second part ‌
Tempered Clavier can be felt. Confined, yet in every respect irregular.
2013.04.08. 14:14:47
The particular and perfectly individual musical conception of Bali, who originally qualified as a mathematician, has always been defined by early music.
The alternate pairs of pieces become
textbook, since it demonstrates concepts such as double counter-
greatly imbalanced and are replaced
point, mirror conversion, the double and triple fugue, cantus firmus,
by three-piece sub-cycles; the number
and complementary rhythm. However, by means of the facilitating
of pieces is arbitrary; the alignment of
and uniquely sounding commentaries about the demanding pieces,
lightly-touched tonality is incomplete;
students mainly feel that someone is speaking personally and is
and in terms of the basic characteris-
explaining precisely why polyphony can become an issue of per-
tics of polyphony, the canon is missing;
sonal feeling for people.
namely the composer “doesn’t like it.”
Behind the three educational undertakings there stand several
Perhaps with this point we can quite
decades of teaching experience and three decidedly different person-
understand why the entire series is
alities. At the same time, all three enterprises are uniquely clear and
primarily about games, a love child, the
based on shared convictions. That is to say: music making is an intel-
creation of which was a pleasure for the composer, such that both the
lectual discovery and adventure, and is an extremely important and
composer and the pianist could feel absolutely liberated and exempt
serious matter that bears upon our entire lives, choices, and actions,
from school rules. This motif of playfulness permeates everything
and from which we can gain experiences and encouragement which
and is present in the most serious moments of the pieces--preludes,
cannot be compared to anything else. However, all this demands of us
fugues and fughettas, capriccios, fantasias, studies, choral works,
serious-mindedness, concentration, and responsibility.
János Bali
nóth Ba lá zs Ar
psalms and hymns—as well as in the written commentaries. Among the three works, Orbán’s work most recalls a type of
Translated by Katalin Rácz and Bob Dent 37
COMPOSER
Baptiste Trotignon 38
/ PIANIST Baptiste Trotignon and Jean-Frédéric Neuburger
A conversation led by Eric Denut Baptiste, when did you begin to compose?
first proper works which could be played in public—which however I
Baptiste: As far as jazz idioms are concerned, I was around 16, when
completely reject now because they were not mature from a technical,
I started to play with my first jazz groups. I started writing ‘fixed’ piec-
structural or, obviously, stylistic point of view—date from when I was
es—that is, things defined by being written down—even if in jazz, ef-
17 years old at the end of my conservatory studies.
fectively, the notion of being ‘fixed’ is more liberal than in a classical piece, where in general everything is more controlled.
Did the passage towards writing seem to you a natural continuation of your activity as a musician?
What was your first classical opus, then?
B: Yes, even more so since, even if we do not play the same kind of
B: The first piece has to be my piano concerto, called Different
music, Jean-Frédéric is like me; we have continued to play a great deal.
Spaces, because what I was able to write for musicians before, for in-
It was just something that seemed to be part of the natural flow of
strumentalists or strings for example, who played something and didn’t
music-making, in fact.
improvise, was still more or less in a jazz context, a suite for orchestra or rather for jazz quintet and small orchestra.
Baptiste, it is therefore about three years that you have been both composer and performer. How has that impacted on your life as a
Jim my Ka tz
Jean-Frédéric, your first pieces date from when?
performer?
Jean-Frédéric: I started to write around about 10 or 11 years old.
B: There are times when I have few concerts when I take advantage
They were in fact pastiches of repertoire pieces: ‘faux’ Mozart or ‘faux’
of this to spend time just writing and when I only touch the piano with
Chopin, things like that, things that I was working on at the time. My
an eraser, a pencil, and paper. In any case, I do not work at the piano 39
in this period, because I know I can allow myself that time. I have no
fields other than jazz. I believe I still have many subtleties to learn
concerts for three weeks, a month, for example, which is rare, but I try
about in the stylistic domain, a little more than in jazz where I have had
to use these times to devote myself to writing.
the time to cover different types of writing a bit more.
Jean-Frédéric, your timetable is like Baptiste’s, so I imagine that
I do not remember having read any reviews that said that since Jean-
when you have the time you make use of it?
Frédéric started spending an average of two months of every year
J-F: For me it is rather like Baptiste. However, I manage to arrange
composing, that had radically changed his view of the Années de
free periods quite often in fact, at the expense of refusing lots of
pèlerinage, but have you yourself felt a difference, maybe in your
things. For example, I try now to have a whole month off at least twice a
relationship with the composers whose works you premiere, notably
year. Just now, I shall have August and December, for example, which is
concertos? Have you noticed any changes?
already very good. And then the rest of the time, I often have ten days,
J-F: It is perhaps more true in the way in which I approach the works
a fortnight …. Then what often happens in my case is that a composing
of my colleagues, for example Philippe Manoury or recently Christian
project starts to take shape a long time before I get down to writing the
Lauba, different composers; and it is a pleasure precisely because I am
piece itself. And often that happens after a long period of improvisa-
sensitive to trying to
tion. That could equally be at home or in a concert hall, and I improvise
understand all the dif-
very regularly, obviously, like all composer-pianists. And then it is not
ferent aesthetics, that
necessarily the object to have ideas but sometimes they arrive none-
is to say almost one
theless and so suddenly one day a composing project is born, and then
aesthetic per composer.
effectively at that moment I find it is always good to have some paper
In this context, therefore,
not far away, paper in my rucksack, at the hotel, no matter where, and
I think that my work has
to write down half a page of music or a sketch; you think about it again
improved in terms of ef-
ten days or a fortnight later, even six months later. Having done the
ficiency, maybe not for
piece that had to be done because it was a little bit late, well, then you
the classical and romantic
go back to it, and in a month or so it becomes a piece for piano, a piano
repertoire, but because
quintet, a piece for orchestra ….
the fact that I have studied
B: When they decide to come, these ideas, you jot them down. And
for five years particularly
then, for me, for a while now I have sometimes used mini gadgets like
lots of modern and con-
the dictaphone that you have on your mobile …. sometimes for exam-
temporary
ple you are doing the sound-check at a concert and something comes
that I appreciate better and
into your fingers—“Ah, that’s not bad, that works”—and you know that
more quickly the structure
you will never remember it the following day, so you record it, and then
of the piece that I am going
afterwards you take the time, to see if you can write it down, if it is
to premiere—what are the
worth the trouble to make something of it. Sometimes nothing comes
main points that have to be
of it, and sometimes it can be the source of …
emphasised, what is impor-
J-F: … Sometimes it can be very good.
works
means
knowing how to play the piano ... helps with writing ... even if it is occasionally flagrant that ... certain things are unplayable on the piano, whereas they work Brilliantly for the quartet
tant from an aesthetic point of view in this piece—and therefore I get closer to the heart of the score. I
Is the act of composing in some way a means of getting into plurality?
think that this is a benefit for giving the premiere of pieces.
