ISCM World New Music Magazine vol 23, 2013

WorldNewMusic Magazine 2013 Volume 23

WNMM is a magazine on contemporary music published annually by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). WNMM is published in connection with ISCM’s annual festival World New Music Days, hosted by one of ISCM’s national (regional) sections. WNMM is distributed worldwide by way of membership organisations of ISCM and by ISCM.

ISSN: 1019-7117

WorldNewMusic 2013 Magazine Volume 23

WORLD NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE NO. 23, 2013

International Society for Contemporary Music

WORLD NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE NO. 23, 2013 International Society for Contemporary Music Editor: Daniel Matej Editorial Board: Bruno Strobl, Peter Zagar Cover Design and Layout: Marián Preis Published by: International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) c/o Gaudeamus Muziekweek Loevenhoutsedijk 301 3552 XE Utrecht The Netherlands www.iscm.org ISCM – Slovak Section c/o Music Fund Slovakia Medená 29 811 02 Bratislava Slovak Republic office@iscm-slovakia.org Distribution World New Music Magazine is published annually since 1991 by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). The magazine is distributed worldwide by way of membership organisations of the ISCM and by the ISCM. Copyright 2013 by World New Music Magazine, the authors and translators.

All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without permission from the authors.

ISSN: 1019-7117 Printed by: NEUMAHR tlačiareň, spol. s r. o.

Editorial

by Daniel Matej I find myself especially honoured to be the editor of the issue of the World New Music Magazine that is published in the year of the 90th anniversary of the ISCM festival. This year’s anniversary follows another from last year, in which the ISCM celebrated its 90th birthday. Both anniversaries are closely connected with the country in which everything started – Austria. It is, therefore, more than symbolic that a part of ISCM World New Music Days 2013 takes place “at home”. At the same time, I personally am greatly delighted that for the first time in the history of the festival, Slovakia can partner with a country with such an abundant music tradition as Austria, and even more so that it can happen on the occasion of the festival’s 90th birthday. However, the participation of Slovakia – which constituted a part of the common state of Czechs and Slovaks from 1918 – in the Society’s “story” is much more complicated than is the case of Austria.

The reason is that despite being among the founding members of ISCM, during the gloomy post-war years Czechoslovakia landed in the Soviet Bloc, and as a result, the country’s participation in this organisation was very obscure and inconsistent in nature. After that, shortly after it had tried in 1990 as soon and as consistently as possible to become a full-fledged member of ISCM again, the country split in two independent states. Thus, since 1994 each (Czech and Slovak) section has been writing its own history...

I am overjoyed to state here that the ISCM Slovak Section ranks among the active sections since its foundation, being an umbrella for a number of significant festivals and events, forming the cultural landscape of our region.

What was said above logically suggests that some of the texts contained in this issue will be focused on the “story” of contemporary music and history of ISCM in this year’s host countries. The magazine opens with texts that present the keynote of the symposium entitled “Intercultural Modernity and Contemporary Music – a Paradox?”, an event, which will take place in Vienna during this year's World New Music Days, aimed at addressing, and trying to find answers to important questions concerning the existence and future direction of contemporary music in the conditions of today’s global world.

And, of course, as usual you can read about the previous two years of ISCM World New Music Days, held in Zagreb and Belgium.

I believe that this year’s magazine will bring you as much benefit as its past issues. Have a pleasant and enriching read...

Contents Editorial

by Daniel Matej

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Foreword 6

by John Davis Symposium “Intercultural Modernity and Contemporary Music – a Paradox?” (Vienna, November 12–13, 2013) Foreword by Nina Polaschegg

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Criteria Explosion, Art Religion, World Music – Values, Feelings, Judgements in Modernity

by Sebastian Kiefer

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Music from a Fast Country Polemical Paralipomena on the Existing Global Music of the Present

by Sandeep Bhagwati

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Identity Criticism and Reflexive Globalisation in New Art Music

by Christian Utz

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The Uneasy, Unarticulated State of American Music

By Kyle Gann

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Between the Arts with Comfort and Transgressing the Horizon – European Music and the Search for Its Criteria

by Jörn Peter Hiekel

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“Now Austria takes the floor, as far as it wants to help and advance the cause.”

by Monika Voithofer and Irene Suchy

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Improvisation in Vienna and Austria

by Nina Polaschegg

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“Being There”... A Brief Insight into the History of ISCM in Slovakia

by Daniel Matej

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Slovakia on My Mind

by Jaroslav Šťastný

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Development of Slovak Music after 1945 by Ľubomír Chalupka

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After November...

by Robert Kolář

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Tracing Ruptures: Fifty Years of Organised Sound in Slovakia

by Slávo Krekovič

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Report on ISCM World New Music Days 2011 in Zagreb

by Jim Hiscott

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Report on the ISCM World Music Days 2012 in Belgium

by John McLachlan

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Nadar Summer Academy

by Juraj Beráts

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ISCM Addresses Executive Committee

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Members Sections 159 Full associate members 162 Allied associate members 162 Affiliated associate members 162 Honorary members

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Foreword

by John Davis, President, ISCM Executive Committee This edition of the World New Music Magazine comes out of a region that shares much history, on many levels, also with Austria and Slovakia – being the hosts for the 2013 ISCM World New Music Days Festival – having once being under the umbrella of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

And so the articles in this collection, in their essence, reflect a strong sense of “place”, presenting a particular perspective on contemporary music, with a special character, and point of view. Reflecting on history and tradition, and on contemporary practice, they represent a fascinating range of thinking, and make a great contribution to the discourse of contemporary music.

This region also reflects a strong sense of “place” for ISCM. It forms a reference point as the place of our founding as a Society, and as time passes, we can refer back to these roots and reflect on how we have developed since then. On the 90th anniversary of the first ISCM Festival in Salzburg in 1923, it is most appropriate that we return to this place, in a festival hosted by two of the group of founding members of ISCM – Austria, and Slovakia.

On behalf of the ISCM Executive Committee and all ISCM members, I thank the contributors to this edition of World New Music Magazine, and to the editor Daniel Matej, whose wideranging vision for this edition is realised in the following pages.

Intercultural Modernity and Contemporary Music – a Paradox?

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ISCM-Symposium in Vienna, Nov. 12 and 13 – in the frame of the World New Music Days 2013 1 Foreword by Nina Polaschegg, project leader

1 The following texts represent the keynote of the ISCM-symposium; they have been published also in German language in Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 4/2013.

WORLD NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE NO. 23, 2013

This is a foreword to the following articles which are the basis for the symposium. In a two-day symposium the question will be asked, in an intercultural context, if and how contemporary art music is currently present in different countries and cultural environments, and how we can be made aware of art music’s self-conception of the complexities, on the one hand its own traditions of art and music, and on the other hand those of Western art music culture.

At the World Music Days of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), which are held every year in a different country, a changing jury selects contemporary compositions from ISCM member states (approx. 50) to be performed. In 2006, new selection criteria were adopted, which meant that the jury is obliged to select at least one piece from each submitting country, regardless of whether the jury finds the piece to be of good quality either aesthetically or technically. Thus in recent years, discussions on aesthetic issues and potential value criteria were internally blocked, as were issues on technical craftsmanship, or the aims of communication of composition studies in different countries and cultures. However, at the World Music Days 2012, a gradual awareness of these issues was observed. The aim of the symposium of the World Music Days 2013 is not simply to discuss these issues, but primarily to create the basis for an informed discussion. In times of increasing globalisation, such questions are not only of relevance for the Society internally, but are also relevant for the contemporary (art) music-interested public – be they scholars, journalists, or music lovers.

Questions of interculturality or of country-specific composition are, of course, not posed here for the first time. Over the past years symposiums on similar themes have repeatedly taken place. Also in recent

also for others such as curators and trustees, promoters and educators, journalists and academics.

Additional aims within the framework of the ISCM: Raising awareness and clarification of basic issues within the ISCM, including the development of descriptive and value criteria in an intercultural context.

The symposium also serves as a preparation for substantive reflection and exchange of ideas between members of the music scene throughout the world. This will be the starting point for the whole symposium, as members of its audience include ISCM representatives from many parts of the world.

August 2013

Nina Polaschegg studied musicology, sociology and philosophy in Giessen and Hamburg where she also received her doctorate. Her research focuses on music sociology, contemporary compositions, improvised and electronic music, as well as contemporary jazz. She is a musicologist, music publicist, and double bass player living in Vienna, and also works for diverse broadcasting corporations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as writing for various specialised magazines. She was teaching at the music conservatories and universities in Hamburg and Klagenfurt. As a double bass player she played in historically informed baroque orchestras and is above all dedicated to (free) improvisation.

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years in contemporary music festivals, works have been specifically programmed from countries which are not amongst the best known representatives of contemporary art music. At the ISCM-symposium, the focus is deliberately set on essential issues, which introduced by keynote lectures and other presentations, will provide the basis for discussion. By way of example, various musical cultures will be comprehensively compared (function, aesthetics, image, education, educational goals of contemporary music, and also (post)-colonial influences, etc.).

On such a basis, questions can be asked which at first appear provocative, but ultimately specifically stimulate key debate issues. The aim is also to counteract repeatedly encountered spontaneous reactions and generalisations, such as for example: 1. Implied European centrism of European promoters and writers. 2. The assumption that Western cultural thinking is generally incompatible with art forms from other cultures. 3. All ‘different’ or ‘exotic’ sounding contemporary music is considered to be equal, without reflection, in each case, on possible general or specific local value criteria and contexts.

General aims: Raising awareness and clarification of issues – The creation of a basis for discussion and further debate on the intercultural art music scene in the 21st century, not only for composers and musicians, but

Criteria Explosion, Art Religion, World Music – Values, Feelings, Judgements in Modernity

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A plea for the European term ‘autonomous art’ to be used as a key concept in the debate on musical globalisation.

by Sebastian Kiefer

1 Incidentally, it does not matter what the (would be) product is called (art, anti-art, non-art, fun, etc.), as such designations are just variables which change according to the institutions and horizons one wants to be noticed and recognised within.

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The word “art” is not just a word; it is a modern honorific title. Anybody wanting to make art finds himself in an institutionalised value system. If he has a serious approach, he believes or at least states that his art was not just made for the producer, i. e. himself. Instead he will say that devoting attention, money, and brainpower to this work might also benefit other people, who, therefore, should pay attention to it.

Amongst the possible benefits of art could be the promotion of individual social well-being, the pursuit of happiness, and a meaningful life, or more generally the improvement of peoples’ attitude towards the world.

However, if nothing similar was either believed or stated, there would be no reason to exhibit, buy, read or perform the work of art.1 The claim that something should be liked because it is art does not come out of the blue; it is mixed with quite simple feelings and rather innocent experiences. The classical enthusiast whose eyes fill with tears whilst watching The Magic Flute, will not say: It would have moved him deeply, but if others, his children, culture and education politicians, would see things differently and hold The Magic Flute to be obsolete, because today pop music is responsible for these needs, it does not matter to him. We can say that he experiences a certain feeling of bindingness [in the German original ‘Verbindlichkeit’], which is associated at least

II Traditional art is believed to possess criteria which are generally binding, in other words criteria whose (original) fulfilment legitimises the claim that they should please anyone – or even must please, when this anyone wants to be considered an educated, good man.

In traditional art one central concept was that of beauty. This might be due to biological factors inherent in the human species.2 Another traditional concept is that of the sublime. Depending on the type of art concerned, art was believed to capable of determining partial terms. These were based on the notion of beauty.

Concrete examples for such terms are: the truth of nature, the aptness of representation and the represented, and varietas. Until the 18th century, this latter notion not only designated variety and change, but also anything which should be bound by a unifying (conceptually seizable) principle. Proportion and symmetry were other important criteria, which in music were often associated with harmony, rhythm, a leading voice, repetition and contrast 2 Winfried Menninghaus, Wozu Kunst? Ästhetik nach Darwin, Frankfurt a. M. 2011, p. 31 ff.

10 Criteria Explosion, Art Religion, World Music –Values, Feelings, Judgements in Modernity

as much with a feeling for how things should just be as with any reflected or refined artistic statement. Even if such an enthusiast is not familiar with compositional terminology, he will of course insist that the shivers he felt were a consequence of the artistic quality of Mozart’s work. He will tell us that his feelings had so much to do with the fact of his hearing a great work of art, while denying the fact that he had just happened to be in a certain elevated mood, perhaps because he had had an increase in salary or for some similar reason.

Only somebody who exposes his own emotional reactions to art to the arguments of others is empowered to implement the feeling for how things should be. Conversely, no-one in the field of art can and should deem something worthwhile to which he does not respond, by which he is not fascinated, excited, and intensely moved. Arguments can initially be abstract; but if they are of aesthetic relevance, they must finally readjust the imagination and thereby transform feelings: We do not want our children to appreciate Beethoven because it is well received in society, but because with his music they can gain life-enhancing experience, which only art (in this case music) is able to offer.

structures. (However, Edmund Burke, recognised that symmetry and proportion are also found in ugly objects.3 According to him, strong and unimpeded symmetry appears to be attractive in human faces, the absence of asymmetric elements is sterile, lacking in ‘characteristic’. Insights on the need for deviations have been passed on in rhetoric since antiquity.)

The 18th century eliminated this canon for good. The “Siècle des Lumières” with all its faith in progress and its linear historical constructions was also the era when modern historicism unfolded.

To a large degree, historicism was initiated by the “querelle”, at the end of which, besides absolute beauty, the existence of a “relative” beauty was accepted.4 Following the proliferation of notions of

3 Cf. Meininghaus, Wozu Kunst?, pp. 54-57 4 Sebastian Kiefer, Was ist eigentlich ‘ästhetische Moderne’? Graz –Vienna 2011, Chap. II 5 The educational encyclopaedic impulse of the 18th century was fully developed into the 19th century, the actual era of globalisation, cf. Jürgen Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt. Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts, München 2009, p. 43 ff. Also in the 19th century, the institutionalisation of museums was completed. Cf. Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt, p. 37 ff.

WORLD NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE NO. 23, 2013

beauty it was more and more universally accepted that everyone possessed an intrinsic right to these notions, depending on the conditions of culture, environment, and time. Historicism was inspired by the “encyclopaedia”, which was driven by the hunger for collecting, enhancing and exhibiting the secular knowledge of nature, civilisations, languages, customs, religions, and theories.5 The proliferation of knowledge in the natural sciences strengthened belief in progress. In the sphere of religion, ideas of tolerance, the secularisation of the state and deism were promoted. However, in the field of art neither a convincing amount of progress was made nor was there a universal model. Therefore, when we today say that there can be no more universal and binding aims and means of art, but only an equally available quantity of highly diverse idioms and ideals of the arts, this is not an invention of the so-called postmodern age. Instead, it is the expression of an experience which already stood at the beginning of aesthetic modernity. We only find ourselves (temporarily, that is) at the end of this development.

Nowadays we do not have a more manageable or binding definition of what art is, can or must be than we ever had. Yet, we all believe we know it intuitively. We are all able to give ad hoc examples of what is undoubtedly art. We have all had emphatic

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own art beauty, a beauty which could supposedly only be procreated by art. The loss of a universal binding force as a result of the proliferation of ideals and criteria was opposed by historico-philosophically and metaphysically inspired art religion. The spokesmen of this opposition were of course philosophers and writers.

Music played an exceptional role in the art-religious concepts of the romantics: It was designed to be pure sound, which was the epitome of the poetic ‘absolute’, i. e., the epitome everything the poeticising of the world was supposed to aspire to.

The conflict-ridden opposition between the proliferation and dehierachisation of terms and criteria on the one hand, and on the other hand a proud, frequently socio-therapeutic and/or religiously charged aspiration to one single, unified art, which led to an emphatic (often also socio-therapeutic and quasi-religiously instrumentalised) “waywardness”, is the primary constituent of aesthetic modernity. For instance, it is one of the central themes of Johann Gottfried Herder’s work. Goethe and Schiller devoted much energy to it. Finally, the German romantics first took it on programmatically, then took it to extremes by trying to resolve the conflict within their utopia of “progressive universal poetry”.

There, all ways and modes of speaking, high and low, old and new, perhaps even music and painting, were supposed to be overridden. It was the German romantics who, perhaps as no one before them, reflected on the waywardness of the art “system” (the application of the term “system” to the world of art in fact goes back to Schlegel) and used it as a source of inspiration to create art. From this time on, the boundary between art and non-art became an increasingly important point in the debate.7 The search for definitions and aims in art, which would be able to provide the highest 6 S. K. Kiefer, Was ist eigentlich 'ästhetische Moderne‘? p. 59 ff.

7 Cf. S.Kiefer, Was ist eigentlich 'ästhetische Moderne‘'? Chap. III.

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experiences with “art”, we build temples to it, and we class sensitivity to the arts as being among the most indispensable elements of a complete human being. However, the loss of a binding force in the arts as a consequence of their proliferation and of a levelling of all criteria and definitions has also provoked opposing forces. The arts (which had not been named arts up to that time) were fused into a single coherent system of “the arts” (following the canonical theory of Paul Oskar Kristeller), and they emphatically claimed to be intractable in meaning and to differ essentially from all other systems.6 Around 1800, philosophical aesthetics postulated its

commitment and vitality, became part of the creative process in the field of art. While looking for the “ready-made” the system was fully aware of this search for its own existence, and transformed these into art.