B: As far as I am concerned, for the moment in the domain of jazzperformer as I am, I have worked on many other different styles pre-
A question about your instrument. One notices that some composer-
cisely in order to find my own, perhaps. In so far as being a classical
pianists and keyboard players become “real” composers, but that
composer, I have not had time to do that much with regard to the 500
this is rather less common for other instrumentalists. Is the key-
years of musical history. I took classes in compositional techniques but
board therefore a real advantage?
I have not really had the leisure and the time to study deeply many 40
B: The fact of knowing how to play the piano at least quite well,
that helps with writing and with being effec-
having to think about it, because one is confronted with that regularly
tive, even if it is occasionally obvious that with
and that is part of what one puts into the score.
a string quartet certain things are unplayable
J-F: It is a kind of second nature when you write—I am talking here
on the piano whereas they work brilliantly
about writing for the piano, not for the first violin or the third horn,
for the quartet. In the world of jazz, often the
which one manages as well, obviously, or a passage without piano solo.
great arrangers are wind players, on the one
I often go to the piano; I try things out, and I notice that what I have
hand because they often play in big bands,
worked out at the table or during several days of writing is nonetheless
so they are trumpeters, trombonists, and on
a bit difficult, and I prune it. I cut back—let’s say—9% of the difficulty.
the other hand because they, unlike us, have
B: I often do that. You start with the idea, and then when you realize
the experience of being part of an orchestra
that it is a bit overloaded.
and of seeing how their part sounds with
J-F: Therefore, if you feel that 80% of pianists will be caught out at
the others. It is something that one can
a particular place which is precisely a beautiful moment, it is better to
only imagine or dream of as a pianist. Even
take the line of simplifying a little, even if it is a bit of a shame, and to
when one writes something running, fast,
tell yourself that 85% of pianists will play the right notes.
you do not need to play fast when you write at the piano. J-F: But it is not a bad thing to listen to it at the tempo it will really be. We can
B: It may not be a shame at all if you know that it will sound better, because there will not be a ‘smudge’. In that case, it is not just a question of better realization but also of better sound. J-F: That’s to say that one knows where the danger spots are where
do that too.
the pianist could slip up, even if it is already good.
And is there also a disadvantage?
who is an accomplished pianist whether it is from the point of view
B: I realized with Nicholas Angelich, who played my concerto and B: When I began work on the con-
of technique or sonority, that I knew how far I could go. Nonetheless,
certo, I saw a harpist, and other spe-
after the premiere I made a few corrections, not much to add to the
cific instrumentalists, a violinist I have
piano, apart from one or two places where, great virtuoso though he is,
often worked with, a flautist, a horn
I wondered if I ought to make a change given that just afterwards there
player …. As far as experienced in-
is a pianissimo, so I removed three grace notes that no one was going
strumentalists like Jean-Frédéric or
to hear, just to make the pianissimo easier. On paper it might seem a
I are concerned, who stay in their
shame, but in the end it will sound better because the pianissimo will
own world, and who move into the
work better. It is therefore extremely interesting when one is writing to
world of composing one way or
ask oneself these questions, the relation with effectiveness, not in the
another, the problem is that when
marketing sense of the term, but from the point of view of the result,
Jean-Frédéric
you write, you have all the preoc-
so that the latter becomes more poetic.
Neuburger
cupations of a performer because we know what playing music is
And there you have a certain competitive advantage over your col-
all about. Now, amongst contem-
leagues who do nothing other than compose?
porary composers, all styles considered, even if they are all more or less instrumentalists at the outset, are there not some composers who have lost the physical relationship with an instrument and who do not
J-F: Not necessarily. B: I wonder about that, and it is almost more an answer than a question, which is not to say that it is exclusive to us.
put themselves in the place of the musician who will play the piece, Rik im ar u
whether it is the first violin or the third horn? Whereas we, because
… the monopoly of the anticipation of realization …
Hotta
of our activity as performers, are constantly confronted with what it is
B: Yes, finally, is it not more interesting when one has a physical rap-
to play an instrument, with its joys and pains, its thrills and struggles
port with an instrument to put that into the writing? That’s rather what
too. Perhaps that makes a difference in the writing, without necessarily
I was trying to say.
Translated by Patricia Alia 41
Fausto Romitelli: six keywords drawn from Romitelli’s own descriptions of his music
by Alessandro Arbo
Permeated by a desire to explore the trajectories of the degradation
42
Sound
of material sound, impregnated with the atmosphere of psychedelic
Anyone who had the good fortune to meet Romitelli probably still
rock and the obsessive gestures of techno, direct, visionary, yet at the
has the impression of hearing him pronounce this word, suono, with
same time calculated right down to the last detail, admirably written, the
that highly characteristic intonation of his, drawing out the “o” with
music of Fausto Romitelli strikes one right from the start for the qualities
a satisfied resonance. When he used to listen to the music of oth-
of its style and the energy of its expression. To present it here we’ll make
ers, the sound was the first thing (and sometimes the last) that his
use of some key concepts or key terms, taken for the most part from the
attention fell upon. He conceived a substantial part of his job as a
lexicon with which Romitelli himself represented it: sound, modernity,
composer as an attempt to put its energy to work. He drew inspiration
high and low, degeneration, paroxysm, and profundity.