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III

8 For details see S. Kiefer, Was ist eigentlich ‘ästhetische Moderne‘?, in particular Chap. IV 9 For details see S. Kiefer, Was ist eigentlich ‘ästhetische Moderne‘?, in particular Chap. IV

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Against the backdrop of the aforesaid, I therefore suggest that aesthetic modernity must neither be regarded as a historical fact, phenomenon or era nor as a redefinition of the aims and means of art, but ultimately as a change of the operative conditions of the (receptive and productive) development of artistic values.8 The usual criteria, predicates/characteristics first stage, can no longer create and justify “commitment”, neither classical criteria (beautiful, proportioned, sublime, true to nature, harmonious), nor anticlassical (arabesque, the ugly, distortion), nor modernistic (shock, new modes of perception, break with convention). The criteria have literally to be newly “legitimised”. Modernism calls for – as the romantics recognised with their (deliberately ambiguous) formula of “poetry of poetry” – justification of values second order. Today, aesthetic success requires letting the exemplification of a concept/ model of art sympathise with and think with something. This may sound abstract, but the logic behind it is quite straightforward: In developed modernism, it is equally legitimate to strive to implement both traditional and modernist modes of speech and value characteristics, for something must always be done with perceptibility, so this particular quality in its individual framework can today again produce genuine artistic value. It is only in this way that it becomes comprehensible in a new way.9 If someone claims that something is “beautiful”, we can therefore ask ourselves: “Are we still talking about beautiful art today? Should art not rather be true, provocative, or confusing?” If, by contrast, somebody else is speaking about something “harmonious”, everyone knows that the struggle against harmoniousness can as equally well bring forth art. This manner of speaking shows that in our everyday life we doubt value criteria of the first order and look to justify them.

In our everyday dealings with art we also often use phrases which

IV Universal history teaches us that in the 19th-century globalisation, pushed by the militarily, technically, scientifically, and economically superior European nations, spread rapidly in almost all fields, including the field of culture. Much of the world saw this and approved of it; the new age was presented for all in the world exhibitions. However, in many regions of the world, European achievements were only unwillingly accepted. At the same time, they were changed and transplanted in the context of local traditions. Even in the case of genuine European fields of study such as sociology, nations such as Japan and China developed their own interpretations early on. In China, libraries are institutions with a very long history, with only the genuinely European idea of making them accessible to the public being added later on as an innovation.10 Another example of a genuinely European idea is the museum as an institution which was no longer built and structured by the aristocracy or politicians, but by experts. Notwithstanding, the ethnological museums, which outside Europe were usually institutionalised only after the end of colonialism, were guided by pre-colonial humanistic impulses.11 Another example is literary “realism”. In the 19th century, it was almost universally diffused, existing sometimes (not only in China) largely independently of European role models.12 Opera triumphed all over the world, reaching places such as Hanoi, Chile and the Ottoman Empire, and the phenomenon of the “stage star” was exported with it.13 Of course, the supposed complex interconnection of cultural globalisation must be described and evaluated in detail.

Aesthetic modernity in the sense I have suggested, could come into being only in central Europe. Nowhere else did historicism

10 Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt, p. 35 11 Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt, p. 40 12 Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt, pp. 48–50 13 Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt, pp. 28–30

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seek to understand which concept of art is being realised in a work.

Phrases such as, “X shows how aesthetic beauty is possible even today”, “This is again true art”, “Work x demonstrates what literature is able to do today”, are not uncommon.

14 In Europe in the 19th century, the tension between preserving historicism and the longing for the new and optimism for the future, is unique.

Cf. Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt, p. 82.

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and museification,14 pluralisation and stubbornness simultaneously have such a clear effect on individualisation and innovation, and at the same time on the philosophically highly-developed, ideologically and socially progressive, but also highly ambitious system of meanings surrounding the term “art”.

If such a picture of the system of aesthetic modernity were the case, one can and must deduce tangible maxims from it for dealing with non-European art tradition. The sense system “art” is arranged in a universalistic and historicist way in itself, this means it requires every single work always on the horizon of that which is to be explored and the whole art of all regions, times and milieus to be made available to be perceived. In fact, this is everyday experience.

If, for example, after a concert of Helmut Lachenmann, somebody from the audience says to the composer: “Congratulations. However, the gongs were struck in a more sophisticated way in Japanese monasteries already centuries ago!”, the composer cannot reply that this music was beyond his horizon. No, for him not to know this, is per se a shortcoming. It is possible that his work is inherently consistent without the knowledge of Japanese temple gongs.

However, if somebody knows the sound of the temple gongs, they feel the passage in Lachenmann’s work to be an involuntary quote, or even the theft of an idea. Involuntarily, we hear the sounds of all times and milieus. The same is true of all other parameters, such as time, duration, consonance, mass, and expression. It is true that we can perceive only tiny bits of everything which has been produced.

However, this need not disturb us: Most of what we know about culture, knowledge and belief systems we only know by way of few examples – the Zen culture of Japan perhaps from some watercolour paintings, pottery, shakuhachi music, or monastery gardens.

We trust that what members of every respective culture hold to be significant and exemplary is appropriately reflected in their own criteria. In this sense, the modern system of art as it has emanated from Europe, wants to be serious about globalisation. This globalisation is not a neo-colonial enterprise, as in principle all available idioms can with the same right to be art or to make art join this virtual world of art. However, the universal system designed by European intellectuals around 1800 is, in an important respect, a radical counter-concept to merely factual globalisation. It brings

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about an acceleration of the exchange of goods, values and knowledge. It is in this respect a clear counter-concept to today’s “world music”, and the fashion of interculturalism. Even if the art system thinks in a historicist way and tries to understand its own rights, aims and means of artistic production in a new way, at its basis it does not do away with the fundamental assumption that art in the emphatic sense is only that which provides meaning in a fundamentally different way, and within an experience which is incomparably different from that of any other realm. Anyone speaking today of world art has to take into consideration the more complex forms to justify what art is, which have been outlined above. Stating that something was the expression of a culture, an attitude or a particular state of mind, or artful, moving, profound, etc., is no longer sufficient to justify labelling it as “art”. General binding force can, in the knowledge of the diversity of the whole, no longer be legitimised.

In no traditional culture, has there ever existed a concept of art which would have supposed that art had to be categorically different from other cultural expressions. At least this has not been explicitly expressed. This statement is valid even for highly refined elite cultures such as Mandarin painting, or the ghazal, maqam or raga traditions. In this respect, insisting on the modern notion of “art” as an emphatically individual [in the German original ‘eigensinnig’ – a distinct way of producing meaning and sense-experience] enterprise, is by no means tantamount to an acceptance of socalled European values, but only of European perception categories.

It thus runs the risk of being exposed of having a neo-colonial mindset. It is not neo-colonial to insist on a genuine European model of emphatically individual art, even if when helping to bring concept and discourse forms to participants from other cultures, something which they had already felt but which had not been discursively and programmatically disclosed. Anyone who uses the forceful term “autonomous art” not only for highly ambitious post-romantic art, but also for older art, will assume to do so. Hardly anyone would have problems using our emphatic (modern) notion of “art” when discussing Michelangelo’s Pietà, Leonardo’s Virgin and Child with St. Anne, Heinrich Schütz’ ‘Kleine geistliche Konzerte’, Bach’s Mass in B Minor, Josquin, Ignaz Franz Biber’s Rosenkranz-Sonatas, Zelenka or Haydn’s quartets. Instead, every art-loving European of today will tend to assume that his contemporaries in earlier times, as he himself now, experienced something different and uniquely sensory in these works, and this was so categorically different from all other experience. Even when the interpretative discourse of earlier times

Sebastian Kiefer studied literature, philosophy and music pedagogy in Berlin, where he lives and works as a lecturer and essayist. His numerous publications deal with music, as well as poetry, philosophy and the fine arts. His popular publications include Was kann Literatur? and Was ist eigentlich 'ästhetische Moderne'?

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was articulated differently, and no separate art beauty was known.

However, the emphatic, cultic and even sacralising mystification of figures such as Michelangelo, Rubens, Titian, Josquin, Purcell, and Milton experienced in their own times suggests that already their contemporaries felt something ‘extraordinary’ about their works.

This must have been because of the different quality of imagination and experience such artists had, which was of course immediately felt when they were compared to other craftsmen and artisans.

Incidentally, this later led to the strict separation of art and folk-art in museums around the world. Something similar may be assumed for those with insight into our own history of the project “art” and who recognise its logic when they learn about the cultic and excessive elevation of the raga master, read captivating anecdotes about the Zen Buddhist master potter, or listen breathlessly to shakuhachi music. From the European term “art” emanates coercion – but not constraint. The term seems to be more of an offer to reinterpret the experience of sublime products of whichever tradition and to conceive anew the aesthetic achievements, in their autonomy, of our own tradition. The strongest argument to conduct the discourse on “world art” in such a way, and not to leave it to market, consumer and power mechanisms, is that it raises the dignity of the stranger: There could be no worse insult to the art of a shakuhachi master than to call it the expression and mentality of a local culture – or conversely to consume it as a mood stimulus amongst many other such stimuli. No, it must be perceived as “art” in the emphatic sense, a sublimation of hearing, feeling, thinking, which is the result of the gradual refinement of life-world skills, and which sometimes allows the experience of a quality that is completely different from mere emotion, parareligious mood consolation, or tasteful adornment of the living environment. Coming to terms with art in the forceful, modern occidental sense of autonomous art calls for a different kind of imagination, training, and attention. It calls for an individual quality, which we attribute to Josquin, Bach and Schumann alike, in spite of their radical difference. We “hear” this quality, and it is only for this reason that these achievements are of a binding force which is distinctly different from that of fashion.

Polemical Paralipomena on the Existing Global Music of the Present

by Sandeep Bhagwati STAGNATION AS A CHANCE In Lewis Carroll’s 1871 novel Through the Looking Glass, Alice meets the Red Queen, who runs with uncanny energy. Alice runs along with her, but wonders why they don’t seem to be getting anywhere at all. She remarks: ‘Well, in OUR country,’ said Alice… ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else’ – ‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, HERE, you see, it takes all the running YOU can do, to keep in the same place.’

Since the beginning of the 21st century, at the latest, new music has become such a fast country. Over the course of the 20th century, we were able to sustain the hope that our marathon through constantly novel-seeming soundscapes could propel music towards somewhere else. But today, attentive listeners begin to ask themselves why it is that – despite so much newly made music – we don’t seem to be getting anywhere at all. Neither musically nor commercially, neither in a private setting nor in a global vision, does New Music composed in the Western tradition at present seem to be a preferred mode of aesthetic transport – as it had once believed itself to be.

Did not an Indian guru recently say: “The music of Europe and North America is admirable. It has reached a certain stage of perfection that interests me. But otherwise – it is dead?” No, this was not an Indian guru speaking, and not recently either – it was Pierre Boulez in 1986. And he spoke…not about the music of Europe and North America, but about the music of Asia and India. But – what if an Indian guru had indeed said this…? In the logic of capitalism, suspected stagnation is tantamount to a death threat. Therefore, even the bare statement that one is unable to detect any significant movement towards something new in recently composed music, could – by New Music advocates – easily be [mis]understood as a dire warning

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Music from a Fast Country

In his influential 1967 book Music, the Arts and Ideas, musicologist Leonard B. Meyer predicted a stylistic steady state in the music scene for the next millennium – henceforth, no musical style would disappear completely, all past and present styles would continue to spawn newly created works, and instead of progress we would see a procession of aesthetic…fashions. Of course, Meyer, being a typical child of the parochial and colonialist universalism of his time, completely forgot non-bourgeois and non-Western music in his description…but his vision of a steady state universe of musical languages – does it not look very familiar to us now?

Yet, before we begin our lamentos, we should keep in mind that the European aesthetics of progress is a very particular meme in world history: from its beginnings in the 18th century, this meme

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has held sway now for just about 200 years – a much shorter reign than that of most imperial dynasties in China. Music, admittedly, has been a bit more sluggish in overcoming this long 19th century than most of the other arts – here, we can to this day come across quite a lot of romantic flotsam: such as e.g. the cult of the genius, the notion that an artwork somehow represents the world, and the transgression of rules as a yardstick for cultural relevance. But once we perceive that all those advanced soundscapes that we so proudly believed to have discovered and conquered were, in reality, nothing more than mirages; once we understand that, instead of driving us towards the future they seem to have merely taken our ears for a ride – then we could start re-normalising New Music: by letting it finally become just one ephemeral and jostling tradition among many.

A European, humble, wearing hippie clothes, comes to an Indian guru. He has prepared himself thoroughly for this journey, has long been exercised by Indian spirituality, has read all relevant New Age literature, and has studied yoga with another European who has spent years in an ashram in Poona.

It has been no easy journey, expensive, visa problems, foreign language, confusion. Now, at last, he stands before one of the leading spiritual teachers of his time. The guru, surrounded by students and followers, teaches in an idyllic ashram, one can hear the Hindu chants and prayers of the learners everywhere, languages from around the world.

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An Invitation to SELF-DISCOVERY

POST-EXOTICIST TRADITIONALISM Once upon a time tradition chose us, it seeped into us from our surroundings. That was when we still were sedentary. All music thought of itself as tradition. Schoenberg wanted to hear future children whistling his atonal and dodecaphonic melodies.

The post-war avant-garde were convinced that their music was “of the future” – logically, this would be possible only if, from the very outset, they saw themselves as a budding tradition.

Things are different today. In our reality, tradition is nothing more than an option, a challenge, a pledge, a life-style choice.

Nobody in the world today is born into an unquestioned tradition – because traditions no longer can exist in any unquestioned state.

There are always alternatives, and these are always visible, even in isolated countries such as once in Myanmar and Albania, or in North Korea today. Modernity, almost by definition, is about optional and alternative ways of living (and thus also about aesthetic alternatives) – however differently such alternate modernities are being expressed within different cultural contexts. The kind of music a 30-year-old will play and listen to is therefore not determined at birth any more – and no tradition profits more from this fact than the so-called New Music.

For whoever makes, listens to and loves New Music, this preferences is always based on a conscious decision, a lifestyle choice – even for children of composers, New Music is not the music of their

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“What is your desire?” the guru asks. “I would like to learn from you about Indian spiritual life, to experience the essence of the Hindu faith, I want to become a spiritual person, maybe even a master one day…”

The guru nods. He looks at him, intensely. “Which country do you come from?” he asks. “I am from… Austria”, replies the enthusiast. “Which religion?” The European is slightly puzzled. “Well, I am a Christian in name, a catholic. But – not practicing. Hardly ever go to church. It doesn’t mean anything to me. My path is Indian spirituality.”

The guru listens to him, carefully. Then he says: “Christian religion is interesting. Your spiritual roots lie there. Come to grips with it, learn about it, become a good Christian. Then come back.

And I can promise you – once you have become a good Christian, you will also have become a good Hindu.”

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childhood. It is something adopted, at the earliest, during adolescence, usually much later – like wine, coffee and S&M, New Music always is an acquired adult taste.

On the other hand, affluent capitalist societies from an early age flood us with countless kinds of music from all over the world.

Our musical taste can no longer be deduced from our heritage. Depending on what is on our parents’ iPod, we can be lulled to sleep at an early age by music from virtually any tradition – thus even someone growing up in the Austrian Waldviertel can love Indian music, even long before s/he learns to read (music).

This, however, means that we all live in a post-exoticist age (or, if you prefer, a pan-exoticist age): the distance between the own and that which is seductively Other, this differential that drives the longing at the heart of all exoticism, has become highly specific to each individual – none of the generalisations that once fuelled our exotic stereotypes seem to work any more. Of two people born on the same street, one may well find local Austrian folk music wildly exotic – and the other Balinese village gamelan. Now if, as an adolescent, each of them chose the tradition of New Music as their musical livelihood, and then creatively summoned their childhood memories: would the one, whose New Music contains echoes of Austrian folk music, be more exoticist than the other, whose taste for New Music grew from the structures of the gamelan? More importantly, would either of them need to be at all aware of the music that inspired them?

My generation’s composer father figures, now 70-90 years old, could virtually always trace their encounter with the Other to some clearly defined moment: the instant when their ears became enchanted – in a way similar to their encounter with New Music. Young composers today may perhaps remember their first encounter with a very specialised tradition of Indian, Burmese, etc. music – but for most of them, the duduk is simply the melancholy instrument from Battlestar Galactica, the sitar a familiar sound from lounge music. These musics have sunk to the lower strata of their consciousness, latent as material for their own “creative genius” – similar to the role folk songs played for Schubert. Our vernacular music already is globalised – and only art musicians seem to be in two minds about this fact.

Nevertheless, those diverse music traditions from around the globe, together with their own histories, cultural acoustics, performance traditions and formal concepts that are so different from

An Invitation to Self-Exoticisation An Asian girl, polite, well-dressed, comes to a German professor of composition. For many years, she has prepared herself for this journey, has endlessly listened to and played European classical music, which she loves. She has also studied relevant works of New Music, its instruments, playing techniques, concepts – with another Asian musician who for a number of years had studied composition in Vienna.

It has not been an easy journey, expensive, visa problems, foreign language, confusion. Now, at last, she stands before one of the leading professors of composition of her time. The Professor is surrounded by students and followers, she teaches in an impressive university building, everywhere students can be heard practicing, New music, Early music, jazz.

“What do you desire?” asks the professor. “I want to learn the right way to compose contemporary music, to understand the spirit of new music, I want to make new music myself, perhaps even become a well-known composer…”

The professor nods. She looks at her, intensely. “Which country do you come from?” she asks. “From… China”, replies the enthusiast. “Which Asian music tradition do you originally come from?”

The Chinese girl is slightly puzzled. “Well, I know a bit about our

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those dominant in Europe, have become genes in a rich musical DNA soup: and almost every composer of New Music today uses these genes to varying degrees of intensity – often without even being aware of it. Consider Schubert again: his creative relationship to folk music was pre-nationalist, un-ideological and largely subconscious – much unlike that of subsequent composers such as Dvořák or Mahler. One could argue that inter-cultural music has, over the past decades, followed the opposite trajectory: from selfconscious cultural-political engagement towards today's nonchalant and non-ideological use of that which is at hand.

I have experienced such a trajectory myself: when I was 25, I was proud to have developed my “own” rhythmic system – based on medieval isorhythm, as I believed then. Only when a radio producer – who obviously thought I should engage with “my roots” – commissioned me to write something about South Indian rhythmic theories, did I suddenly discover that my rhythmic system had, in fact, extremely close parallels in this music tradition – a kind of music that had been around me since I was a baby.

silk & bamboo music. But I do not play it, I’ve never played it, and I never really go to such concerts. This music doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve only ever been interested in Western classical music.”

The professor listens to her, carefully. Then she says: “You seem to be talented, so listen to my words: Asian music is very interesting. Your aesthetic-musical roots lie there. I advise you to come to grips with them, learn them, immerse yourself in your musical tradition. Believe me: the more you appear to be authentic as an Asian with a sense of the avant-garde, together with the advanced technique you will learn from me, the greater will be your chance of becoming someone on the European new music scene. Being a typical Asian in the West is your best career strategy.”

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EUROLOGICAL MUSIC

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It is awkward to affirmatively speak of “New Music” in today’s global music context: firstly, because this kind of music is no longer new in any sense of the word; and secondly, even back then in its heyday, much of it was once new only relative to certain European/North American art music practices. This tradition, however, has for a long time since looked beyond its origins: New Music, as well as many other global music traditions (Indian, Latin American, Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, jazz, blues, etc.) is today neither made only in Europe/North America, nor only by Europeans/North Americans.

George E. Lewis once coined the words “afrological” and “eurological”, because he felt the need to differentiate between different jazz ecologies. I have for some time now adopted the latter term to designate all music that uses elaborate scores, avantgarde modernist aesthetics and the concert as a form of presentation, regardless of where it comes from – in other words: “eurological music”, to me, does not designate any aesthetic or regional quality; rather, it describes a specific method for producing music.

The Korean composer who generates a graphical concert score for gayageum works in an eurological mode, as does the Austrian composer who writes Ferneyhoughesque rhythms for tabla. Eurological, too, is every work for string quartet and every orchestra piece written anywhere in the world, as well as the no-input mixing board virtuoso from Tokyo. Too many discourses on so-called “inter-cultural” art music (a troubled term that I can only write in “question quotes”) are about instruments and geographics, the

Berlin, 5–9 June 2013

WORKS MENTIONED: Pierre Boulez, Oriental Music – a Lost Paradise? in: Orientations, London 1986, p. 421 Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, London 1871 Heinrich von Kleist, Über das Marionettentheater, Berlin 1810 George E. Lewis, Improvised Music After 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives, in: The Other Side of Nowhere, ed. Fishlin/Heble, Middletown 2004 Leonard B. Meyer, Music, the Arts and Ideas, Chicago 1967 Raimon Panikkar, The Myth of Pluralism, in: Invisible Harmony: Essays on Contempolation and Responsibility, ed. H.J. Cargas, Minneapolis 1995

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stupid ones even about the ethnicity of the participants – such talk serves to obscure the fact that most “inter-cultural” projects are still firmly stuck in eurological aesthetic agendas.

At this point, one could rightfully ask: Your concept is so inclusive – what in newly written music then could at all be called non-eurological? This question exactly is where the idea of a global contemporary music begins to become fertile and interesting: what kind of new music is there for which current eurological music aesthetics – or any others – are inadequate and inapplicable?

In his famous studies on the myths of pluralism Raimon Panikkar once wrote: “There is no purely theoretical solution for the problem of pluralism … A problem that permits a theoretical solution is not a pluralistic problem.” Similarly, any music that can be described by the categories of traditional musical theories cannot yet be pluralistic music.

But once we are able to adopt a nonchalant attitude towards mixtures, appropriations, amalgamations and hybridisations of all kinds (as some of us already are); once we have finally worked our way through all those parochial “breakthrough” and “transgression” topoi of post-war modernity; and, finally, once we have understood that the invention of traditions is the unavoidable challenge for any serious composer working today… then, perhaps, the gates of paradise may finally open up for eurological music, too.

And this, as Kleist puts it, could be “the last chapter of the history of the world” – and the beginning of… what now? Maybe not “the music of the future” – but certainly some beautiful music that may lead us somewhere else. What did the Red Queen say again?

“If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

Sandeep Bhagwati is deeply interested in the compositional and theoretical aspects of music cultures of different countries. A globally active and award-winning composer, conductor and theatre director, he was composer-in-residence in Bonn, Graz, Paris, Los Angeles and Moscow, was a professor of composition at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe and since 2006, holds the Canada Research Chair in Inter-X Art Practice and Theory at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University in Québec where he directs matralab. His work as curator includes the conception of the A•DEvantgarde-Festivals in Munich and several inter-traditional exchange projects between Indian, Chinese and Western musicians. http://matralab.hexagram.ca

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by Christian Utz An identity of artistic positions seems, despite all cultural “turns” in research, the unquestioned basis of a variety of texts about new music: they proceed with the basic assumption that the works of individual composers articulate a “distinctive”, “authentic” position. The principle, referring back to the philosophy of the Enlightenment, of “speaking with one’s own voice” is omnipresent in the discourse on contemporary music and also generally remains the determining criterion in the education of composers today. The poststructuralist critique of the author principle and monologic authority seems more distant than ever, and its appropriations in the “new musicology” a long forgotten episode.1 With a mixture of obstinacy and helplessness, the adherence to composer-centred hermeneutics confronts the obvious marginalisation of compose rs in the commercialised “classical music” scene in favour of performers and events.

Identity problems What are the problems of this affirmative concept of identity?

In his fundamental text “The Question of Cultural Identity” (1992), Stuart Hall stated five factors, which in the modern era have sustainably “decentred” the image of self-identity2, whereby all the

1 An extensive critique of this text is found in my: Musik von einem fremden Planeten? Variationen über Struktur, Wahrnehmung und Bedeutung in der Musik des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts, in: Musiktheorie als interdisziplinäres Fach. 8. Kongress der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie Graz 2008 (musik.theorien der gegenwart 4), ed. Christian Utz, Saarbrücken: Pfau 2010, pp. 377-399.

2 Stuart Hall: Kulturelle Identität und Globalisierung, in: Widerspenstige Kulturen. Cultural Studies als Herausforderung, ed. Karl H. Hörning and Rainer Winter, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1999, pp. 393-441: pp. 407-414.

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Identity Criticism and Reflexive Globalisation in New Art Music

factors are based on a close intertwining of subject identity and collective identity: 1. Post-Marxist thinkers have abandoned the idea of an “essence” of the modern subject; 2. Freud’s and Lacan’s psychoanalysis unambiguously made it known that identity is not a state, but a dynamic and inconclusive process; 3. Poststructuralist linguistics and philosophy indicated that “structured” identities, as expressed by language, always include uncontrollable supplementary meanings; 4. Michel Foucault described the paradoxical relationship between the isolation of the subject and its collective disciplining in the modern era and thereby alluded to the repressive nature of the discourse on identity; 5. The theoretical and social movements of feminism have created a lasting awareness of the gendered layers of the modern subject.

The already sustainably destabilised concepts of personal and collective identity have, at first glance, been completely thrown overboard by post-colonial criticism: Any form of affirmative connection between identity, culture and ethnicity could be suspected of complicity with cultural essentialistic and, basically, colonial thinking. Viewed against this background, the kinds of identity offered by strengthened neo-nationalist or pan-national religious, even fundamentalist isms only seem to be anachronistic: They make use of tendencies towards “grassroots” globalisation3, in

3 Cf. Arjun Appadurai: Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination, in: Globalization, ed. Arjun Appadurai, London: Duke University Press 2001, pp. 1-21.

4 Stephen Vertovec: Super-Diversity and its Implications, in: Ethnic and Racial Studies 30/6 (2007), pp. 1024–1054.

5 Arif Dirlik: Transnationalism in Theory and Practice: Uses, Mis-uses, Abuses, in: ALAI, América Latina en Movimiento (2010), http://alainet.org/active/42339&lang=es (6.6.2013).

6 Eric Hobsbawm: Introduction: Inventing Traditions, in: The Invention of Tradition, hrsg. von Eric Hobsbawm und Terence Ranger, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1983, pp. 1-14. For application to the music history of China cf. Frederick Lau: Forever Red: The Invention of Solo dizi Music in Post-1949 China, in: British Journal of Ethnomusicology 5 (1996) pp. 113-131.

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which local and global processes interact and new communities beyond established nations and cultures are formed. The increasing fragmentation of modern societies, termed “super-diversity”4 by Stephen Vertovec, has in many places sparked the desire for re-territorialisation and (re-)ethnicisation of identity up to a “proliferation and reification of [geographical and mental boundaries”.5 “Invented traditions” today – as since 200 years in the construction of national identities – play a key role in this process, also in the field of music.6

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7 Dirlik, Transnationalism in Theory and Practice.

8 Slavoj Žižek: Ein Plädoyer für die Intoleranz, Wien: Passagen 1998, p. 80f.

9 Helmut Lachenmann in conversation with Rolf Elberfeld and Toshio Hosokawa (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 12.5.2005), cited by Christian Utz: Zwischen Mythos und Kooperation. Transkulturelle Rezeption westlicher Komponisten in historischer Perspektive, in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 167/03 (2006), pp. 27-31: pp. 28/31.

10 “[O]ffensichtlich lassen sich diese vielfältigen Impulse absorbieren, ohne daß die betroffenen Gesellschaften auch nur anfänglich in Identitätskrisen zu verfallen drohen. Vor allem: eine sich dergestalt pluralisierende, bunter werdende Kulturszene bedroht nicht, zumindest nicht bis heute, den Kernbestand der politischen Kultur.“

(Dieter Senghaas: Moderne und Antimoderne angesichts kultureller Globalisierung. Plädoyer für einen zeitgemäßen, jedoch geschichtsbewußten Diskurs, in: Tradition und Traditionsbruch zwischen Skepsis und Dogmatik. Interkulturelle philosophische Perspektiven, ed. Claudia Bickmann et al, Amsterdam: Rodopi 2006, pp. 325-342: p. 329.)

11 Ibid., p. 328f.

28 Identity Criticism and Reflexive Globalisation in New Art Music

Arif Dirlik outlines that it is rather misleading to argue that migrants – as paradigmatic as they seem to represent the present – are to be understood as the key metaphor of the contemporary world: “the great majority of humankind [continues to] lead settled lives unless pulled or pushed into mobility”.7 Indeed, it is doubtful whether a convincing connection between the social phenomenon of migration and the identity issues of recent art discourse can be made. Slavoj Žižek formulates keenly that the academic (or also artist), who is at all times equipped with an appropriate visa, and the migrant, who is exposed to the traumatic experience of “hybridity”, are incompatible models8; Helmut Lachenmann pointed out that the composer with a suitable return ticket in his pocket was unable to understand the kind of “comfort” that music of other cultures might involve in its own cultural setting.9 Additionally, the tendencies of a poly-cultural mix and hybridity in art as in pop culture seem equally tame: “Obviously, these diverse impulses allow themselves to be absorbed, without even slightly threatening the respective societies to fall into an identity crisis. But above all, a pluralising and increasingly colourful cultural scene has never threatened, at least not until today, the core of political culture.”10 Therefore it is possible to speak, following Dieter Senghaas, of a globalisation deluxe in new art music.11

But can it be concluded, as suggested by Harry Lehmann, that new music knows no “identity problems”, because it is based on otherness as a basic prerequisite?12 Here, the fact is overlooked that there is a complex intertwining of music historical, aesthetic and compositional fields of discourse, which certainly limit the possibilities to articulate such otherness in specific contexts. Initially, the sustained tendency towards suppressing “cultural” moments in much new music should be mentioned here, which was primarily the legacy of the world political situation after 1945. The institutions for new music in post-war Europe were not least supported by the allied occupying powers with their ulterior motive of installing a supposedly ideology-free area of artistic development as a symbol of political freedom, from which no new ideological dangers would result.13 In fact, in the serial systems, a composi-

12 Harry Lehmann: Entfremdung – Verfremdung. Identitätsprobleme in Kunst und Gesellschaft, in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 167/03 (2006), pp. 13-15.

13 Cf. et al Amy C. Beal: Negotiating Cultural Allies: American Music in Darmstadt, 1946-1956, in: Journal of the American Musicological Society 53/1 (2000), pp. 105-139.

14 Cf. Julie Brown: Bartók, the Gypsies, and Hybridity in Music, in: Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music, ed. Georgina Born und David Hesmondhalgh, Berkeley: University of California Press 2000, pp. 119-142.

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tional logic was generated, which sought to separate any “ culturally” encoded language from music, guided by the search for an alternative model to the misuse of the language-like communication model of music in the totalitarian political systems. The same socio-historical background can also be attributed to John Cage’s conception of music as “free from likes and dislikes”, which can be understood as a result of a basic scepticism towards the values of European schools of thought among American intellectuals in the aftermath of World War II. Indeed, Igor Stravinsky’s neoclassicism had already been based on a departure from a narrowly defined ethno-national musical language of the Russian nationalist school and his own neo-national works prior to 1917. Only Béla Bartók adhered to his concept of hybridity of folk and art music, even if its original neo-national components were heavily ruptured by the events of contemporary history and his works became increasingly universalistically accentuated from the 1930s.14

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15 Cf. Frank Gertich / Martin Greve: Neue Musik im postkolonialen Zeitalter, in: Geschichte der Musik im 20. Jahrhundert/4, 1975-2000 (Handbuch der Musik im 20. Jahrhundert 4), pub. Helga de la Motte-Haber, Laaber: Laaber 2000, pp. 51-64: pp. 52-55; Frank Kouwenhoven: Mainland China's New Music (III) – The Age of Pluralism, in: CHIME 5 (1992), pp. 76-134: p. 85 et seqq.

16 Cf. Lukas Haselböck: Debussy und die Wiener Schule, in: Musiktheorie 28/1 (2013), pp. 76-94.

17 Cf. Martin Zenck: Artaud – Boulez – Rihm: Zur Re- und Trans-Ritualität im europäischen Musiktheater des 20. Jahrhunderts, in: Musiktheater heute: Internationales Symposion der Paul Sacher Stiftung Basel 2001, pub. Hermann Danuser und Matthias Kassel, Mainz: Schott 2003, pp. 235-264.

18 Cf. Georgina Born: Rationalizing Culture. IRCAM, Boulez and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-garde, Berkeley: University of California Press 1995.

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Bartok’s approach played a formative role for decisive turning points art music in Turkey (in the 1920s) and in China (in the 1980s).15 Of course, there was much left to be desired by the practical implementation of a universalist self-referential claim in the early 1950s. This is clearly shown by a superficial reflection of German-French polarities, which date back to the beginning of the century: If the relationship Schoenberg-Debussy was “uptight” in every respect due to complications of historical currents16, so Boulez’ Artaud reception in a work such as the Second Piano Sonata (1946–48)17, and the structuralist catholic mysticism of Stockhausen’s Kreuzspiel (1951), can hardly be reduced to a common denominator of “breaking ground” in serial thinking. And Wolfgang Rihm’s neo-expressionist chamber opera Jakob Lenz (1977–78) as well as the neo-organicist sound-time processes in Gérard Grisey’s Les Espaces Acoustiques (1974–85) can hardly be understood as being independent of their respective national-specific traditions of expression, time, language, and sound (and should of course not be reduced to these traditions). These “cultural” dimensions of modern music in Europe, which are closely associated with their institutional establishment18, were rarely featured in German-speaking publications until recently. Against such a background, the attitude of new art music being independent of any “culture”, as expressed at the symposium ­Musik-Kulturen at the Darmstadt summer courses in 2006, is certainly untenable. “Identity problems” seem hardly to exist here – but not least because a firm (re)focussing on specific localEuropean thought, language and sound modes had taken place.

Since the 1980s, this new cultural isolationism can be interpreted to some extent as an echo of the failure of the cultural universalism of the 1960s, which was articulated in Stockhausen’s Telemusik (1966) or Hymnen (1965–67). The unhesitating, quasi-colonial grasp on the “resources” of a diffuse “world music” in these works makes us aware of critical compositional reflection on cultural difference having the requirement, primarily, of overcoming the “self-awareness and sense of mission of (Western) composers”.19 However, up

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to the present time, few have been prepared to take this step with full consequence.

Reflexive globalisation At the end of the 1990s, Ulrich Beck described the concept of “reflexive globalisation” as a situation in which the current problematic, conflict-laden (environmental or social – but also cultural) effects of globalisation could be “reflected” and incorporated into new cultural practices.20 Such reflexivity has been absolutely essential since the early 20th century for understanding musical cultures outside Europe: They have evolved in close, reflexive, conflictual interaction with European modernity.

During the notorious symposium “Overcoming Modernity” (Kindai no chōkoku) in July 1942 in Kyoto, the Japanese composer Saburō Morio (1903–1977) claimed that only music which expressed Japanese “spirit” through the means of Western compositional techniques and instrumentation was capable of “overcoming modernity”21 – the formula of the symposium for the construction of an alternative Japanese modernity, which was not meant

dem musikalisch Fremden, in: Wien Modern 1996, pub. Wiener Konzerthaus, Wien 1996, pp. 13-19: p. 18.

20 Ulrich Beck / Daniolo Zolo: What Is Globalization? Some Radical Questions, in: Jura Gentium: Rivista di filosofia del diritto internazionale e della politica globale I/1 (2005), http://www.juragentium.org/topics/wlgo/en/beck.htm (6.6.2013);originally in: Reset (1999), p. 5. cf. also Ulrich Beck: Die Erfindung des Politischen. Zu einer Theorie reflexiver Modernisierung, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1993.