from the about-turn effected by the composers of the Itinéraire, in
the music of Fausto Romitelli strikes one right from the start with the qualities of its style and the energy of its expression. the wake of other important 20th-century composers. Much more than “compose with sounds,” what was at issue, for him, was to “compose sound,” a formula which should not, however, draw us into error. In fact, on listening to Romitelli’s music, one quickly appreciates that “composing the sound” was not an end, but rather a means—without doubt the most important—to open a window on the world. He himself said this on numerous occasions. Composition was for him a visionary practice and at the same time an instrument for taking cognizance of reality, almost a kind of probe, capable of registering the reactions and mutations in our sensibility. However suspect the word “expression” might have appeared to him (in fact, it used to horrify him, perhaps because he immediately associated it with what appeared to him like the cheap pathos of New Age or Neo-impressionism), it is perhaps the most suitable to illustrate this intent. Because the sound of Fausto Romitelli—a sound that does not hide but, on the contrary, flaunts its artificial, synthetic nature, that presents itself right from the start as filtered, degraded and even dirty, but that is also able to be magnetic and extraordinarily seductive—is one of the most sincere and refined expressions of a manner we have of feeling and reacting in a world ever more crammed with technology, crisscrossed by the flows of planetary communication, and the violent homogenizing forces of the global market. 43
Modernity
High and Low
It would be nice to be able to avoid such an old and compromising
For better or worse, this dual concept has marked the evolution
term as modernity. But I think that this would be, if not impossible,
of the entire history of Western music. Although the nature of the
then inopportune, not just because this was a term to which, in spite of
encounter between the traditions of serious music (from stile antico
everything, Romitelli used to often make recourse, but because, accom-
to the musiques savantes) and those of popular music, whether rural
panied by a necessary clarification, it continues to fulfil an important
or urban, has not been straightforward, we can perhaps represent it,
function. On listening to Romitelli’s works one cannot not be struck by
at least in terms of the framework of references in which Romitelli
the innumerable musical influences that are incorporated within them,
positioned himself, as a field of forces in which each pole causes the
from Strauss to Grisey, from Hendrix to Pink Floyd, to David Bowie, to
other to gravitate towards it, continually relaunching two major atti-
Sonic Youth, Aphex Twin, Pan Sonic. How can one not suspect, behind
tudes. In the first, what is recognized as “low” remains external, and it
such a heterogeneous network of references, that typically post-mod-
manifests itself in its specific difference. One could define this as the
ern trait: the carefree pleasure of interweaving, reshuffling the cards on
strategy of exoticism and immediately call to mind some well-known
the table, hybridizing, contaminating or parodying the works and tradi-
examples, from the tziganeries of Haydn or Brahms to the Spanish
tions from the immense global musical library? Instead, such thoughts
rhythms of Debussy. In the second, what is “low” is a humus from
could not be further from the intentions of a composer who never
which a vital lifeblood is drawn. This is the strategy of assimilation and
abandoned the idea of reflecting on language, aware of the impossibil-
of Durchkomponieren, and here too there immediately come to mind
ity of saying new things with old formulas and of the fact that, at the
many important examples: from the manner in which Corelli or Vivaldi
end of the day, “the composer is the language that he creates.” It’s true
allowed their writing to be populated by dance rhythms, to the sonic
that in the work of Romitelli this principle does not transmute into the
invention of Beethoven, who drew his inspiration from the streets of
rigid, unilateral vision of progress that had characterized the historic
Vienna’s quarters, to Mahler’s sinfonismo, impregnated with Ländler
avant-gardes; but it nonetheless constitutes an essential chromosome
and fanfares. Romitelli’s music can immediately be recognized as an
of its DNA. Looking around, absorbing the influences that serve to
expression of this latter strategy. From the sonorities of psychedelic
strengthen its persuasiveness, Romitelli’s music never holds back from
rock, ambient electronics, or techno, it draws an energy, an emotive
creating its own language and, with this, its own world.
impact, a gestuality, and a visionary force in stark contrast with the anemia of academic sound. This absorption goes hand in hand with a
In a state of trance, in hallucination, in the arrangement of the senses of a light show, the confines between the real and the imaginary become blurred, and it is precisely in these territories that this music intends to dwell. 44
desire to elaborate a distinctive harmonic vocabulary capable of holding in check the clichés of consumer music. But what happens later is that, once they are assimilated, the “low” materials vivify the musical body proper and definitively modify its physiognomy. In this way it comes about that a viola expresses itself like an electric guitar, or that the sound of a bass instrument comes to form part of a complex and inharmonious sonic monad, or that a loop constrains an entire orchestra to derail. High and low are not only placed one next to the other, but they merge together in a musical result that is no longer either high or low, and is certainly not a middle way between the two either. In the end, the image that best represents the matter is that of an alloy forged from two or more metals: an original material that contains a number of properties that cannot be reduced to the elements of which it is composed.
Profundity
Degeneration
As if constituting a lesson in spectralism, Romitelli’s music works
In many of Romitelli’s compositions, what seem to assume the con-
on thresholds, transforming harmony into an instrument that gener-
tours of simple linear processes undergo corrosions or torsions that
ates sound and unheard-of temporal processes, exploring its borders
completely deform their appearance. Behind the most simple material,
with inharmoniousness and noise. Its originality consists in bringing
like the three-note motif that opens Amok koma (2001), or the Strauss-
this démarche to paroxysm, pursuing the excesses and shifts of feel-
like motif in Audiodrome (2002-2003), there lurk uncontrolled shifts.
ing. The psychedelic nature of progressive rock to which it so read-
Repetition, inharmoniousness, saturation, distortion, loops all become
ily makes recourse is one of the means that permits it to draw atten-
instruments to bring about this metamorphosis of discursive elements
tion to its border zones, as one sees clearly in the major works. In a
that suddenly seem to derail, to jam, unveiling an unexpected violence.
state of trance, in hallucination, in the arrangement of the senses of a
As has been said, precisely where the music of others generally devel-
light show, the confines between the real and the imaginary become
ops, Romitelli’s degenerates. This is a trait that he was very proud of, and
blurred, and it is precisely in these territories that this music intends to
rightly so, because this feature constitutes one of the major gambles of
dwell. In a certain way one could say that, without the will to explore
his music. To make degeneration a positive value is risky. The danger of
these border zones, there would be no Romitelli style, a style in which
finding oneself having struck a pose, in the presence of a superficial-
there is a precise balance between a candid pleasure in discovery and
ity of a generically alternative (“dark”) attitude is always lying in wait.
a fundamental critical intent. The intention to dirty the bel suono, to
Perhaps not everything that Romitelli wrote escapes this trap, but his
bend the real with the prospect of producing an altered perception,
great works demonstrate clearly the extent to which his music has been
can in fact be related back to an anti-rhetorical will and, at the same
able to assume the negative contours of disintegration, of degenera-
time, to a need to touch on one of the crucial features of the current
tion, drawing from these paradoxical and extreme situations a sincere
consumer civilization. “Today,” Romitelli observed in an interview, “the
emotion. Mercifully, we don’t need to read Adorno to remain enthralled
world seems to be a metaphor of the vanity and smallness of each
when listening to Professor Bad Trip. In the energy of its overexposed
one of us. Individual existential problems are amplified by those of an
sound, in the dilation of its hallucinated landscapes, one is aware of a
epoch that does not offer any point of reference, but, instead, only an
stupor still intact: an authentic poetry that pulses in the midst of ruin.