21 Cf. Ryōen Minamoto: The Symposium on »Overcoming Modernity«, in: Rude Awakenings. Zen, the Kyoto School, & the Question of Natio­na­lism (Nanzan studies in religion and culture), ed. James W. Heisig und John C. Maraldo, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press 1995, pp. 197-229.

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19 Peter Niklas Wilson: Die Ahnen des Kolumbus. Notizen zum Umgang mit

22 This criticism also concerned the philosophers participating in the symposium of the Kyōto-School Keiji Nishitani and Shigetaka Suzuki. cf. Minamoto, The Symposium on »Overcoming Modernity«.

23 Cf. also Rolf Elberfeld: Moderne interkulturell. Tradition und Traditionsbruch im Horizont der europäischen Expansion, in: Tradition und Traditionsbruch zwischen Skepsis und Dogmatik. Interkulturelle philosophische Perspektiven, ed. Claudia Bickmann et al, Amsterdam: Rodopi 2006, pp. 383-392.

24 Cf. More detail: Christian Utz: Kunstmusik und reflexive Globalisierung.

Alterität und Narrativität in chinesischer Musik des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts, in: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 67/2 (2010), pp. 81-103.

25 Cf.,e.g. Wen-Chung Chou: Asian Esthetics and World Music, in: New Music in the Orient. Essays on Composition in Asia since World War II (Source Materials in Ethnomusicology 2), pub. Harrison Ryker, Buren: Knuf 1991, pp. 179-195 und Isang Yun: Über meine Musik. Vorlesungen an der Salzburger Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst »Mozarteum« (May 1993), in: Der Komponist Isang Yun (Musik-Konzepte Sonderband), pub. Hanns-Werner Heister and Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer, München: edition text + kritik 1997, pp. 297-313.

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to be synonymous with “Westernisation”.22 Even though mainly nationalistic Japanese authors have repeatedly related in an affirmative way to the title and content of this symposium, the realisation has been established in the last decade that discussion on the term of modernity remain in many ways inadequate without an acceptance of different competing “modernities”.23 The distinction Moroi makes between spirit and technique forms a master pattern for the adoption of Western culture in Japan and China, already in evidence since the mid-19th century24 and has been incorporated, partly in a milder form, as cultural essentialism in the aesthetic figures of many composers in Asia since the 1930s. In the 1960s, Isang Yun, José Maceda, Wen-Chung Chou and Tōru Takemitsu attempted – with respective accentuation – to establish discourses on the “characteristics” of Asian music, which were meant to overcome the dominance of Western aesthetics that had become questionable not least because of World War II. But these composers also sought to integrate key elements of Western aesthetics. Yun and Chou, as migrantcomposers, faced the challenge of leading this discourse in direct confrontation with Western aesthetic trends. Whilst in their writings and utterances tendencies towards the generally essentialist could be noted25, their works however often featured very specific traditions. Chou’s works The Willows Are New (1957) and Yü Ko (1965) attempt – arguably with limited success – to transfer performance principles of the ancient Chinese zither qin to Western

instruments26, Yun’s Réak (1966) transfers the permanent pitch inflections and intertwined lines of Korean court music into sound textures of the Western orchestra.27 If such concepts emphasise the alterity to Western musical aesthetic discourse, it should not be forgotten, how strongly they were shaped at this time by the critique of tradition and identity in Western modernity by Schoenberg, Varèse, Xenakis and Stockhausen.

The claim has been occasionally made that the music of nonWestern contemporary composers should not only be debated against the background of cultural identity, but rather it should be primarily understood and respected as a manifestation of “individual” artistic positions.28 In fac t this is already reality in the music branch: composers such as Unsuk Chin, Dai Fujikura or Ying Wang have exceptionally successful careers, mainly in Western cultural centres. Their internationally brilliant idiom is a guarantee of success, and it seems as though this success would be disturbed if the themes of intercultural hybridity and fractures were to be addressed. But can “cultural” discourse simply be dismissed – regardless of a composer’s origin and tradition – in favour of “individual” perception? In this sense, Samson Young makes clear that the possibility of “culture free” hearing is limited, while “cultural identity” always continues to be pointedly evoked by appropriately charged signifiers.29 Frederick Lau went so far as to say that the protean (and partly very successful) slipping into culturist identity models by Chinese composers in the USA since

(Beihefte zum Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 51), Stuttgart: Steiner 2002, pp.

270-277.

27 Cf. Ae-Kyung Choi: Réak (1966). Eine Analyse von Isang Yuns » Hauptklangtechnik « vor dem Hintergrund der ostasiatischen Musiktradition, in: Ssi-ol. Almanach 2000/01, hrsg. von Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer, Berlin: Internationale Isang-Yun-Gesellschaft 2002, pp. 101-137.

28 Cf. Barbara Mittler: Wider den »nationalen Stil«. Individuelles und Internationales in Chinas Neuer Musik, in: Musik und kulturelle Identität. Bericht über den XIII. Internationalen Kongress der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung Weimar 2004, Bd. 2, ed. Detlef Altenburg und Rainer Bayreuther, Kassel: Bärenreiter 2012, pp. 603-607.

29 Samson Young: Reconsidering Cultural Politics in the Analysis of Contemporary Chinese Music: The Case of Ghost Opera, in: Contemporary Music Review 26/5 (2007), pp. 605-618.

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26 Cf. Christian Utz: Neue Musik und Interkulturalität. Von John Cage bis Tan Dun

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relevance in the present, albeit from a de luxe position. Against the backdrop of 20th-century musical and political history and the overwhelming economisation of present times, this reflexivity for advanced art music appears to be not only the best of many options, but as a necessity for survival.

Christian Utz is a composer and university professor of music theory and analysis at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Graz; he is currently head of the FWF funded research project »A Context-Sensitive Theory of Post-Tonal Sound Organization« (http://ctpso.kug.ac.at).

30 Frederick Lau: Fusion or Fission. The Paradox and Politics of Contemporary Chinese Avant-garde Music, in: Locating East Asia in Western Art Music, ed. Yayoi Uno Everett und Frederick Lau, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press 2004, pp. 22-39.

31 Cf. Rolf Elberfeld: Das Ich ist kein Ding, sondern ein Ort«: Identität im Zwischen, in: Kulturelle Identität(en) in der Musik der Gegenwart. Kolloquium des Europäischen Zentrums der Künste Hellerau im Rahmen der 18. Dresdner Tage der zeitgenössischen Musik in Kooperation mit der Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden, ed. Marion Demuth and Jörn Peter Hiekel, Saarbrücken: Pfau 2010, pp. 43–52.

34 Identity Criticism and Reflexive Globalisation in New Art Music

the 1980s can be held to be a symptom analogous of the pop industry’s “superstar syndrome” – identity construction as a career strategy.30 To put it positively: Reflexive globalisation in art music becomes truly relevant if its “identity problems” are audibly perceived. A new framework of and reconsidered perspective on established concepts of identity can affect both hegemonial European aesthetics discourse and cultural essentialistic and neonationalistic models beyond the West. The resulting musical situations whether they are described as “cluster identities”, “patchwork identities” or “multiple identities”31, may ultimately claim social

The Uneasy, Unarticulated State of American Music

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Kyle Gann

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The term “American music” is devoid of specific connotative content today, even if we limit it to composed music in the concert tradition. If it means music made by Americans, Americans today come from all over the globe – and some whose ancestors were born here are working in global traditions. The American educational system pretty reliably exposes young composers to analysis of European modernist masterworks; jazz harmony; musical software; indigenous innovators such as Henry Cowell, John Cage, and Conlon Nancarrow; and a number of third-world musical traditions, most notably Indonesian gamelan, African drumming, Japanese gagaku, and Indian classical music. In addition, young composers absorb pop music and mass culture on their own. From this increasingly de-centered pedagogic tradition, they are understandably flung in all directions, flowing into a sea of aesthetic proclivities with myriad flavors but few demarcations or distinct categories.

This absolute openness in terms of aesthetic choices contrasts markedly, though, with drastic limitations on what kind of visibility or impact the composer can expect to achieve in American society.

Major record labels continued to promote new music as a public service through the 1960s and ’70s, but the corporate-friendly Reagan years made any such altruistic principles a thing of the past.

Corporations now so heavily push kinds of music that can be easily categorized and that return a reliable profit that the amount of public distribution accorded new classical (or postclassical) music has dimmed to a tiny trickle. It was reported during the 1980s that there were 40,000 self-identifying composers in the U.S. – by now the number must be considerably more than that. A few hundred of those, perhaps, can expect to become visible within a particular musical subculture. Those who manage to get a foothold in the orchestra circuit will receive marginally the most attention, for the capitalist reason that orchestras, which advertise heavily in newspapers, therefore get dependably reviewed by said newspapers. But

36 The Uneasy, Unarticulated State of American Music

even here, the bulk of the general audiences of those orchestras are more likely to consider the occasional living composer a necessary evil than a cultural leader.

It is arguable, I think, that there are no American composers today who have achieved the same public stature since 1980 as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams did just prior to that date. While the obvious conclusion to be drawn from this would be that the generations of composers born after 1950 are rather lame, I suggest that another explanation is more compelling. The creativity of the best composers continues at a high level. But the skewed economics of distribution, combined with the sheer numbers of working composers and their smoothly-modulated rainbow of styles, makes it increasingly unlikely that any major figures commanding a wide consensus will emerge in the near future.

In 1967, musicologist Leonard Meyer published a fiery book that was widely read at the time: Music, the Arts, and Ideas. In it he predicted “the end of the Renaissance,” by which he meant that there would cease to be a musical mainstream, and that instead we would settle into an ahistorical period of stylistic stasis in which a panoply of styles would coexist. This seemed an outrageous forecast at the time, but Meyer’s prescience has been greatly confirmed.

The first stage of the breakup of the mainstream in American music was a separation in the 1960s and ’70s into three large trends. The first was the stream of serialist music along an American adaptation of European 12-tone principles, which grew in political power and visibility during those decades. Almost at the same time, minimalism grew from the world of ideas John Cage had opened up, and offered a more timeless, less articulated aesthetic parallel to certain non-Western musics. Minimalism found a home in the lofts of Downtown Manhattan, and the music of the freer post-Cagean world came, by the late 1960s, to be called “Downtown music.” Serialist music grew to be mostly associated with academic music departments and ensembles, and after awhile – partly due to its association in Manhattan with Columbia University – earned the back-formation “Uptown music.” In the 1980s, some composers who rejected both minimalism and serialism, opting instead for a continuation of a more intuitively Romantic, conventionally orchestral modernist aesthetic, insisted on being called “Midtown” instead. Several of the most prominent “Midtowners,” such as George Rochberg, David Del Tredici, John Corigliano, and William Bolcom, actually returned to employing the conventions of late Romanticism (Mahler’s idiom

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being especially popular) with an accompanying dose of irony, satire, or collage. In 1983 the term “New Romantic” was coined for this development.

These divisions played havoc with the standard modernist model of conservative versus avant-garde. Most obviously, the prior association of tonality with conservatism and atonality with avantgarde fell apart. The Uptown serialists could claim to be avantgarde for posing the most challenges to the audience’s perception.

The Downtown minimalists could claim avant-gardeness by having transcended European genres and embracing a world aesthetic.

And the Midtown New Romantics could claim avant-gardeness for having jettisoned even the modernist assumption of stylistic homogeneity. A composer writing a highly tonal piece might be taking Benjamin Britten (conservative) as a model, or Arvo Pärt (avantgarde); and who could tell for sure?

The battles among these three segments of the composing community, each trying to take on the mantle (and attendant funding and distribution) of the new mainstream, were fierce, played out in newspaper diatribes, college classrooms, and lecture halls.

After a few years, though, this state of things began to dissolve.

First of all, the number of 12-tone pieces (or at least the number of composers publicly extolling 12-tone principles) fell off dramatically in the late 1980s. Minimalism, entering the orchestra world through commissions given to Glass and Adams in particular, became somewhat watered down from its original hard-core principles, and morphed into a textural lingua franca. The extremes declined, as did the prestige of being on the extreme. The shape of American music went from looking like three separate streams to more like a bell curve. There are still adherents of the “New Complexity” in the U.S., Jay Alan Yim possibly the best known. At the other end of the curve, there are those attached to the Wandelweiser school of silence and extreme duration and simplicity, like Michael Pisaro. But that the guru of New Complexity is a British composer, Brian Ferneyhough, and the Wandelweiser a European group, may further suggest how un-American it is to be an extremist these days.

It is against the background of those battles that many of the composers born after 1975 have defined themselves. The new generation of composers is conflict-averse, its discourse reduced to a broadly tolerant pragmatism. However much the young composers believe they have blessedly transcended ideology and partisanship, though, they have nevertheless inherited some of the previous attitudes in a less articulated form. Instead of distinct categories, what

38 The Uneasy, Unarticulated State of American Music

we have is a continuum of opinions along the accessibility/difficulty scale: how much should the composer keep the audience in mind?

What should be the relation, if any, to pop music? Is the educated elite of academia a sufficient audience? Should the composer ignore all questions of perceptibility and follow his pleasure? Is there, indeed, any way to predict what music will go over well with an audience and what won’t? Does the long tail phenomenon of Internet distribution render all such questions moot? What is most typical of American music at the moment, I would argue, is a large-scale, implicit, almost publicly unarticulated debate on the social use of music, of what it is made for.

For obvious reasons, the composers who actively court public relevance have been the most visible. Starting in 1987, the Bang on a Can festival, run by Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, has championed music of a hard-hitting, exciting profile. The baseball-cap-wearing founders have distanced themselves from the perceived elitism of classical music presentation, presenting in unusual and informal spaces and replacing the formality of program notes with personal appearances by each composer performed.

A certain amount of rock-star wanna-beism is in evidence. The much quieter Common Sense collective, a bicoastal group of eight composers including Dan Becker, Carolyn Yarnell, Belinda Reynolds, and others, has banded together to seek group commissions from ensemble to ensemble, like a roving herd of compositional locusts.

With these new paradigms begin the strategies of most composers who have become visible since. 1. Eschew elitism and traditional formality in presentation, regardless of what the music is like.

2. Control your own distribution and the means to create your own performances. In either case, take your music into your own hands and be independent of existing institutions.

The Bang on a Can people eventually formed their own label, Canteloupe. Probably the most visible group of younger composers in recent years is that united by another such startup, the New Amsterdam label, including Judd Greenstein, Nico Muhly, William Brittelle, Corey Dargel, and others. Brittelle’s theater music tackles the conventions of television. Dargle’s works are elaborately composed pop songs on texts of sometimes shocking personal honesty. Anti-Social Music, despite its ironic name, is a group (including Pat Muchmore, Andrea La Rose, and others) that has specialized in extreme informality of presentation, often setting off the music with abundant humor and surreality.

ThingNY, run by Paul Pinto, is an ensemble that has tried public-

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ity stunts such as commissioning brief works via mass e-mailings. The resulting styles of all this music are not always predictable from the format, the emphasis being on finding a new presentation paradigm free from associations of either conventional classical music performance or the stylistic subcultures of the 1980s.

That these groups have garnered the most publicity does not mean their approach is numerically dominant. A probably larger number of composers still move through more traditional channels, attending the “right” grad school, studying with influential teachers, applying for prizes and awards, and angling for orchestral commissions. Even here, a correlation between style and idiom cannot be assumed. One of the most successful young composers on the orchestra circuit, Mason Bates, moonlights as a club DJ. His orchestral works such as Omnivorous Furniture (2004) typically include him playing a noisy music of pop beats from his laptop in the center of the orchestra. Even so, there is an intermittent streak of lyric romanticism in his music, possibly drawn from his studies with one of the seminal New Romantics, John Corigliano. Some mention should also be made of how widespread the influence of John Adams has become on young musicians’ orchestral music. His propulsive repeating brass chords, dotted by abundant and explosive percussion, have become a rather well-defined style of their own. And since so many commissions for living composers are in the form of ten-minute concert openers, this style/format combination has acquired the jocular nickname “subscriber modernism.”

Microtonality is a steadily growing field, more so on the West Coast.

Composers working in equal-step scales are far more numerous, and their music tends toward complexity; those fewer working in just intonation, with Ben Johnston and La Monte Young as models, often opt for meditativeness. Boston has its own microtonal subculture based on a 72-pitchto-the-octave scale, based on the practice of Ezra Sims and the late Joe Maneri. This overall trend remains impeded by technological hurdles and performance difficulties. John Adams, though, made an unusually public microtonal statement with his 2003 orchestra work The Dharma at Big Sur, which incorporated natural harmonics in the brass.

Moving outward from these recent, more definable trends, it is fairly impossible to generalize further about what’s going on in American music. American composers write for Javanese gamelan with or without orchestral instruments and electric guitars (Evan Ziporyn has been active in this area); perform music from their laptops; create sophisticated MIDI versions of orchestral music; subvert pop-music conventions (a specialty of Mikel Rouse); base their music in Balkan singing styles. While many composers make an ambitious bid for social relevance, many, many others are content to accept their marginalization in American culture in return

Kyle Gann is a composer and critic in the field of new music and since 1997 has taught music theory, history and composition. In his publications, he is dedicated to American music of the 20th century, especially that of Conlon Nancarrow, John Cage and Robert Ashley. He is joint editor of the Ashgate Companion to Minimal Music, and is currently working on Essays After a Sonata: Charles Ives’s Concord.

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for total autonomy. One thing we all grow slowly more aware of is our increasing disadvantage, as individual low-subsidy artists, in terms of technological sound production compared to the massive resources of corporate film and popular music. Wealth brings a sonic sophistication that the autonomous sound-experimenter can only envy.