extreme dehumanization and denaturalization.” The broad design of Professor Bad Trip (1998–2000) can be interpreted not just as a les-
Paroxysm
son imparted by the underground to contemporary art music but as
There is one feature that today more than any other seems to
the allegory of an existential situation in which it is often difficult to
me to mark the music of Fausto Romitelli: its profundity. His writ-
distinguish the difference between simulation and reality and where
ing, in putting to work the disintegration of sonic material, renders
the synthetic product ends up appearing to us more true than the natu-
visible a desire to transcend every preoccupation with virtuosity or
ral. The abandonment of sonic naturalism reaches its apex in Trash TV
instrumental technique, in order to express something essential. In
Trance (2002), a piece for electric guitar which recalls the gestuality
his works, behind those so often ironic or cryptic titles there lies an
of Hendrix and the noise of Sonic Youth. Everything here is noise and
obstinate will to work in earnest. This music exudes a need to not be
saturation, almost as if it were the unseemly symbol of the immense
satisfied, to go right to the bottom of things. On listening to it one has
mass of media rubbish that surrounds us, with visionary effects deriv-
the impression that the false icons of the media-dominated world are
ing from the action produced on strings by objects of every kind—bow,
breaking to pieces, undermined by an awareness of the vanity of all
coin, sponge, razor—capable of rendering the final result even more
things. The result, all things considered, is music of great profundity, a
saturated and unseemly. In Romitelli’s music this paroxysm expresses
quality by no means common in the musical production of the initial
a utopia of feeling that unsentimentally denounces the consequences
part of this millennium.
of the communication society.
Translated by Nicholas Crotty 45
Rolf Riehm in Frankfurt BY TILL KNIPPER
SIRENEN A New Opera Sirenen – Bilder des Begehrens und des Vernichtens (Sirens—Images
witnessing the protest on the Taksim Square in Istanbul. That’s not a
Rolf Riehm
of desire and destruction) is the title of a new opera by Rolf Riehm.
heated up poster holding and slogan shouting mass. Instead it’s just a
Sirenen
Nothing can be presented accurately in one format alone, the com-
fragmented gathering of people standing there in silence like figures
poser argues, so he has written an opera that tends toward installa-
by Stephan Balkenhol.
tion, a plot in solitary images, a music with sampling technique. The
Statements or appeals are not as important anymore. Today the
premiere will take place at the Oper Frankfurt on September 14, 2014.
political attitude has become part of the artifact itself. As a composer I’m imbedded in a historic context, whether I like that or not. I want to
Rolf Riehm, how did you get into music?
use that as an inspiration for my compositions.
My parents were musicians as well. One of my liveliest childhood Who are your role models among directors in the theatre world?
and Brahms for hours and hours. I grew up on virtuoso piano music.
There are some movie directors that had a strong impact on
That was my first musical Eldorado. It was much later when Mozart,
me, directors like Godard (Passion), Passolini (Teorema, Accatone,
Bach, or Beethoven got through to me.
Il vangelo secondo Matteo), Bertolucci, Billy Wilder (my favorite!). Speaking of theatres, the early works of Robert Wilson really do
What is your inspiration?
46
impress me; and also Christoph Nel (Salome ) through his staging
I like to think of myself as a composer stimulated by political events
of Tristan and Isolde I finally realized what a phenomenal lyricist
and conditions. But right now while saying this, on the internet I’m
Wagner actually was, Achim Freyer (Handel’s Ariodante), Jürgen
st efan fo rst er
memories is me sitting next to my father who used to play Liszt, Chopin,
47
Sketch by Rolf Riehm for Sirenen 48
Statements or appeals are not as important anymore. Today the political attitude has become part of the artifact itself. As a composer I’m imbedded in a historic context whether I like that or not. I want to use that as an inspiration for my compositions.
Gosch (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Heiner Goebbels with his theatrical
presence of my music made clear that: Circe, the Sirens, Odysseus—
shift towards visuals.
these are all mythological characters, but in principle they are representations of us being threatened with drowning in conflicts of love,
How would you describe your own aesthetic in music theater?
desire, treason, farewell, and death.
At the moment I’m working on my opera Sirens, which will be premiered in Frankfurt. The narrative focal point is the saga The Odyssey,
Which stage design do you prefer?
with Odysseus trying to impress the Phaeacian aristocracy with his
I neither demand a historically correct stage design nor any kind of
adventures. Above all, the encounter with the goddess Circe and the
daily political update. But I wouldn’t consider a parallel layer of the story
beautifully singing but deadly Sirens resonate with audiences. Circe is
evoked by the design of the stage problematic. Constellations are out-
fascinating because she madly adores Odysseus although he left her
lined by my musical compositions, but of course some kind of trans-
and her island with a flimsy excuse; and the Sirens because they lure
formation is inevitable in order to bring it on stage. The specific details
the passing seamen with deadly force only to kill them in a masquer-
have to evolve during the production. Taking my recent opera Sirens as
ade of beauty and passion.
an example, I imagine that the disruption that transcends my music, the
I want the musicians to be infected by the passion I put into my
characters, as well as the whole story can be experienced in every little
work, and I’d like them to discover something new about themselves.
aspect and layer. Therefore I encourage light, story, and lyrics to find their
Concerning the audience, I’d like to see the audience being carried
own way into my composition and, if appropriate, become individual
away by the story and the music just as it happened to Circe, the Sirens,
parts of it. At the end of the day presentation shouldn’t be reduced to a
and Odysseus. Last, but not least, I’d be delighted if the immediate
means of illustration, instead, it should tie a semantic network together. 49
it was in Paris that he first came face to face with the music and writings of John Cage. On the basis of this experience [he decided] composition could only be valid if it was coupled with a radical separation from the traditional notion of music.