One can only report that musical creativity continues at a high level in the United States, pursued under a troubling and sometimes debilitating set of circumstances. At one end is the corporate world of commercial music with its untold riches and aesthetic co-optation; at the other end, the rarified air of the unpublic career totally subsidized by academia. In between are thousands of composers trying to strategize an artistically fulfilling career in a capitalist society run amok, poisoned by money and ruled for the benefit of the richest 0.1 percent. In short, we are all, every one of us, trying to discern what kind of music it might be satisfying, meaningful, and/or socially useful to make in a corporate-controlled oligarchy. The answers are myriad, the pros and cons of each still unproven. We maintain our idealism and do the best we can.

Between the Arts with Comfort and Transgressing the Horizon – European Music and the Search for Its Criteria

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Jörn Peter Hiekel Are there comprehensive criteria for the evaluation of today’s music? It seems reasonable to answer no to such a question when it comes to just European music. To which could be added: already in Monteverdi’s time and all the more in the 18th and 19th centuries the criteria faltered when different areas of performance came into effect. When comparing only Monteverdi’s sacred and secular works with each other, an aesthetic cleft appears which has to do with the different expectations and spheres of experience of the various genres. These differences become all the more apparent when simultaneously comparing music from different regions of the world. This all points to the category of Aptum, which in ancient rhetoric meant the appropriateness in many ways: especially as the audience is in each case ever changing. And this can – even must – shape the style, inflection and respective response of the audience.

Nevertheless, the question posed at the beginning is substantial enough not to be answered with total relativism. In assessing the inflection and approach of contemporary music, reference should be made to the split between “popular” and “elitist” tendencies, which could already be seen in 19th century European musical culture.1 This has self-evident and unproblematic, but indeed also precarious sides. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it is self-evident in

1 See Populär vs. Elitär? Wertvorstellungen und Popularisierungen der Musik heute pub. J. P. Hiekel, Mainz 2013.

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The split in the music branch

“Outmoded” reflectiveness?

In order to sharpen the view on the formation of criteria, it is essential to consider the existential dimension of music which emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries as strongly as never before.

Carl Dahlhaus, to name but one example, diagnosed an “element of progressive reflectiveness” by Beethoven. But it is exactly this reflectiveness which connects Beethoven with Schubert and many other composers, which today, even by cultural authorities, is in many quarters regarded as outmodedly elitist. And every form of "effort", which is essential to access music of most different epochs, is becoming increasingly side-lined. This was occasionally the case in earlier times, for instance when it was sought to reinterpret Beethoven’s 9th Symphony as an orgy of roaring cheering. A major factor for this today as well as the media, who assume a sales argument rather than a cultural mission, is inadequate, often directed at belittling standards, music-pedagogical

42 Between the Arts with Comfort and Transgressing the Horizon – European Music and the Search for Its Criteria

music – as in other areas of the arts – that the “popular” evolved as a distinct category and “culture for everyone” developed. This was due to the ever-increasing culture segment of (the even at this time, sometimes used promotionally effective slogan) “light music”, which played a particularly relieving role after everyday work.

In view of the fact that in bourgeois music culture there were ever distinctly noticeable popular tendencies, of which composers such as Beethoven, Schumann or Wagner emphasised the need in music to go far beyond such tendencies, and which Heinrich Heine later aptly characterised as "arts with comfort". It can be claimed that the whole of Western music was in a state of tension between the above-mentioned poles – and that both sides were pronounced in varying fractional units.

The split between catchy and complex musical styles was precarious albeit where the longing for representation or for light entertainment was strongly dominant, so that these alternative approaches felt threatened in their existence. A poignant example of this is the failure of Schubert’s great opera Fierrabras to be performed. To put it simply: those in charge of the Vienna Opera, who were unanimously oriented towards certain tendencies of Italian opera, had clearly lost the criteria for the evaluation of Schubert’s unusual opera concept.

education.2 Many of the more complex and less popular pieces of earlier times are becoming increasingly marginalised in musical life and will probably disappear into a specialist niche.

What does this mean for music composed today? Because it is affected by the split in musical life, far more than the music of the first decades of the 20th century. But how should composers respond to this split? Or should they be advised not to take it into account? There is no question that if the music of today operates with strategies and elements of popular music, it is contemporary and can originally formulate a relation to the world. Yet this current ever more visible aesthetic dispositive is problematic, hence a considerable degree of catchiness and direct perceivability is to be expected from all music without exception. Because therein lies the danger that the spectrum of what is possible will not broaden, but rather shrink – as it has in some countries (such as the USA) long been observed. Thereby something will be lost along the way: namely the wealth of perspective of new music.

In 1983 at the end of a keynote lecture in Geneva, Luigi Nono formulated: “Awaken the ear, the eyes, human thinking, the intelligence, the maximum externalised inwardness. This is of the utmost importance today.”3 The first words of this sentence were

2 Not least the subject of the very readable book by Holger Noltze, Die Leichtigkeitslüge. Über Musik, Medien und Komplexität, Hamburg 2010.

3 Geneva lecture "Error as Necessity" 1983

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conspicuously displayed at the Salzburg Summer Festival in 2011 and became the motto of the whole festival. Have the Darmstadt avant-garde, once the epitome of distance to the classical music world, finally arrived in this classical music world. Evidence may suggest that this is the case. Considering that Notations by Pierre Boulez or Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gruppen are meanwhile being played by some of the world’s leading symphony orchestras, one gets the impression that the reconciliation between the avantgarde and the subscription establishment has become a matter of course.

However, this impression is misleading. There are many reasons for this, also on the part of the large international festivals, but above all in the realm of urban concert promoters almost everywhere in Europe. Clever programme policy that interlocks the new with the long-established and features the tension between them is the ideal solution so as to approach the impera-

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Helmut Lachenmann and the view of other cultures The work of Luigi Nono’s sometime student Helmut Lachenmann is a particularly vivid example of exactly that which can represent the interaction between the traditional and the new.

Lachenmann, who was long misunderstood as an exponent of the modern without tradition, developed over the years a tonal language, which in its searching, inquiring approach and unknown, uncertain leading basic attitude would be unthinkable without experience of European music history. It is remarkable and – and also significant in the context of this explanation – that one can be drawn closer to the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Bruckner or Mahler and their respective subtleties through intense encounter with the works of Lachenmann or other similar composers. Although it should not be denied that the reception of some new music – and also that of Lachenmann – profits from the

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tive in Nono’s lecture. However, in many places the music of today is dismissed or at least marginalised. The composers themselves have certainly contributed to this marginalisation and have promoted the deep fissure between the different segments of our music culture. But the fact that great art, which moves beyond the merely representative, has always to do with risk, especially with the search for forms of communication beyond the already proven, and in some quarters the awareness of this is missing – also with some composers, who serve the establishment with musical ready-made goods.

It appears more and more obvious – and this is remarkable – that the work of even the most important composers, who are regarded as radical avant-gardists, is linked with tradition. Everywhere behind the facade of the decidedly new, arise evident references to art music of the past – especially to music which tries to combine sensual experience with considerable reflexivity, and not only seek ways to stir the heart or to create a pleasant mood.

Sometimes it is even possible to express specific references. In certain works by Luigi Nono one may think of references, which the composer himself mentioned, to Verdi and Bellini. However, more importantly when naming references of tradition, it could be said, are the approach and basic gestus of music.

4 H. Lachenmann, ‚East meets West? – West eats Meat‘ … oder das Crescendo des Bolero. Materialien. Notizen und Gedankenspiele, in: Jörn Peter Hiekel (ed.), Musik-Kulturen. Texte der 43. Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik 2006 (= Darmstädter Diskurse, Bd. 2), Saarbrücken 2008, pp. 84–98, here p. 90.

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bearing, which is found in people with a true appreciation of the arts, who are not permanently (over) endowed with an impression of classical art music.

What is evident here is the relevance of a European horizon of experience, this being said, one is entitled to ask how things are in other cultural contexts. This concerns the reception attitude and the question of how much “effort” in the art experience can be expected outside Europe, effort which could be taken for granted in the case of a late Beethoven sonata, a Bruckner symphony, or pieces by Webern or Lachenmann. The same can be said about the question of criteria for the evaluation of music.

Lachenmann is one of the composers who has been dealing with these issues for some time. He did so probably most emphatically in 2006 in the symposium Musik-Kulturen as part of the Darmstadt summer courses – giving a lecture with the ironic title “East meets West – West eats Meat” oder das Crescendo des Bolero. What Lachenmann had to say on this occasion about his own intercultural experiences first highlighted the situation of a certain European separation from the possibilities and criteria of other cultures.

He described the surprise he had experienced himself 50 years earlier in the very same place when he met the Indian sitar player and composer Ravi Shankar. Lachenmann remembers Shankar’s night performance in Darmstadt as “an almost shock-like music experience [...] when time became a magical space, where the total accordance of musicians with their music lent a great intensity to our experience of their sounding presence – we as wide-eyed spectators sitting in awe of a happier culture, which was considering and conducting itself intact, which obviously had neither problems with its tradition nor with its ‘concept of material’ and carried us along, affecting and intoxicating us, embarrassing us – despite all happiness – when we thought about the next morning and saw ourselves tracing rows and parameter organisations and other dissection of works that must have appeared as hollow hand-crafted products, when compared with this present experience of intoxication, as artificial operations exerted on abstract objects, which obviously hardly earned the name ‘music’ but rather the disdainful description of ‘structure.’”4

Music as ritual?

To follow Lachenmann’s explanation, it would be pointless and even fatal to judge Ravi Shankar’s music with the criteria he would use to judge his own compositional style. It should especially not be measured against the perceptions of the development of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, etc., as developed by Beethoven and many other composers – otherwise the conclusion of ‘primitivity’ would be quickly drawn. However another insight is important, which also underlies Lachenmann’s description that the experience of ritual music from Africa, Asia, or somewhere else in the world cannot in any way be put on a level with an ethno-pop event, a view which is delivered by many in the media, but rather it is an idiosyncratic experience. Only in this way can the experience for Lachenmann be a “deeply shaking transgression of the horizon”.5 Independent of the discussion on Ravi Shankar (which could of course be controversial) one is reminded of authentic musical tradition within which the experience of artistic performances a certain perseverance, persistence and hence a “capacity of reception” can be required. If one thinks of Steve Reich’s or György Ligeti’s en-

5 Lachenmann “East meets West”.

46 Between the Arts with Comfort and Transgressing the Horizon – European Music and the Search for Its Criteria

This lecture on the one hand identifies a sensational experience in a time characterised by material thinking and strict avantgardism, but on the other hand makes transparent the fact that Lachenmann was hardly a composer who from then on was able and willing to emulate this music which had so surprised him. This statement underlines that which was in the mind of many – especially European – composers, the present significant differences between European musical culture and its tradition on the one hand, and on the other hand the various distinct music forms outside Europe, which were not conceived for a concert ritual in the European sense. The crux is Lachenmann’s diagnosis of a culture “which was considering and conducting itself intact”. A similar awareness probably characterises a significant part of European music, provided it refers to elements of a non-European context.

This is mostly done implicitly and as a matter of course. However it has now become more usual in the classical music world – probably inspired by post-colonial discourse in other subjects – to more clearly outline intercultural situations of reception.

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thusiasm for Africa, it also becomes clear that this factor of a time experience is of particular importance to many European and North American composers. In the last decades, the coexistence of different aesthetic approaches in contemporary music has had the tendency to become continually blended. And it should be noted that the rituals situation, which at first sight seems to represent the difference between European art music and many other forms of music, has become especially important in new music in recent years. An example of this is recent Central European vocal music, in which the ritual side of the music often with the tendency toward resolution – or suppression – is semantically accompanied. At this point, the debate between at least parts of the European avantgarde since 1950 and other non-European cultures must be considered. Focal points for this purpose are the encounters with various Far Eastern concepts of music and philosophy, and in addition – famously inspired by Zen Buddhism – the thinking of John Cage. All this helped many composers to create music beyond conventional functionalisation and beyond the rituals of the bourgeois concert hall, and helped bring about alternative musical representation.

These examples clearly show that a neat separation – here music for the concert hall, there ritual music for other occasions – would in many cases be insufficient. And there are, in the context of the new music of the last decades, several compositional approaches which offer permanent transition between the two sides. An example of this is the work of Toshio Hosokawa, within which there are strong European impressions, but at the same time a strong tendency to a concept of music which aims at a contemplative approach and a genuine ritual character. On the one hand Hosokawa wrote music on the borderline of his own compositions, and on the other hand as a representation of a rich existing (Buddhist) tradition, with the core objective of taking from the latter the possibility of a highly intense temporal experience. The intentions of Hosokawa and many other composers of the last decades with their orientation towards non-European tradition are obvious: they are aiming for a representation or aural approach which leads away from the concept of “sonically moving forms” (Eduard Hanslick), which is associated with European art music, although there were already admirable attempts to oppose this in earlier times, for example in some pieces by Debussy

Accessibility and the worldliness In this context, the evident fact which emerges is that the criteria which are pronounced when dealing with Lachenmann’s music cannot be applied to all contemporary music. It is as if he wanted to record this himself, when Lachenmann in his own occasional composition Sakura-Variationen (2000/2001) assumes a different concept of music. With this he achieves a form of accessibility which largely contradicts his other works. The music attempts to place a well-known Japanese song in a new context, which in the final part according to the composer, “flees into the civilised”.7 For the occasion and audience – the piece was written for a children’s concert – this is obviously relevant.

But also in the international new music “scene”, in which Lachenmann is held to be one of the most important crystallisation figures, there are naturally new approaches, which differ significantly at different points from his approach. To name but a few examples, if we think of the various manifestations of aesthetics in minimal music, of conceptual composition by someone like Peter Ablinger following the Cage rather than Lachenmann approach, of the excessively expressive style in works by Rihm and Widmann, or of the pieces which contain many everyday references by various 30- to 45-year-old year old composers, the latter being currently discussed under the term “worldliness” and are accommodating the increasing need in many places for greater references to the world.

It could be said that every new approach in new music develops new criteria. Therein is a touch of exaggeration. But after all, it may be expected from all music that it should not be identical to something already existing. And it should be certain that everything which leads away from the danger of cooption and draws 6 Silvio Vietta, Die vollendete Speculation führt zur Natur zurück.

Natur und Ästhetik. Leipzig 1995, p. 181.

7 Helmut Lachenmann’s comments on the work Sakura-Variationen, see http://www.breitkopf.com/feature/werk/5547 (Stand: 21. 6. 2013).

48 Between the Arts with Comfort and Transgressing the Horizon – European Music and the Search for Its Criteria

or Schubert. Ultimately it is about that which has been perceptible since the Enlightenment and which in the late 20th century has become increasingly important “critical discourse which questions the dominance and claim to the power of rationalism and the philosophy of reason.”6

attention to the variety of criteria of music will be able to sharpen the sense of the diversity of human culture. However, everywhere where regular debate by music-loving people on the full diversity of 20th- and 21st-century music is withheld, the music world is in danger of moving into a vicious circle, which could lead to losing its own identity or even its own self-destruction.

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Jörn Peter Hiekel is professor of musicology at the University of Music in Dresden, where he is the Director of the Institute for New Music. He is also a lecturer in music history and aesthetics at the Zurich University of the Arts, head of the music section of the Saxon Academy of Arts, and the music education project »KlangNetz Dresden«, as well as the Chairman of the Institute for New Music and Music Education, Darmstadt.

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Monika Voithofer and Irene Suchy The 87th World New Music Days will be held this year in Košice, Bratislava and Vienna. As host and founder of the world new music days, Austria has already organised eight such festivals. This text is intended as a review of some of these festivals, and is based on previously unpublished documents taken from the archives of the Austrian ISCM. Deliberations of the International Society for Contemporary Music, particularly on the preparation and selection work for the world new music days held in Austria, will be shown.

It is an attempt to bring to mind the relevance of the past.

In 1922 the International Chamber Music Performances in Salzburg, which were part of the foundation of the International Society for Contemporary Music, had been considered to be one of the first music festivals after World War I. Young Austrian composers, some of them female, found it difficult to assert themselves after World War I alongside the generation of conservative composers and music critics based around Joseph Marx and Julius Korngold. The need for new music to be heard was as great as the need for it to be listened to. For this reason Rudolf Réti and Egon Wellesz founded the International Chamber Music Performances in Salzburg, which took place from 7 to 10 of August under the patronage of Richard Strauss. This “zeroth world music festival” consisted of seven concerts with works by 36 composers from 7 countries. In contrast to the Donaueschingen Chamber Music Performances for the Promotion of Contemporary Art Music, established one year previously, the aim was to perform not only German music, but rather to overcome national

1 „Nun hat Österreich, so weit es helfen und fördern will, das Wort.“ NN, Internationale Kammermusikaufführungen in Salzburg, in: Musikblätter des Anbruch, 1st and 2nd February magazine edition (1922), pp 33-43. [Archive: OE 12]

50 “Now Austria takes the floor, as far as it wants to help and advance the cause.”

“Now Austria takes the floor, as far as it wants to help and advance the cause.”1

boundaries – “regardless of aesthetic beliefs, nationality, race, religion or the political persuasion of the creators and/or interpreters” – as stated in the statutes of the society.

Music Performances in Salzburg [Archive: OE 12]

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Programme of the International Chamber

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The architect Adolf Loos voiced criticism after a performance of the String Quartet, Op. 5 by Anton Webern. Enraged by another composer whose face had “shown a humorous expression” during the Webern, he made his displeasure loudly known. The reason for his anger was less the behaviour of the composer during the performance, but rather the fact that Mr. Loos was almost deaf. This disability was the real reason for his displeasure. “Understand the difficulty of the case: the hard of hearing defends the pianissimo! Dear Mozart, look down on Salzburg.”3 At the “zeroth festival” the relevance of the International Chamber Music Performances, and the failure of its declared aims “to overcome ingrained chauvinism in the arts”4, were already demonstrated. Before the last concert on the 10th of August, the organisers were threatened with a disturbance if compositions in the Czech language were sung.

On the programme were Czech songs by the composers Jaroslav Křička, Ladislav Vycpálek and Václav Štěpán. To avoid possible uproar, the Czech composers agreed to a German translation. The newspaper “die Salzburger Wacht” wrote in its edition on the 10th of August:

2 Quoted from: Anton Haefeli, Die Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM).

Ihre Geschichte von 1922 bis zur Gegenwart, Zürich 1982, p 39.

3 Salzburger Wacht from 8th August, 1922, p 5. [Archive: OE 6 – newspaper article] 4 cf. Toni Haefeli, Die „Internationale der Musik“. Ein kurzer Abriß ihrer Geschichte, in: Österreichische Musik Zeitschrift 11 (1982). [Archive: OE 6 – newspaper article]

52 “Now Austria takes the floor, as far as it wants to help and advance the cause.”

Due to limited financial resources and a very short planning phase, it was only possible to inform people abroad to a small extent about the chamber music performances. Therefore, the founders were most astonished by the actual response to the “zeroth festival”. A huge media response, both nationally and internationally, showed the need for and relevance of this newly founded festival for new music.

However, criticism was not long in coming: Universal Edition, as supporter of the chamber music performances (Rudolf Réti was an employee of the music publisher), was accused of self-interest in the selection of material for concert programmes. The German music critic Adolf Weißmann wrote after the “zeroth festival”: Since the works particularly served the interests of U.E., the very powerful Viennese publisher, the selection was limited and tarnished the image of new music.2

Contrary to misleading rumours spread throughout the city by leaflets, attention should be drawn to the fact that in this evening’s last concert of the International Chamber Music Performances songs will be sung in German only. There is, therefore, no pretext for demonstrations.5

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1 st Chamber Music Festival/ World New Music Days

2–7 August 1923 in Salzburg

5 NN, Beim heutigen Kammermusikabend erfolgen Liedvorträge nur in Deutscher Sprache, in: Salzburger Wacht, 10th August 1922, pp. 5-6. [Archive: OE 6 – newspaper article]

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Inspired by the great success of the “zeroth” festival, expectations for the first music festival in 1923, also held in Salzburg, were very high. An article by Adolf Weißman published in the music press at the beginning of the festival can be interpreted as a manifesto: The sounds that we expect to hear in Salzburg between 2 and 7 August are probably the strongest manifestation of the human community beyond all political confusion. [...]International is certainly an inadequate word when it comes to art, but it expresses the will to break through barriers.

Also, it is an aspiration to know what is universally valid in that which is being created today. If we take racial differences for granted, then we must recognise the commonality in the problems of today’s music. Common problems unify. From racially different solutions to problems shall universality arise. [...] What cannot today be international, we know to be: romantic sentimentality, academic clichés of form. What lies beyond appears to be chaos.

For the experiment has a thousand potentialities. Also, because incompetents and posturers take part in it. But things are already brightening. And even if what is universally valid is not yet resolved, so it may be maintained that the distinction between the worthwhile and the worthless in new music can be more easily seen than a few years ago. This is already a result of the post-war period, which has eliminated isolation here and the politicisation of music there. Now, a choice of contemporary chamber music will be offered in six concerts, and the way to the knowledge of what is universally valid will be energetically pioneered. The jury established at the London conference has chosen. It is believed that enough has been done to satisfy all races, all directions, and the need for change. But that “nation” be replaced by “race” is not yet apparent to all. And it is only natural that even the results of such diligent work as done in Zürich are still challenged by some. The selection will be argued about. But it remains to be said: the programmes of the six concerts have been selected by artistic criteria alone and give a picture of the diversity

The World New Music Days were and are a meeting place for and between composers, performers, publishers and critics. They signify a great career opportunity for composers. However, it was already established at the 1st Chamber Music Festival that although a large number of people from the music industry participated, there were very few other people in the audiences. The festival audience quickly became known as an “ elite society”. In 1972 the Graz World New Music Days still had a problem of empty seats. “ [...] the delegates, composers and critics were once again amongst themselves [...].”8 Schönberg wilfully excluded the audience from his Society for Private Musical Performances, which is considered to be one of the forerunners of the ISCM. The International Society for Contemporary Music hadto put up with accusations of seclusion. The musicologist and music journalist Erich Steinhard maintained: To study the psyche of the modern musician, music festivals offer the best opportunity. There you can experience wonders of megalomania, boasting and jealousy.9

6 Adolf Weißmann, Einige Worte zu Salzburg, in: Musikblätter des Anbruch June/July (1923), pp 169-172. [Archive: OE 6 – newspaper article] 7 cf.: Ernst Křenek, Die Blubo-Internationale, in: 23. Eine Wiener Musikzeitschrift no. 17/19 (1934), pp. 19-24.

8 Franz Endler, Experten spielen für Experten. Südwestfunkorchester beim IGNMFest in Graz, in: Die Presse, 12th Oktober 1972. [Archive: OE 6 – newspaper article] 9 Anton Haefeli, Die Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM). Ihre Geschichte von 1922 bis zur Gegenwart, Zürich 1982, p. 105.

54 “Now Austria takes the floor, as far as it wants to help and advance the cause.”

of contemporary composition. They also bring remote and distant artists to the forefront. What will be heard is young in spirit, vibrant and awakens hope. In this, people of all nations are to be found. So, once again, it is up to the patrons of the world to make the echoes of this festival resound as widely as possible.6 Alban Berg owed his great breakthrough to the performance of the String Quartet, Op. 3 at the 1st Chamber Music Festival. Ernst Křenek, aged 23, was also a great discovery at the festival, where his string quartet was performed. Eleven years later, Křenek would criticise the ISCM for doing nothing at all to oppose the “Blubo-Internationale” (an amalgamation of the words blood and soil brothers). “Blubo-Brodeln” refers to the “ Permanent Council for the International Cooperation of Composers”, founded in 1934 in Wiesbaden by Richard Strauss. For Křenek, the ISCM, through its cumbersome organisation, developed into a society opposed to new music.7

At the 46th World New Music Days in Graz, Peter Vujica said in his speech entitled The Ghetto of New Music: Freedom and the validity of the laws of belief ended at the gates of the ghetto. At night these gates were closed by those who lived inside the ghetto and not those outside. [...]And it is this isolation, which contains the term ghetto, that is involuntary by the surroundings and voluntary by the outcasts; it is this double isolation which justifies the term ghetto be given to festivals of new music.10

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2nd World New Music Days: 1st Orchestral Music Festival of the ISCM 31 May–2 June 1924 in Prague 2nd Chamber Music Festival of the ISCM 6–9 August 1924 in Salzburg

10 Peter Vujica, Festival – Ghetto der Neuen Musik, in: Neue Musik und Festival.

Studien zur Wertungsforschung 6, ed. by Otto Kolleritsch, Graz 1973, p. 75.

11 Quoted from: Anton Haefeli, Die Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM).

Ihre Geschichte von 1922 bis zur Gegenwart, Zürich 1982, p 98.

12 Quoted from: Anton Haefeli, Die Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM).

Ihre Geschichte von 1922 bis zur Gegenwart, Zürich 1982, p 55.

13 Quoted from: Anton Haefeli, Die Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM).

Ihre Geschichte von 1922 bis zur Gegenwart, Zürich 1982, p 94.

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In 1924 the chamber music festival was augmented by an orchestral music festival, which underlines the significant role of the ISCM and its world new music days only two years after the establishment of the institution. As Egon Wellesz summed up: “ We again have a musical life which is associated with the creativity of the present generation.”11 The higher the expectations, the higher the likelihood of disappointment. Several sections felt to be at a disadvantage by the number of programmed compositions from their countries. The jury, as programme committee for the concerts, provided a target for their criticism, and this has remained the case throughout the history of the world new music days. From the members of the jury, whose “absolute integrity and independence were fundamental principles, and who were chosen annually anew by delegates (sections), and who were in deed and truth the artistic conscience of the whole society”, it was expected that “the honour of being a member of the jury far outweighed any remuneration”.12 “Dissatisfaction with the operation of a jury is inherent in the very concept of the term jury.”13

critic Georges Jean-Aubry wrote.

A further criticism of jury decisions was that of age: either the works performed were deemed to be too old, or the composers themselves were deemed to be too old. In 1958, as Heinrich Strobel, then the President of the International Society for Contemporary Music, initiated a survey on the “meaning and role of the ISCM”, Karlheinz Stockhausen answered: Meaning: Every year the world’s population take notice of the most important composers of the 25 member nations of the ISCM through the week-long world new music days. Most of the composers performed are over 45 years old and have unfortunately so far been ignored by the world’s population [...]For new discoveries there are still a few places free – as foreseen forever in the statutes of the ISCM: each country that is a paying member has the right to performances of two works per year.

(Fortunately, there is not the slightest difficulty for musical countries such as New Zealand, Iceland, etc. to raise the required number of scores of new music to be performed every year.)15 Over the years, many accusations have brought about many changes to the statutes in order to determine the best possible quality and quantity of concerts. However, it should be noted that numerous violations of the statutes have shown the impossibility of implementing them. Objectivity (particularly with regard to nationality) is only possible to a limited extent for the jury – the most prominent example of this being the mutual support of Berg and Webern in their function as members of the jury.

14 Quoted: Anton Haefeli, Die Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM).

Ihre Geschichte von 1922 bis zur Gegenwart, Zürich 1982, p 94-95.

15 Quoted from: Anton Haefeli, Die Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM).

Ihre Geschichte von 1922 bis zur Gegenwart, Zürich 1982, p 293.

56 “Now Austria takes the floor, as far as it wants to help and advance the cause.”

Charges against the jury were made: on the one hand against their intentions to give the best possible overview of international work and thereby risk a lack of quality; on the other hand, several nations felt they had little to no representation at the festivals.

“Of course full representation in such a short period of time, four to five concerts are at our disposal, cannot be expected; however, we could expect that works would be selected either for their importance, their originality, or (and then) for their merit and would worthily represent each (those chosen) nation. I will not say that the choice be limited to perfect works, since this is an event where innovation and originality (in itself) also have their place, but they should be works of the present age, which – individually or together – are able to reflect the musical activities of the most powerful parts of the country concerned”14– the French music

10 th World New Music Days

16–23 June 1932 in Vienna (within the framework of the Vienna Festival)

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For its 10th anniversary the World New Music Days returned to Vienna.

The ISCM was in its heyday. However, state funding was slow in coming, as documented in a letter of request for assistance written to the Swiss ISCM patron Werner Reinhard by the board of the ISCM section Austria.16

16 cf.: Anton Haefeli, Die Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM). Ihre Geschichte von 1922 bis zur Gegenwart, Zürich 1982, pp 103-104.

17 Willi Reich, Wiener Musikfest, in: 23. Eine Wiener Musikzeitschrift no. 6 (1932), pp. 5-6.

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Nadia Boulanger was the first woman to sit on a jury in Vienna. This was not to be the only time she would do this, as she was also a member of the jury in 1934 in Florence and 1951 in Frankfurt. Just three years earlier, at the 7th World New Music Days in 1929 in Geneva, the work of a female composer had been performed – Concertino für Klavier und Orchester by Henriëtte Hilda Bosman. Bosman was not to remain the only female composer to be performed – from that point on female composers such as Elisabeth Maconchy, Peggy Glanville-Hicks or Elizabeth Lutyens were consistently performed almost annually at the world new music days.

The only reactionaries at this festival were the declared opponents of new music, above all Marx, Kienzl, Korngold and Schmidt, who let themselves be elected to the festival committee, which did not make preparations for the 10th ISCM World New Music Days any easier. On this, Willi Reich noted: It would be expected from the Viennese music critics who are averse to “new music” that they would at least appropriately respect the high ideals and objectives of society. The opportunity to exert senseless hatred and their infamous “objectivity” would still have been abundant in the discussion of individual works. But it happened differently: apart from the rejection which was formulated with objective benevolence by Max Graf and Heinrich Kralik, and the naturally very cautious commentaries of those journals whose contributors were involved in the laborious preparations for the festival, the remaining critical matadors revelled in their representations, which, whilst amusing the Viennese readers accustomed to such journalistic indecency, must have been repellent and depressing for foreign guests.17 R. A. Mooser from Geneva actually described his observations as a guest: It would be expected in such a privileged city that part of the audience should be presumed to be very cultivated, the most cultivated even, and would be as equally interested in the art of the past and the present. But

26th World New Music Days

20 June–3 July 1952 in Salzburg (in conjunction with the Third International Twelve-Tone Congress) Twenty years had passed since the last world new music days in Austria. The post-war period brought new technologies. Music became redefined, a fact neglected by the ISCM. New developments in composition after 1945 were given attention much too late. Because of the new medium of radio broadcasting, hardly anyone was dependent anymore on the intermediary role of the ISCM. The pioneering role of the International Society for Contemporary Music was at an end, the International Summer Courses for New Music inherited their legacy.

The ISCM tried to keep up, as this extract from a letter, written by Georg Hall to the Norwegian composer Pauline Hall, shows: “Critical attitude: the planning of previous ISCM music festivals has, despite the artistic and ethical values of the works presented, always been too esoteric. It was always the same small circle of the enlightened who met at these music festivals; the performances and with them the propagation of our ideas took place, so to speak, with the exclusion of the public. Such practical progress, i. e. a significant increase in the members of our circle, or the increased influence of the innovators in our sections on the musical establishment in their countries, has so far not been very noticeable. This is hardly altered by the fact that a number of active sections, in their own spheres of action, constantly organise concerts with contemporary programmes. In summary, we would like to note that although intellectual attitudes and devoted keenness are excellent, these efforts expended bear no relation to the form of practical consequences and positive results.

18 Anton Haefeli, Die Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM). Ihre Geschichte von 1922 bis zur Gegenwart, Zürich 1982, p. 182.

58 “Now Austria takes the floor, as far as it wants to help and advance the cause.”

this is the very point that is most disappointing for a foreign musician staying in the Austrian capital, disappointment which is impossible to hide... as experienced during a performance of Wozzeck by Alban Berg, which the State Opera presented for members of the ISCM. Whilst those musicians who came from afar tirelessly celebrated the work and its composer with continuous applause, and so unanimously proclaimed the work to be exceptionally worthy and certainly one of the most outstanding of our time..., the Viennese showed indifference, even hostility, towards the work, which was upsetting for many of us [...]18

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Programme [Archive: OE 17]

19 Letter from Dr. Georg Gruber to Frau Pauline Hall, 21st March 1952 [Archive: OE]

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Our planning: the music festivals of the ISCM have up to now been “music exhibitions” for a narrow, specialised circle. We would like the 26th World Music Days, which, being the 30th anniversary of the foundation of our society, should be celebrated in a festive way, to be a really big international music festival, and for this purpose to use propaganda to attract visitors from the whole world, as is already accomplished by existing European festivals. Therefore we strongly advocate holding the world new music days in Salzburg rather than in Vienna.”19

The festival created a huge burden of debt for the ISCM section in Austria. The result was the suspension of all activities by the Austrian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music for the next two years. From the autumn of 1952 until 15 November 1954 they were forced to discontinue all activities in order to settle debts incurred by the World New Music Days.

35th World New Music Days

11–20 June 1961 in Vienna (in conjunction with the 10th International Music Festival of the Vienna Konzerthaus Society and the Vienna Festival) Nine years later, the ISCM appeared not to have caught up with the current music scene. The 35th World New Music Days is recapitulated in this excerpt from a newspaper article: “it certainly has not been at the front when promoting new music, but it has secured and strengthened positions already achieved.”22 Many sought the developmental standstill not in the institution of the ISCM, but in the artists themselves, and the “waning creative driving forces of the young composers”23 were spoken about.

20 Geschäftsbericht 1954 [Archive: OE 13] 21 Archive: Ordnungseinheit 13 22 Franz Willnauer, Das 35. Weltmusikfest der IGNM. Schönbergs Oratorium „Die Jakobsleiter“ während der Wiener Festwochen, in: NZ July/August (1961). [Archive: OE 6 – newspaper article] 23 Franz Willnauer, Das 35. Weltmusikfest der IGNM. Schönbergs Oratorium „Die Jakobsleiter“ während der Wiener Festwochen, in: NZ July/August (1961). [Archive: OE 6 – newspaper article]

60 “Now Austria takes the floor, as far as it wants to help and advance the cause.”

The 26th World New Music Days in Salzburg was a huge festival with devastating consequences for the Austrian section of the ISCM. The annual report of 195420 gives the following information: Through lack of subsidies there was no money for rehearsal fees. Therefore few rehearsals were scheduled, which resulted in low artistic standards at the concerts. Accordingly, members of the press passed poor judgement on them. Cesar Bresgen’s opera (Visiones amantis [Der Wolkensteiner]), which was unsuccessful at the festival, was recorded, but the recording could not be paid for, and the tapes, due to poor quality, could not be used anyway. Countless internal disputes over musicians’ unpaid fees or with the AKM (Austrian performing rights society) are documented in the archives.21

“The huge success, the unknown genius, failed to materialise,”24 so said the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung about the 35th World New Music Days. On the basis of the motto “everything was better in the past”, many looked back with longing to the heyday of the ISCM in

the 1920s and 1930s when works by Berg and Webern were premiered. The difficulties of the institution of the ISCM illustrate the great changes and upheavals of this period. Contemporary music was removed from its marginal position by media such as broadcasting. The world of music was no longer dependent on the world new music days for a platform for new music.

24 Süddeutsche Zeitung.. [Archive: OE 6 – newspaper article]

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Plakat_IGNM

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46th World New Music Days

“Too many failures to justify the effort of a world music festival”25, the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote, “A festival for more mature gentlemen: The International Society for Contemporary Music at the Steirischer Herbst in Graz”26, was the view of the newspaper Kronenzeitung.