50
New Music Studio, with László Vidovszky (b. 1944) as its co-founder, attributed a greater importance to American minimal music than to European dodecaphony and serialism, which had been bypassed in Hungary. It wasn’t only due to the origin of this music that the Studio got into the “tolerated” zone in the eyes of the Communist state, but also because American contemporary music did not display the intention to be a continuation of music history; namely it denied the modernist idea of historic continuity and the belief in progress, which was the sine qua non of
Machine Poetry
The music of László Vidovszky by Miklós Dolinszky
Communist ideology. The formation of the Studio almost exactly coincided with the end of László Vidovszky’s study trip to Paris. Although in Paris the young composer could attend Messiaen’s lessons on composition, he received more direct inspiration from the courses of the Group de Recherches Musicales led by Pierre Schaeffer, primarily via the varied supply of international avant-garde art that was unknown in Hungary. It can be attributed to these experiences that from among the members of the Studio, Vidovszky proved to be the most open in terms of cooperation with avant-garde groups representing other branches of the arts. For one thing, it was in Paris that he first came face to
Ilo na Ke se rü
face with the music and writings of John Hungarian Contemporary music, having broken free from the cap-
Cage. On the basis of this experience Vidovszky concluded that by that
tivity of Stalinist ideology and having become approximately equal
time, composition could only be valid if it was coupled with a radi-
with the more moderate elements of Western European develop-
cal separation from the conventional notion of music. From then on,
ments, was given space in Hungary in the 1960s, reflecting the post-
Vidovszky abandoned the traditional dramaturgy of European music
1956 easing. To verify its own liberalism, Hungarian cultural policy
and its related musical architecture and treatment of time, and, when
was shown off abroad with this official “contemporary music,” while
he returned to them, he did so in the spirit of irony.
at the same time the younger generation had already appeared and
Vidovszky’s first published piece, Duo, composed for two pianos,
did not seem willing to fit into the music history constructed by the
displays the characteristics of the traces of the rift caused by the new
state. These students of composition were not satisfied with courses
realization. The first version has a traditional sound and notation, while
based mainly on classical and Hungarian traditions offered by the
the second version (1972), composed after his experience in Paris, uses
Academy of Music and wanted to create their compositions follow-
the prepared piano, echoing Cage. And given that the bar lines indi-
ing the world’s most up-to-date practices of the time. From 1970
cate seconds, the score transfers its reference point to concrete time
the group of composers and performers who became known as the
instead of musical time. His work using electronics entitled 405 (1972) 51
Schroeder’s Death : A graphic table of the sixty-one six-octave scales
52
The sheet music of the work contains sixty-one six-octave scales, and the preparation, which is done in line with a chronology fixed in advance, gradually distorts, then silences the sound of the piano, while the pianist continues playing.
plays the instruments. They provide sounds themselves by falling down at a given time. Regarding its form of appearance, it is close to American performances; however, while the latter are mostly the counter-effects of over-rationalised social behavioral forms recalling Dadaism of the early 20th century, Vidovszky’s work is purely the instrumentation of fate. Unlike those who detect black humour or cultural pessimism in Auto-concert, Vidovszky rejects all symbolic interpretation. György Ligeti’s ceremonial
shows that, in terms of this new thinking, for him the composer’s
Poème symphonique (1962) lets the law of gravity gradually silence the
task is primarily to decide what he regards as music in a given case.
metronomes, while in Vidovszky’s work, assistants in the background
In this case the tonal system was provided by recoding a text writ-
hasten the unavoidable. It seems that the variety of possible interpreta-
ten by the contemporary Hungarian avant-garde writer Dezső Tandori
tions did not hinder, but rather generated international success. (There
to sounds, which then the performers could handle with formerly
were performances in London, Paris, Rome, Venice, Milan, Lisbon, and
unknown liberty. So the resulting improvisation is not the result of
Warsaw.) Vidovszky’s oeuvre now and then includes audiovisual works
an different conception, but actually that of the structure’s objective
(Movie, 1993; Black Quartet, 1993-7). However, they do not represent the
serenity. Improvisation became included in the Studio’s activity not
main line of his work, and their visuality often cannot be distinguished
from European aleatory, but from American experimental music, and
from the visual effects of “normal” concert pieces.
in this quality it was given a key role which was partly included in their
The piece for piano Schroeder’s Death, inspired by a cartoon charac-
own compositions, partly in the form of joint practices. In the 1970s
ter of American pop culture, can be included in the latter. It was writ-
improvisation was politically by no means an innocent artistic practice
ten in the year of Auto-concert but completed in 1975, and it became
in Hungary. It was regarded as suspicious not only by the Communist
Vidovszky’s most often played composition internationally. In the work
state, but also by proponents of the then prevailing Kodály music edu-
Vidovszky employs the prepared piano in the service of the known
cation, either because it threatened the status quo with the uncon-
dramaturgy of degradation and deconstruction. The sheet music of the
trollable nature of freedom or because it represented an instrumental
work contains sixty-one six-octave scales, and the preparation, which
practice which was precisely the opposite of Kodály’s concept regard-
is done in line with a chronology fixed in advance, gradually distorts,
ing the primacy of music for singing.
then silences the sound of the piano, while the pianist continues
Vidovszky’s emblematic Auto-concert (1972) was composed at the
playing. The monotony of the approximately 40 minutes of music—
same time. The piece is undoubtedly a concert piece since musical
somewhat similarly to Satie’s pioneering work Vexations, lasting 24
instruments take part, and undoubtedly ‘automatic’ since no one
hours—completely destroys the century-old expectations of listeners 53
of European music. Yet, among others, it is one of Satie’s adaptations that returns to the principle idea of Schroeder; here the written notes also remain silent in the absence of preparation, except for one (Autres gymnopédies III, 1994). The idea is carried on in other works, such as in the fictitious viola solo in The Death in my Viola (1996-2005), which the instrumentalist plays without sounds, or in Soft Errors (1989). The latter is the result of an accidental computer crash in a technical sense; its real message, however, is again the degradation of the musical process up to the point when the viola with its lonely quartered movement leaves last. The demand for automatically produced music, a performer becoming a machine, actually emerges by including outside control systems in the creative process. No wonder that Vidovszky’s attention turned
The instrument playing without human intervention is a peculiar spectacle when works for a mechanical piano are performed in concert halls. They preserve something of the theatrical character that Auto-concert or Schroeder’s Death represent in an increased manner.