Agony in Anniversary Year”27, or, with reference to the heyday of the ISCM under Anton Webern, “Detours to New Music”28, were other newspaper headlines.

Well aware of this situation, in 1972 a symposium with the title Neue Musik und Festival in cooperation with the Institut für Wertungsforschung at the University of Music in Graz was hosted. As a result, many new perspectives were opened. New music became

Brochure [Archive: OE 16] 25 Illustrierte Kronenzeitung, 19th Oktober 1972. [Archive: OE 16] 26 Heinz W. Koch, Ein Fest der reiferen Herren. Die Internationale Gesellschaft für neue Musik beim Steirischen Herbst in Graz, in: Rheinische Post Düsseldorf, 26th Oktober 1972. [Archive: OE 16] 27 ns [Archive: OE 16] 28 ns [Archive: OE 16]

“Now Austria takes the floor, as far as it wants to help and advance the cause.”

9–17 October 1972 in Graz (in conjunction with Musikprotokoll 1972, as part of the festival Steirischer Herbst. Joint organiser: ORF Studio Styria)

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29 Die Presse, 18. 10. 1972. [Archive: OE 6 – newspaper article] 30 Minutes of the jury meeting [Archive: OE 16] 31 NN, Musikfestspiele, in: Playboy (German edition), no. 10, October (1972), p 32 [Archive: OE 16] 32 Quoted from: Anton Haefeli, Die Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM). Ihre Geschichte von 1922 bis zur Gegenwart, Zürich 1982, pp 326-327.

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associated here with largely neglected aspects such as socioeconomic conditions, or the question of music education and training measures in new music.

On the other hand the International Society took measures to rejuvenate its statutes. They wanted to respect local interests when programming, thus accommodating the interest of the audience.29 The meeting of the programme jury was held from 11 to 15 December 1971 with György Ligeti as chairman. The jury were presented with 451 scores, from which 17 had been selected. The remainder were directly decided on by the jury.30 Considering the compositions submitted, there was no question of a decline in interest in the ISCM world new music days’ performances. Also, the many reports about the World New Music Days in Graz suggest that interest still continued to exist: there have not been many contemporary music festivals that have been reported on in Playboy, for example.31 Finally, there were reactionary opponents of new music in Graz, thus the performance of Bellini’s I Puritani can be viewed as a demonstrative counter-event to the festival.

Friedrich Cerha writes in the Festschrift for the 46th World New Music Days in Graz: Nevertheless, in decisive moments the consciousness has remained alert to the fact that the organisation must be open to all tendencies of the times, irrespective of the national or ethnic origin of their representatives, that public reaction, media coverage, the attitudes of those in power should not be crucial when programming events, and that the barriers, oppression and terror that are in the world, should not be respected – at least as regards the concept – in the ISCM. The opportunity for the ISCM today still lies in such a high degree of its independence, as compared to that of other undertakings in the service of new music.32 Peter Vujica, in his symposium lecture, comes to the following conclusion:

Music Days. The access to an internationally recognised or even satisfactory solution is defined by the statutes – each country should submit no more and no less than six works, where different categories of instrumentation should occur. There is no statuary guarantee of standards to make the aesthetic acceptable as contemporary. The question arises: who will submit, who is actually a member of the various national sections, which are organised as differently as can be possible. After the discourse of the past world new music days, people were almost tired of the aesthetic debate, but a new attempt will be made in Vienna in 2013. The committee in Vienna recognises this: the fact that discussion takes place shows that something is worthy of discussion.

The work of the jury, which in addition to statuary possibilities also has a small mandate as far as the rules of the world new music days, includes the establishment of the budget, the deployment of funds, and to programme in such a way that the contemporary is inclusive and not exclusive. The efforts of the 87th 33 Peter Vujica, Festival – Ghetto der Neuen Musik, in: Neue Musik und Festival.

Studien zur Wertungsforschung 6, ed. by Otto Kolleritsch, Graz 1973, p. 80.

64 “Now Austria takes the floor, as far as it wants to help and advance the cause.”

I think that you cannot advertise contemporary music, or contemporary art in general, and you should not try to do so. The improvement of the climate for growth and development can generally only be achieved through the proper education of the people.33 The activities of the International Society for Contemporary Music, Austria section, lie not only in preparatory work for the world new music days, held each year in a different country. With events such as Jugend gibt junge Musik or Musik im Diskurs, with the study of its own history, with an aesthetic range of electronic and sound installations, an involvement in new music on various discursive as well as concert platforms takes place. For the voluntary organisation, however, the focus is on, and the hard work is for, the upcoming World New Music Days in Vienna, Bratislava and Košice.

It is shown amidst preparations for the festival that questions about the organisation of the contemporary festival recur and are repeatedly asked over and over again in the ISCM. Aesthetic positions are not defined in agreement but rather in dispute, and are often displayed as personal feuds. The tension between the European discourse of sovereignty in an international context has always been an issue, from the “zeroth” to the 87th World New

World New Music Days will be examined in November 2013 first by the public and music critics, and will thereafter become a part of music history.

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Irene Suchy, musicologist, is a lecturer at the University of Music in Graz and in the Department of History at the University of Vienna, Oe1 Music Editor, as well as curator of academic and artistic exhibitions. Her academic publications are on the history of Western music in Japan; Paul Wittgenstein (2006); the history of the patrons of Hugo Wolf, Korngold and Schönberg; Friedrich Gulda (2010); Otto M. Zykan (2008); the Youth Music Festival in Deutschlandsberg (2013); and the Nazi history of Strasshof on the Northern Railway (2012). Her awards include the Golden Honorary Medal of the Republic of Austria 2010 and the Bank Austria art award for cultural journalists 2011 and the Karl Renner award 2013.

Monika Voithofer studied musicology and philosophy at the University of Music in Graz and at the Karl-Franzens University Graz. Since 2011 she has participated in the processing of the archive of the International Society for Contemporary Music, Austria section. Her master’s thesis, which she is currently working on, deals with the role of women composers, performers and musicologists in the institution ISCM.

WORLD NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE NO. 23, 2013

by Nina Polaschegg Around the turn of the millennium the Viennese improvisation scene was on a par with that of Tokyo and Berlin. Similarities were developed – stylistic affinities emerged at first independently of each other then increasingly in friendly and close cooperation.

In the last years of the 20th century, Vienna was also a stronghold of experimental electronics. Ironically so, as the city of Vienna was for decades only known as a ‘music museum’, a city of music of the past centuries.

A description of the location follows a short retrospection and ends with an outlook or rather comparison/contextualisation of the general development and diversification of the scenes “improvisation, experimental electronica, real-time music”.

Vienna in the early 1980s The city is grey, with substandard apartments in ramshackle buildings, shared toilets in the hallway, showers in the kitchen, and oil stoves are all commonplace. At least the rent is (still) relatively cheap.

Contemporary music life is also grey, were it not for the ensemble “die reihe“, founded by Friedrich Cerha and his colleagues in 1958, an ensemble that was, and is, dedicated to the performance of contemporary music. And were it not for a dedicated music journalist, who championed contemporary music in Vienna and Austria, and discussed the international avant-garde in the print media, and from 1967 made it heard on the radio for the general public; the journalist is Lothar Knessl and he is also very active today. There was a lot of catching up to do. It was important not only to let current works be heard, but also primarily works of the Second Viennese School, and in general to let the Viennese public hear the music of both pre- and post-war Europe and the U.S. and beyond. In 1988, Beat Furrer and other enthusiastic performers founded the Klangforum Wien, which is today one of the most renowned specialised ensembles for contemporary music. Some

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Improvisation in Vienna and Austria

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musicians, such as the double bass player Ulli Fussenegger or the percussionist Berndt Thurner, repeatedly put out feelers in the realms of improvisation and experimental music.

Whereas in the visual arts and in literature, the “Wiener Gruppe” and its environment were seen, in the history of art, as important avant-garde artists from Austria, there were relatively few such comparably intense and extreme positions in music. However, there was at least some exchange between the musicians and this movement. Mostly the exchange was with some jazz musicians who cooperated with colleagues from other branches of the arts. These jazz musicians were turning more and more to free improvisation. In the mid-1960s the “Reformart Unit” and the “Masters of Unorthodox Jazz” emerged.

However the type of music, which at this time was known as “free” improvisation in other European countries and the U.S., where it went through various stages of development and was to be found in various pronounced styles of playing, was sought (almost) in vain in Vienna in the early 1980s.

In the early 1980s, to be exact in 1982, Ingird Karl and the jazz trumpeter Franz Koglmann provided improvised music with the impetus for further development. They founded the “Wiener Musikgalerie”. This was not just a venue, but rather an extensive festival concept. Musicians were invited to not only give concerts, but also to hold workshops and to work on projects with young musicians from Austria. Therefore, over the years, major jazz musicians came to Vienna and their music was heard here live for the first time. Above all, it is thanks to Ingrid Karl that a wide aesthetic field in jazz and improvised music was covered.

It is thanks to the “Wiener Musikgalerie” that improvisers such as Michael Mantler, Bill Dixon and also Derek Bailey brought their latest input to grey Vienna. Today’s protagonists of free improvisation and experimental music such as, for example, Burkhard Stangl, Martin Siewert, Franz Hautzinger or Werner Dafeldecker (who in the meantime lives in Berlin), all owe much to these workshops. A beginning had been made, and the young improvisers, who were there from the beginning, discovered the richness of improvisation in and beyond jazz. They were on their way to developing their own style. The most important movement in free improvisation, which emerged in Vienna in the mid to the late 1990s and which had its heyday in the first years of the new millennium, was so-called reductionism.

Radical or moderate reductionism was a radical suppression of traditional functionalisation and musical parameters, in favour of a change in focus, range and questioning of music, sound, texture, rhythm, etc. The last few years before, and the first years after the new millennium seemed to be a heyday, which in Berlin, Vienna and Tokyo, although similar in focus was audibly and markedly different, was altogether a powerfully interacting musical approach to improvisation.

The term “reductionism” is a makeshift one. It means reduced in that traditional creative means such as harmonic, rhythmic or melodic figures are fully negated, but with the aim of discovering a new musical wealth. For example, so-called background noise in sound production would be examined closely so that its sound characteristics and variants could be heard in precise detail. The question of the relationship between sound and pause is tested.

The improvisers received stimulus for this in studying, amongst others, the compositions of Morton Feldman, Giacinto Scelsi, Anton Webern, and of course John Cage.

However, this heyday was short-lived. At least if the phenomenon of “reductionism” is considered as being employed as a seemingly widespread tendency of the improvisation scene beyond that of jazz and free jazz. There could soon be heard, at first tentatively and covertly, other significant manifestations of harmonic and rhythmic phrases, distinct sounds and clear pulses.

A tentative re-entry of that which was once supressed. However, this did not mean a turning back to, or a kind of neo-classicism in free improvisation. The once supressed now sounds filtered through the experience of “reductionism”. Well-known, traditional material begins to appear in a new context. Such tendencies were not only observed in Vienna, but also elsewhere. The following examples from Vienna are of former protagonists of “reductionism”: The two guitarists Burkhard Stangl and Martin Siewert incorporated individual harmonic chords or chord progressions into their music. These otherwise known elements appear to be out of place, as surprise moments (e.g. the band efzeg, or solo projects by Burkhard Stangl). In 2006, Franz Hautzinger went further.

He worked increasingly with specific rhythms, jazz and phrases borrowed from jazz rock (e.g. Gomberg, Regenorchester). Christof

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Reduction and reintegration of the formerly suppressed

Kurzmann, one of the Austrian pioneers of loop-based electronic laptop music, returned once again to elements of song. The cellist Michael Moser and the double bass player Werner Dafeldecker wrote for the group Polwechsel (which includes as well as the two previously mentioned musicians the percussionists Burkhard Beins and Martin Brandlmayr ), their compositions had a compact texture, pulsation, and increasingly posed questions of structure, perception, etc. The pianist Manon-Liu Winter, whose playing was for a time limited to noise-like sounds played inside the piano, began to search for different combinations, and more diverse and varied ways of playing the piano.

All the above-mentioned Viennese protagonists have in common the fact that they have expanded the material, which was available to them. This material now sounds different due to their experience and sound experiments with “reductionism”.

Incidentally, the trombone player Radu Malfatti has consistently remained a radical follower of “reductionism”.

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Developments in the last five years

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It could be said that in the last five years in Vienna development has been towards a re-entry. A particularly striking example of this is the phenomenon of the “song” in free improvisation.

Christof Kurzmann, who after spending time in Berlin now commutes between Argentina and Vienna, is devoted on the one hand to experimental works for laptop, which have their roots in the tonal and aesthetic development in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but which on the other hand also have rhythm, phrases and structures which are typical of song. The same applies to Martin Siewert. In the projects of both musicians a complete reversal can be observed. Instead of allowing traditional elements to occur within a reduced, non-linear, and radically abstract textural context, the reverse now happens: abstract textural areas are once again interwoven with linear developments, sometimes in a very concrete way. However, these abstract elements no longer appear to be “exotic” but have become a matter of course. At times this leads to attractive areas of tension between noise-like abstraction and concrete tradition. Other characteristics of the song principle also come to the fore, to turn around the abstract with the resulting sound being lyrically balladic.

A tentative to radical re-admittance of the supressed, of the structural, the linear, the melodic and harmonic and rhythmic forms, leads eventually to a scene where the protagonists pursue diverse idioms. Some continue to focus primarily on one idiom.

However many, and this has been increasingly observed in recent years, follow several parallel stylistic and aesthetic approaches in so-called free improvisation, experimental music, or also structural improvisation. On the whole, the forms and transitions of various idioms are varied and fluent. Proximity to popular disciplines is specifically sought by some musicians. Improvisation is no longer set (mostly and preferably) in an art context. The question of belonging to the art or to the pop scene (to name, albeit much shortened, the different aesthetic, social and cultural traditions of discourse), is not asked and even rejected, differences are principally levelled. It can be observed that others steer towards “pop”. Alternatively, there are improvisers who are increasingly concerned with questions of classical composition such as structure and form, and this increasingly in the context of contemporary music. In other words, there is not just one scene of improvised and experimental music, but many.

To overlap is personal and also typical. The basis of such variety in the scene is as follows: the former protagonists of “reductionism” have gone partly in similar, and partly in very different directions.

Although it should be noted that in its heyday “reductionism” comprised of different motives and approaches. Above all, the musical background of the musicians was very different. It is hardly surprising that Christian Fennesz, Martin Siewert and Christof Kurzmann are increasingly turning towards the song, and that Burkhard Stangl commutes between song and abstract reflection on contemporary music, or that Franz Hautzinger is newly thinking about jazz, and that Michael Moser focuses on and works with questions of structure, area, texture, implicitly rhythmic-metric shapes and composes (e.g. for Polwechsel) much less than he improvises.

In the meantime there have been two further generations of improvisers, who are also characterised by different musical roles.

They benefit from the knowledge and reflection on the, what can now be called ‘historical’, history of free improvisation.

Finally, a reintegration of formerly systematically suppressed parameters does not produce a one-dimensional or clear idiom.

If we consider the idiomatically aesthetic history of freely im-

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Pluralism of idioms – a peaceful coexistence

The middle and younger generations of free improvisers in Vienna Since the beginning of the 21st century, in Vienna, as elsewhere, a significant increase in the number of musicians can be seen, who are also active in the fields of (free) improvisation, experimental acoustic and electronic music, and/or free jazz. Amongst these musicians there are also many women. There are altogether three “generations” of improvising musicians based in Vienna (this is apart from some older musicians still active in the free jazz scene,

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provised music since the 1960s, it is possible to observe different stages, on the one hand some are geographically situated, such as the branch of free jazz in the UK, which in its various forms is still rooted in jazz, and the humorous free actions (Holland), or the German power play Kaputtspielphase, and various other forms in Southern or Eastern Europe, and also the USA and Asia with Korea and Japan. On the other hand, there is freely improvised music which differentiates between various idioms, from the linear, conventional parameters which are newly interpreted, to the negating and noise-like fully emancipated style of playing, and also electroacoustic sounds and “reductionism”, etc.

On the whole, from the first decades of freely improvised music in the 1960s up to the radically “reductionist” tendencies of the late 1990s/early 2000s we can primarily pursue two branches: the comprehensive expansion of material and research of material accompanied by the complete emancipation of noise, and also the increasing solution of total parameters to the negation of the same. All this is the historical background of free improvised music and its reintegration. This background is put to use, sometimes in a regressive way. This is done by representatives of the younger generation as a “knowing rediscovery”, or as their own experience, or as a supposedly new discovery, but in ignorance of history. Energetic free jazz, noise-like interactive communicative playing, noise-based surface texture formation, but also a patchwork-like or fluid transition between different styles of playing are all (again) possible. A pure and strict style of retro playing can hardly be heard. Here “retro” should be understood as meaning to copy, an attempt to copy one-to-one an older idiom. As to fall back on, and to newly combine older idioms means to reinterpret and to recontextualise. To fall back on something is to do so by reflecting on the already experienced.

72 Improvisation in Vienna and Austria

because they operate largely independently of other scenes).

Firstly, they are the pioneers of “reductionism” (amongst others the guitarists Burkhard Stangl and Martin Siewert, the electronic musician Christof Kurzmann, the trumpeter Franz Hautzinger, the turntablist Dieb 13, and also the two pianists Manon-Liu Winter and Katharina Klement). Musicians born between 1970 and 1977 make up the second generation. They are, for example, the recorder players Angelica Castello and Maja Osojnik, the gamba player Eva Reiter, the bass clarinettist Susanna Gartmayr, the percussionist Martin Brandlmayr, the electronic musician Thomas Grill, the pianist Elisabeth Harnik, the double bass player Matija Schellander and many others.