to the mechanical piano as early as the late 1970s when he heard Nancarrow’s relevant works. Yet by the time he actually would have had the opportunity to
54
get involved with the late successor of the mechanical pianos of the
were determined by the playwright himself. The music was an organic
early 20th century, the instrument could be linked with computers via
part of the dramatic concept. Thus the musicians, limited to a solo vio-
MIDI programs, so Une semaine de beauté and the Duchamp-like enti-
lin, harp, and percussion, became simultaneous and equal participants
tled work Mechanical Bride’s Dance were created with a piano-roll MIDI
of the prose dialogues and highlighted their long silences by their
editorial program. Here again Vidovszky is interested in eliminating
minimized shifts of movement.
the performer, not only because in this way it is the instrument itself
In this light it may be surprising that Vidovszky composed only a
which is present instead of the performer (similarly to Auto-concert),
single independent work for the stage. In the case of the chamber
but because he does not have to be concerned about the performer’s
opera Narcissus and Echo (1980-81), it is not the theatre but film which
physical limitations. Nor did Vidovszky hesitate to broaden his experi-
is in the background. This one-act masterpiece is an extended version
ence with the mechanical piano; the live pianist communicates with
of the music written for Gábor Bódy’s film Psyche. Vidovszky treated
the pre-programmed instrument in his chamber pieces Le piano et son
the historic period of the film’s story span as a musical source. The
double (1992) and Loco-dances (1995).
characteristic idioms of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy’s dance and
The instrument playing without human intervention is a peculiar
salon music appear in the parts of the accompanying ensemble, which
spectacle when works for a mechanical piano are performed in concert
seems like a salon and jazz orchestra combination, in the form of con-
halls. They preserve something of the theatrical character that Auto-
crete quotes or mainly of distant stylistic imitations. However, with the
concert or Schroeder’s Death represent in an increased manner. It is not
finishing choir, minimal music in the strict structure of a mensuration
surprising that Vidovszky quickly found the connection with the world
canon is included in the panoptic music history.
of theatre. Of his numerous works composed for the stage, the music
Narcissus and Echo opens the way for Vidovszky’s ‘inter-textual’
created for Péter Nádas’s tragedy Encounter (presented in Vienna,
works. These compositions in some way contain quotations from
London, Paris, Avignon, and elsewhere) is in a special situation since
music history spanning from Machaut to Satie. Vidovszky says about
the places where the music sounded, and the number of instruments,
Romantic Readings, written for a chamber orchestra in 1983 then for a
symphonic orchestra (it was presented by the Ensemble Modern and
nature is written entitled Zwölf Streichquartette (2001). Although the
the Suisse Romande) in which orchestral parts by popular 19th-cen-
language of the title consciously refers to the great German string
tury composers form a new polyphonic pattern: “To read is a peculiar
quartet tradition, calling up the past makes Vidovszky do some seri-
and great thing. You can connect to live thoughts while remaining iso-
ous creative reckoning, interpreting the universality of the quartet
lated, entirely maintaining your independence and personal attention.
genre as a conscious inventory of his own compositional means in
It is not bound to space as a work of art or to time as a piece of music.”
such a way that he assesses compositional procedures or ways of
This dual relationship is actually true for all of Vidovszky’s composi-
playing in an étude manner. The sound that is becoming on the whole
tions in which he uses borrowed material. The need to review tradition
more consonant does not lead towards turning back to tonality, but
and step back from it, revealing common roots, manifests itself at the
to a balance of consonance and dissonance. Yet not only the sound
same time. The original composition is squeezed out by the comments
but the avant-garde and traditional variations of notation and string
gained from it in such pieces as Following Machaut (1998) or Machaut-
styles of playing also become balanced. However, his Violin-radio
comments (2000); elsewhere, however, because of their reshaping,
Sonata (2001) does not turn absolutely in the direction of classicism.
it remains easily recognizable (German Dances, 1989, or the already
Rather it recalls the experimental period. The title Souvenir d’ASch
mentioned Autres gymnopédies). At the same time, this group of works
(2006) for a string sextet simultaneously refers to Schönberg’s Die
that can be sharply separated from the others clearly marks a shift of
verklärte Nacht and recalls one of Schumann’s cryptograms. The parts
the entire New Music Studio, the response given to the shortness of
often sounding independently from one another in Reverb (for string
breath of the avant-garde movement, but in the same way a resolute
quartet and piano), composed in response to a commission from
stand taken against new tonality and new romanticism.
Klangforum Wien in 2011, echo each other via phase delay and thus
At the turn of the millennium a certain move towards classicism
multiply the sounding space while looking for an answer to the com-
can be seen in Vidovszky’s compositions. Not only does the irony
poser’s question: “Can lost time be returned with the help of space?”
of experimental works disappear, but a series of a comprehensive
Translated by Katalin Rácz and Bob Dent 55
ALEXANDRE DESPLAT & FRANÇOIS MEÏMOUn Four-time Oscar nominee Alexandre Desplat (b. 1961) is one of the
father who met and studied in California, he was classically trained as a
most acclaimed composers of his generation. It was his joint passion for
flautist, but extended his musical interests much further into the worlds
music and cinema that led him firmly in the direction of composition
of jazz, Brazilian and African music. As a teenager, Alexandre Desplat
for film and to create a new and unique voice in film music. Alexandre
spent hours in movie theatres studying the great films and directors of
Desplat’s approach to film composition is not only based on his strong
the 20th century and, of course, listening intently to the scores. Delerue,
musicality, but also on his understanding of cinema, which allows
Jarre, Rota, Waxman, Herrmann, Mancini, Williams, and Goldsmith
him to communicate well with directors. He believes that a great film
became his idols. He began his career in Europe, and throughout the
score should find a balance between function and fiction. Function will
1990s he wrote more than 50 scores to great critical acclaim.
ensure that the music fits well into the mechanics of the film but the
Early in his career he met his wife, the violinist Dominique
fiction can tap into the invisible—the deep psychology and emotions
Lemonnier, who became his favorite soloist and artistic collaborator.
of the characters, creating a “vibration.”
They developed a close artistic partnership, which enabled Alexandre
Under the mixed cultural influence of a Greek mother and a French 56
to create a unique style of writing for strings. This led to the formation
François Meïmoun
Alexandre Desplat
of the Traffic Quintet (string ensemble), for which he has written and transcribed some of his favorite film scores for concert performance together with excerpts of Pascal Dusapin’s Medeamaterial. In June 2013, Universal Music Publishing Classical, Editions Durand,
festivals such as Chaillol Festival, La Chaise-Dieu Festival, Cabaret
was proud to welcome Desplat to its prestigious French catalogues
Contemporain, Rencontres de la Prée, Centre Beaubourg, Journées
with his first symphonic work for flute and orchestra, premiered by
Proquartet, and foreign festivals such as the Berlin Zeitkunst Festival.
Jean Ferrandis and the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire conducted by John Axelrod.
He was in residence at the Abbaye de la Prée from 2011-12 and in residence at the Chaillol Festival for which he composed Tara after a text by
se rv ed rig hts re © DR (al l
Born in 1979, François Meïmoun studied at the Conser-vatoire
Antonin Artaud. This work is part of a musical monograph project around
National Supérieur de Musique de Paris with Michael Levinas, at the
Artaud, meant to illustrate the thought of the poet. He started his collabo-
Sorbonne-Paris IV University, and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes.
ration with Editions Durand, one of Universal Music Publishing Classical’s
)
His works are played by numerous soloists and ensembles—
French catalogues, with his second quartet titled untitled – selon pollock,
Armand Angster, Quatuor Benaïm, Quatuor Ardeo, Alain Billard, Florian
which was premiered in July 2013 at the Aix Festival. François Meïmoun
Frère, Chen Halevi, Sébastien Vichard—and programmed in French
is currently writing his third quartet for the ProQuartet association. 57
Edgar , Act IV JosĂŠ Cura, Amarilli Nizza (Fidelia), Carlo Cigni (Gualtiero), Marco Vratogna (Frank), Julia
(Pa sa da s) Ph otos : DR
ue la Mu siq / Cit e de
(Pa rr a)
Gertseva
58
The Critical Edition of the Operas of
Giacomo Puccini
by Gabriele Dotto
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) is one of the most popular of all opera composers. Yet Puccini’s enormous success, combined with his tendency toward experimentation, contributed in a unique way toward creating a complicated legacy of musical sources. Interest in the operas of this great composer has continued to increase in recent decades, but so has the realization that the currently available scores are inadequate to allow a new generation of performers and scholars to accurately study and interpret these ground-breaking works of fin-desiècle musical language. Puccini published his operas almost exclusively with Casa Ricordi, whose large editorial staff and state-of-the-art printing operations allowed it to rapidly issue different editions of full scores and vocal scores. Yet Puccini’s ceaseless penchant for revision (he revised each of his operas, with the inevitable exception of the unfinished Turandot) led to a quantity of simultaneously available, sometimes overlapping versions of the texts. In addition, performance materials hired Edgar , Act III - José
out to theatres were kept updated with
Cura (Edgar), Julia
corrections that did not always make their
Gertseva (Tigrana)
way into the published scores that were 59
Edgar , Act II Julia Gertseva (Tigrana), Marco Vratogna (Frank)
offered to the general public. Over time, this produced a confusing, sometimes conflicting array of documents. Furthermore, in an effort to make sense of some of these conflicting readings, editors inserted numerous changes into “new editions” published long after the composer’s death. A critical edition of his operas has been long overdue. Yet such an edition is a uniquely complicated operation. The Critical Edition of the Operas of Giacomo Puccini, many years in the planning and with several works already in preparation, published its first volume in 2013. This critical edition is a landmark initiative, not only for the importance and familiarity of the repertory being studied, but also because of the path-breaking approach to textual criticism that is a necessary part of its editorial philosophy. For instance, in some cases it is not possible to establish a single master text as a primary source for an entire opera; in some operas, two or perhaps several musical sources may occupy positions of a shifting status, now primary, now secondary. Furthermore, the typical approach toward standardization of layers of performance indications in the scores, adopted in many editions as a way of resolving incomplete or conflicting readings, cannot always apply to much of the music of Puccini’s time and milieu. Layered dynamics, non-unified phrasing, differentiated articulation of orchestral palette of the composers of the 1890s and the early
Each opera published in the series will seek to identify a final of other versions, and/or suppressed passages, will appear in appendices. Where entire, distinct versions can be reconstructed, separate volumes will be published. Each volume will include 60
Re gi o ne Te at ro
or, in some cases, an ideal version as the base text. Sections
io / Fo ndaz
reflected in the opera’s earliest sources.
Gi ann es e
20th century, but were obfuscated in later printed scores. The critical edition must carefully consider the shades and nuances
Ra me ll a&
reprised passages, etc., were all part of the more sophisticated
ATTO PRIMO Ad Amiens
Un vasto piazzale presso la Porta di Parigi. Un viale a destra. A sinistra un’osteria con porticato sotto al quale sono disposte varie tavole per gli avventori. Una scaletta esterna conduce al primo piano dell’osteria. Allegro brillante
= 132
Ottavino a2
2 Flauti a2
2 Oboi Corno inglese 2 Clarinetti
a2
in La
Clarinetto basso in La
a2
2 Fagotti
The Critical Edition of the Operas of Giacomo Puccini promises to be a fundamental resource for anyone approaching this magnificent repertory for study or for performance.
I I-II
Corni
Manon Lescaut,
in Mi III-IV
first page of Act I -
3 Trombe
critical edition by
in Mi
I
3 Tromboni
Roger Parker
Tuba
an apparatus of commentary on the most perti-
Timpani La-Mi
nent issues, as well as a Historical Introduction
Piatti
describing the genesis of the opera and the
Triangolo
development of the libretto, staging and casting
Cornetta
in La dietro la scena
issues that directly involved the composer, the
Sonagliera
dietro la scena
process of revision that led to subsequent ver-
Carillon
sions, as well as a summary discussion of the
Celesta
choices the editor made in establishing the base text that appears in the score. With unparalleled access to the primary
Arpa
Allegro brillante
autograph sources and annotated secondary
= 132
sources in the Ricordi Historical Archive, to the publishing records, and to other contem-
I
Violini
pizz. II
arco
porary documentation, The Critical Edition of the Operas of Giacomo Puccini will offer
pizz.
Viole
the student, the performer, and the aficionado a range of information never before
pizz.
Violoncelli
available. As with other critical editions of
Contrabbassi
Italian opera published or co-published 139071
by Casa Ricordi, each edition will have 61
From Manon Lescaut - incipit
520
of Manon’s aria “Sola, perduta e
196 *
10 Largo
= 92
I
Ob. con molta espress.
abbandonata!” Piatto battuto colla mazza
the benefit of performances before the text is finalized
Ptto
for publication. Indeed, recent productions based on
(l’orizzonte si oscura: l’ambascia vince Manon; è stravolta, impaurita, accasciata)
the initial volumes in the series have already made
Manon con la massima espress. e con angoscia
an important contribution to our knowledge of early 1893 version of Manon Lescaut met with great acclaim *
in 2008 at the Leipzig Opera (where it will be revived
I
this season for four performances in from March until
Vni
May 2014), and the production of the 1889 four-act
II
10 Largo
one of the most significant musicological events
II Edgar (II.a four acts, II.b three acts) III Manon Lescaut IV La bohème
na
ta…
In
= 92
legato
legato arco
Vc. legato
Cb.
Plan of the critical editions: I Le Villi (I.a one act, II.b two acts)
do
arco
resource for anyone approaching this magnificent repertory for study or for performance.
du ta, ab ban
Vle
of recent years.The Critical Edition of the Operas of Giacomo Puccini promises to be a fundamental
per
arco
version of Edgar (Turin, 2008), using the rediscovered autograph of the final act four, was hailed as
la…
So
Puccini. A performance of the critical edition of the
Fl. II
202
sulla scena (interno) I
Ob.
V Tosca VI Madama Butterfly
Man
(VI.a two acts, VI.b three acts)
lan
da de
so
la
ta!…
Or
VII La fanciulla del West VIII La rondine IX.1 Il tabarro IX.2 Suor Angelica
I
Vni II
IX.3 Gianni Schicchi X Turandot (to be published as an
Vle
unfinished work) Vc.
Editorial Board Gabriele Dotto (general editor), Francesco Cesari, Linda B. Fairtile, Roger Parker, Jürgen Selk, Claudio Toscani 62
Cb. * Per una versione precedente di quest’aria, vedi App. 3. 139071
ror!…
In
tor no a
Ra me ll a & Gi ann es e/ Fo ndaz io ne Te at ro Re gi o
Edgar, Act II Julia Gertseva (Tigrana) Teatro Regio / Turin Opera Season 2007/08 63
World Premieres 2014 (selection) january 6 Francesca Verunelli The Narrow Corner for orchestra, Paris 8 Eric Tanguy Affettuoso for orchestra, Paris 14 Philippe Hersant Dreamtime, Flute Concerto and orchestra, Paris 19 Alberto Colla Ouverture pour l’éveil des peuples for orchestra, Paris 21 Carlo Boccadoro Box of paints for ensemble, Milan
28
8
27
Sergej Newski,
Jean-Claude Petit
Daniele Ghisi Próxima
2013 for ensemble,
Colomba, opera,
for ensemble, Florence
Moscow
Marseille 12
Chant de l’isolé for
solo and ensemble,
Francesca Verunelli
piano, violin, cello
Porto
7
Graduale,
and string orchestra,
Nikolaus Brass
Disambiguation,
Pau
fallacies of hope for
symphonic work,
choir, Stuttgart
Lucerne
february
Cello Concerto and orchestra, Budapest
Duende – The Dark
68 for orchestra,
Notes, violin
Wiesbaden
11
25
Mela Meierhans
Philippe Hersant
Dai Fujikura, Minina
shiva for anne for
Au temps du rêve for
for ensemble, Tokyo
8 voices and 4
small orchestra, Paris
march
Jan Jirásek
4
Daniele Ghisi
Guru (ballet), Prague
Hèctor Parra
Nostre for 8 voices
Paris
orchestra, Berlin
Philippe Schoeller Tiger, concerto for orchestra, Avignon 8 Samy Moussa Vastation, opera, Munich
János Vajda Requiem for mixed
Il bordo vertiginoso
Debrecen
delle cose for recitant
7
Fabio Nieder
Bari
Ernstalbrecht Stiebler
The Waters Flow
De-crescendo for
On Their Ways for
orchestra, Frankfurt
orchestra, Florence
25 Eric Tanguy Stabat mater for cello
Fabio Vacchi
Ian Wilson, Causeway
and choir,
Veronica Franco for
for orchestra, Belfast
Aix-en-Provence
23
29
Oscar Bianchi
Graham Fitkin Birch
new work for cello
for orchestra, Umea
and string orchestra,
(Sweden)
Clermont-Ferrand September June
12
Dai Fujikura
Luca Francesconi
Wondrous Steps for
Dentro non ha tempo
ensemble, Lucerne
for orchestra, Milan
theater, Munich
16
20
Rolf Riehm
Giorgio Battistelli
Sirenen, music
Il medico dei pazzi,
theatre, Frankfurt
opera, Nancy 26
November
Gerhard Stäbler
10
Erlöst Albert E. for
Olga Neuwirth A Film
music theater, Ulm
Music War Requiem for ensemble, Paris
July
13
10
Frédéric Verrières
Dai Fujikura Rare
Mimi, opera, Paris
Gravity for orchestra, Tokyo
Nikolaus Brass Sommertag music
3
14
10
choir and organ,
voice and orchestra,
soprano, actor and
7
Fabio Vacchi
26
orchestra, Milan 64
17
21
Emanuele Casale
[Kamakala] for
april
16
Villefranche
Giacinto Scelsi
piano and cello, Basel
Symphony no. 8 op.
and electronics,
26
László Dubrovay
Robert Wittinger
percussionists, Berlin
shī sh for soprano, trombone, percussion,
Luca Francesconi
concerto, Stockholm
Ian Wilson Shī Shì shí
29
20
absence, monodrama,
(new version), Rome
Peter Eötvös Da capo for cimbalom
Te craindre en ton
Chomsky, talk-opera
6
Philippe Hersant
24 Conversazioni con
may
August
14 Fabio Nieder Der Anfang. Die Mitte. Das Ende aus
21
Thümmel…for Chorus,
20
Pascal Dusapin
3 accordions and
Hèctor Parra
Wenn du dem Wind
percussion, Köln
Das geopferte Leben,
for soprano and
opera, Munich
orchestra, Tokyo
Please contact our promotion team for any questions, perusal scores or recordings: Casa Ricordi, Milan Annamaria Macchi annamaria.macchi@umusic.com Editions Durand–Salabert–Eschig, Paris Caroline Maby caroline.maby@umusic.com Ricordi Berlin Till Knipper till.knipper@umusic.com Ricordi London Elaine Mitchener elaine.mitchener@umusic.com Editio Musica Budapest Tünde Szitha szitha@emb.hu Universal Music Publishing Classical, North America Mary G. Madigan mary.madigan@umusic.com
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