Finally, there is a larger group of younger musicians, a group so large it is nearly impossible to list. The “improvisation boom” is not only positively supported by venues in Vienna, but also by the now ten-year-old training opportunity for improvisation. This is located in the pedagogical faculty of the Vienna Music University and is supported by the instrumental teachers Gunther Schneider and Manon-Liu Winter, and Franz Hautzinger or Burkhard Stangl who conduct ensemble workshops. There are further training opportunities for those who are dedicated to the experimental and to improvisation. The ELAK is a university course for computer music and electronic media; the teaching body consists not only of composers but also improvisers such as Katharina Klement, Marco Ciciliani and Karlheinz Essl. Several years ago, students and alumni of this course together with other young electronic musicians founded the VELAK gala, an experimental site in the field of electronic and electroacoustic improvisation.

Important venues for improvised and experimental music in Vienna are the Echoraum and the Ruprechtskirche for improvised, experimental composed and electronic music, the Rhiz for electronic and electroacoustic music improvisation, and the Celeste, which every Monday holds free jazz sessions, and sometimes the jazz club Porgy and Bess holds experimental music sessions. These locations are long-standing and important venues, which are operated mostly by volunteers and with great dedication – and they serve as a kind of experimental testing ground where meanwhile music history has been written. There are many smaller venues, as in so many cities, which serve as ad hoc event venues. This is about Vienna, however, this is not the complete Austrian picture.

“Vienna, Vienna, you alone?”

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No, not only Vienna, because although Vienna is the capital city of Austria and also the Austrian “capital for improvised music”, it should also be mentioned that improvisation is actively organised elsewhere in Austria. In Linz, in Graz, in Ulrichsberg in the Upper Austrian Mühlviertel, and in St. Johann in Tirol there are small but very lively scenes. Occasionally concerts of improvised music are to be heard in Carinthia, which are sometimes organised by the ISCM. We should also not forget the festivals for improvised and experimental music. These are festivals, which have existed for many years and are among the most important festivals of improvised and experimental music: the “Konfrontationen” in Nickelsdorf, the “Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon”, “Wels unlimited”, and the Artacts in St. Johann in Tirol.

Comprehensive information about events in Vienna, Austria and beyond, musicians’ websites and information about venues, can all be found on the Internet platform www.klingt.org, which is operated by the turntablist Dieb 13 alias Dieter Kovacic. Here you can also subscribe to a weekly newsletter of news and current events.

Nina Polaschegg – see page 8

WORLD NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE NO. 23, 2013

Brief Insight into the History of the ISCM in Slovakia1

by Daniel Matej Slovakia lies in what we call the “heart of Europe”, which is a region truly immersed in culture; but the cultural-political history has been much more complicated for Slovakia than it has been for its neighbours, particularly during the last two centuries. While the 19th century is widely regarded as a period of self-determination and for the building of national identities in central European countries, this was not quite the case for Slovakia, as the revolutionary year 1848 meant a postponement of both the national movement and the formation of autonomous culture for several decades.

Thus a proper environment for the development of a separate Slovak culture (including music) became possible only after October 28, 1918 when the Slovaks joined the Czechs in a common state2.

If we are to briefly present the “history of the ISCM in Slovakia”, we have to speak mostly of the time when Slovaks and Czechs shared the same country. Czechoslovakia was among the founding members of the ISCM3 and very active4 in that respect up

1 In the following text we will be using the most common abbreviation of the International Society for Contemporary music – ISCM. 2 From 1918 onward the situation in Slovak music was quite different from that of Czech music. While music from the regions of Bohemia and Moravia was a true European phenomenon, Slovak cultural infrastructure was just taking shape – and that included music teaching institutions.

The closest musical academies were in Budapest, Prague and Vienna and therefore, outside of Slovakia.

3 Between August 7–11, 1922 the International Society for Contemporary Music was founded at the very first year of the festival in Salzburg. Czech composers Jaroslav Křička and Ladislav Vycpálek were already among those, whose works were performed at that time (Václav Štěpán’s nominated work was not on the programme). Because of the abovementioned reasons, Slovak composers and music were only to be heard at the ISCM festival much later.

4 In the period between 1923 and 1939 Czechoslovakia was the co-organizer of the festival (Prague – Salzburg, 1924 and Prague – Venice, 1925) and festival organizer (Prague, 1935) of three ISCM festival years.

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“Being there…”

to 1939. It was already in the first year, at the festival in Salzburg (1923), that young Alois Hába and world-renowned Leoš Janáček both had their compositions performed. These two authors frequently appeared at the festival in its first stage, which lasted until 19395 when Nazi Germany occupied several neighbouring countries and the World War that followed significantly hindered ISCM activities. The festival was still held but in a limited extent – twice in the USA, but with the absence of several European countries where the ISCM was banned (Czechoslovakia included).

After the ISCM resumed all its activities in 1946, once again Czechoslovakia became an active member6. Alois Hába was an ac-

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tive participant in ISCM activities as a member of the jury choosing compositions for the festival (in both pre-war and post-war periods)7, a member of the international executive committee (1946/47–1948)8 and in 1957 he became its honorary member9.

The period of joy stemming from renewed international contacts in the area of modern music did not last long, for in February 1948 the Bolshevist coup changed the political conditions and this situation became highly detrimental to liberal arts. The

5 Among other Czechoslovak (namely Czech) regulars during the first stage of the ISCM festival (this stage lasted just as long as the so-called first Czechoslovak Republic) were Karel Bohuslav Jirák, Otakar Ostrčil, Ladislav Vycpálek, Bohuslav Martinů, Vítězslav Novák, Karel Hába (brother of Alois Hába), Pavel Bořkovec, Karel Reiner, and Jozef Zavadil. The first Slovak composer to participate in the ISCM festival was Alexander Moyzes with his work Wind Quintet (Prague, 1935) and the second was Eugen Suchoň with his Sonatina for Violin and Piano (Warsaw, 1937) two years later.

6 On July 7, 1946 the first post-war ISCM festival was held in London. with his Little Violin Suite (performed by Richard Zika and Karel Reiner), which was supposed to be played at the festival already before the war.

The Czechoslovak delegation was made of Václav Kaprál (chairman of the Czech Composer’s Syndicate), Alois Hába, Rafael Kubelík and Karel Reiner.

7 Among other jury members originating from Czechoslovakia (and later, Slovakia) were (sorted chronologically by the year when they were part of the jury): Václav Štěpán, Václav Talich, Karel Bohuslav Jirák, Erwin Schulhoff, Rafael Kubelík, Otmar Mácha, Miloslav Kabeláč, Zbyněk Vostřák, Marek Kopelent and Daniel Matej.

8 Further members of international ISCM committee between 1946 and 2012 were (in chronological order) Jan Fischer, Pavel Eckstein, Václav Kučera and Oľga Smetanová.

9 Yet another honorary member from among Czechoslovak composers was Vítězslav Novák who received the membership in 1947.

WORLD NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE NO. 23, 2013

Czechoslovakia was represented by the Czech composer Josef Zavadil

tacts with Western Europe were re-established, and it reached its symbolic peak in 1967 when Czechoslovakia organised the ISCM festival for the fourth time in Prague. The cultural euphoria of the “golden 60s” came to an abrupt end on August 21, 1968 with the Russian-led invasion of Warsaw Pact forces into Czechoslovakia; in just two years the culture and arts took a downward turn. Ties with the western world were again broken and Czechoslovakia experienced a long and dark period of normalisation and con-

10 Rhetoric that was typical of countries in the post-war soviet bloc may be found in the 1948–1949 report made by the Czechoslovak ISCM: (...) “contemporary music (...) is not a special branch of music living aside from the general activity of culture, economy and social life” (...), and “the Czechoslovak section of the ISCM is not just a small group of composers, neither a small society separated from the general public and arranging special performances of contemporary music for a selected audience” (...), however “members of the Czechoslovak section of the ISCM are all composers who, as members of the Association of Czechoslovak Composers, fully take part in organising and creating a new progressive and really democratic music life” (...) in Czechoslovakia.

Thus “the activity of the Czechoslovak section of the ISCM is identical with that of the Association of Czechoslovak Composers, i. e. with the work of the Czechoslovak collective of composers as a whole and of any of its members”. The report shows that the new political orientation of our country towards communism forced the Czechoslovak ISCM to become a mere tool, and organisation-wise it merged with the Union of Czechoslovak Composers and eventually, in face of the growing tension against the “western cultural policies”, cancelled its ISCM membership in 1951.

11 Slovak music started to reappear at the festival during this period after taking a substantial break (the last performance of Slovak musicians was in 1937). In the 1960s Slovak music was represented by Ilja Zeljenka – Copenhagen 1964, Peter Kolman – Madrid 1965, Roman Berger – Prague 1967, Tadeáš Salva – Warsaw 1968 and again Ilja Zeljenka – Basle 1970.

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Czechoslovak section of the ISCM found itself under the control of a Stalinist regime, which eventually cancelled its membership for political reasons.10 The period of the first post-war political thaw arrived when Nikita Khrushchev became the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR and effective leader of the “Eastern Bloc”. He was the one who guided all East-European policies, and this proved to be beneficial for Czechoslovak culture, which eventually resumed its ISCM membership in 1957.

This period of Czechoslovak musical reintegration into the international context11 was very fruitful, as many of the old con-

solidation. Even though it remained a member of the ISCM, the contact was only formal and was established through politicised institutions such as the Union of Czechoslovak Composers, with which the Czechoslovak ISCM merged (just as it did during the late 1940s and early 1950s)12. For more than 20 years we again “dropped out of the game”.13 The second “return to the civilised world” started symbolically on November 17, 1989 – the day the communist regime fell. Students, artists and intellectuals were spearheading the “Velvet Revolution” (at least in the beginning), and artistic expression was perhaps the first to enjoy a new “freedom”.

This change came about most naturally. As soon as December 7, 1989 a spontaneous and independent initiative, the “Association for Contemporary Music”, was formed in Slovakia and its manifest contained ideas close to the statutes of the ISCM; similar initiatives also sprang up in the Czech Republic. This spontaneous movement was highly critical and dismissive of the Composer Union’s hegemony in both parts of Czechoslovakia14, and it eventually led to the resumption of the “true aims” of the Czechoslovak ISCM and renewed independence of the institution. At the head of this initiative was the Czech composer Marek Kopelent, and it was on his motion that a meeting of the Czechoslovak ISCM committee was eventually held on September 6, 1990 in Brno. There were three composers from Bohemia and Moravia – Jindřich Feld, Marek Kopelent, Alois Piňos and two Slovak counterparts – Roman Berger and Daniel Matej.15

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12 Membership of the Czechoslovak ISCM was not certain as it hadn’t been

13 Despite this fact there were still some compositions from our country at the ISCM festival (among Slovak authors were such names as Ilja Zeljenka and Miroslav Bázlik – Graz 1972, Ivan Parík – Paris 1975, Tadeáš Salva – Boston 1976 and Juraj Beneš – Athens 1979).

14 The Union of Composers was considered a politicised institution, mainly by progressive artists, and there was much blame put on the institution after November 1989 for its “sins of the past”. Despite its reconstruction and changes in leadership, it was still not widely trusted and many composers tried to organize their activities via different, independent unions.

15 The ISCM committee was composed by nomination of several postNovember bodies and panels representing Czech and Slovak composers – Studio 90, Composer’s Union, Brno (and Ostrava), Creative Centre and Slovak Musical Union

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paying its membership fees.

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The minutes from this meeting16 state that the “key goal of this committee should be securing a direct participation of Czechoslovak music on the international forum”, and that musical culture should be “once and for all” represented by true “quality”, and not by “officialism, as was the case in the past”. The initiative used the formal status of the Czechoslovak ISCM membership “during the post-consolidation years”17 and expressed interest in representing the Czechoslovak ISCM in the following two years. Marek Kopelent afterwards visited the World Music Days ISCM in Oslo18 and informed the international ISCM forum that such an initiative had been formed. Czechoslovakia was finally represented at the festival on September 25, when Music for Retuned Instruments by the Czech composer Martin Smolka (performed by the Cikada Ensemble) echoed throughout the Oslo festival.19

16 Minutes were taken on 30 Oct. 1990 by Daniel Matej, who was given the role of secretary as the youngest member of the founding committee.

17 That is during the 1970s and 1980s.

18 Zuzana Martináková represented Slovakia in Oslo. For more information see Hudobný život 26/1990, p. 10–11.

19 It was not the nomination by the Czechoslovak ISCM or nomination by the international committee, but the initiative of the Norwegian organiser that made it possible for Smolka’s composition to be played at the festival. Note: the first “post-November” Slovak author at the ISCM festival was Iris Szeghy – in Warsaw, 1992.

Figure 1: Minutes of the meeting in Brno, September 6, 1990.

Headway towards the much-anticipated ISCM membership suffered a sudden setback when the two countries went their separate ways on January 1, 1993. ISCM membership was eventually extended to two successors of the closed down Czechoslovak section, as was agreed at the general assembly meeting on October 4, 1994 in Stockholm.

The ISCM Slovak Section was officially registered on March 8, 1994 as a non-profit organisation and later as a civic association.

Its founding members were (alphabetically): Milan Adamčiak, Juraj Beneš, Roman Berger, Vladimír Bokes, Naďa Hrčková, Helena Maťašová, Daniel Matej, Alžbeta Rajterová and Oľga Smetanová.

The members met for the first time on January 20.20 The founding members’ meeting was held a month after registering the ISCM Slovak Section, on April 8, 1994 at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, where guidelines set up by the committee were ratified, and at the same time the first plan of establishment was created and approved.

January 20, 1994 and to its constituting meeting, April 8, 1994.

20 According to the minutes taken from the meeting Milan Adamčiak, Alžbeta Rajterová and Oľga Smetanová were all absent; Milan Adamčiak, however, suggested comments on the proposed statutes in writing during the meeting.

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Figure 2: Invitation to the preparation meeting of the ISCM Slovak Section,

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21 In the era of independent Slovakia, Slovak musicians became regulars and they were selected according to tried-and-true rules. From 1994 onwards the Slovak section annually puts together a (usually) 3-person committee which picks 6 Slovak works for the international jury according to the organiser of each of the festival years. Since 1994 the following authors were presented at the World New Music Days: 1996 Copenhagen – Miroslav Bázlik, 2000 Luxemburg – Vladimír Bokes, 2001 Yokohama – Ivan Parík, 2002 Hong Kong – Juraj Hatrík, 2004 Zürich – Marek Piaček, 2005 Zagreb – Marián Lejava, 2006 Stuttgart – Daniel Matej, 2007 Hong Kong – Vladimír Bokes, 2009 Visby – Vaxjö – Göteborg – Ľubica Čekovská, Daniel Matej, 2010 Sydney – Martin Burlas, 2011 Zagreb – Daniel Matej, 2012 Belgium – Petra Bachratá and 2013 Košice – Bratislava – Vienna – Jana Kmiťová.

22 The first six events were held under the auspices of the Music Fund (1990 – 1995), which also provided logistical support at the beginning.

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From this point on, an independent ISCM Slovak Section started to create its own history, that of a very active organisation that supervises many key activities in the area of contemporary music in Slovakia and participates in the international forum.21 In 1996 the section took over the role of the main organiser of the international festival Evenings of New Music22 and since then has actively cooperated during the preparations of the most prominent contemporary music festival in Slovakia, MelosEthos, as well as other smaller but important events: the concert series (New) Music at Home, festival SPACE, Musical Encounters and others. Several persons led the elected board between 1994 and 2013: Juraj Beneš (1994–1998 and 2001–2003), Ján Vladimír Michalko (1999–2000), Daniel Matej (2003–2010), and Ivan Šiller (since 2010).

A landmark moment in the history of the Slovak ISCM came during the general assembly in Vilnius in 2008, where the delegate of the ISCM Slovak Section Oľga Smetanová was the first to suggest an application for candidacy to hold the World New Music Days 2013 in Slovakia. We had a brief phone “discussion”, and as the chairman of the ISCM Slovak Section at that time I gave her my support and we agreed to “go ahead with it”. Oľga Smetanová was afterwards the first Slovak in the history of our ISCM to be elected to the international “ExCom”. Our preparations began to take shape. Suddenly my mind went back to that moment in Brno on September 6, 1990, when Marek Kopelent wished that Czechoslovakia would apply for the ISCM World Music Days in 1996 for the fifth time. His idea was definitely thwarted by the separation of Czechoslovakia and subsequent demise of the Czechoslovak

Section of ISCM in 1994. Hope was all but gone for both Czechs and Slovaks for a very long time. It was not until 2008 that the first glimpse of hope appeared, notably in Slovakia. And in 2013 we are making it a reality. The ISCM Slovak Section has undergone a long and difficult path during the last five years, and against all odds, it has succeeded thanks to its tireless and creative team as well as its experienced partner, the ISCM Austrian Section. Together they have created conditions that have enabled the ISCM World New Music Days festival to be held for the very first time in Slovakia.

September 5, 2013

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Translated by Jana McCuskey, Marcus Zagorski and Peter Zagar.

Daniel Matej is composer, performer, organiser and university teacher. He also researches and writes occasionally on the issues of the history and theory of 20th- and 21st-century music. He was one of the founders of the reconstituted ISCM Czechoslovak Section in 1990 and ISCM Slovak Section in 1994. He has been member of the committee of both sections and from 2003 to 2009 he was the president of ISCM Slovak Section.

WORLD NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE NO. 23, 2013

by Jaroslav Šťastný 1 The following text presents a view from the outside. In its first part, it generally outlines the musical situation in Slovakia, and it then continues with lightly sketched portraits of chosen composers. Inevitably, the view is both subjective and selective.

It is Slovakia on My Mind…

In June 1992, John Cage visited Bratislava on the occasion of the Evenings of New Music festival. It was a great event. The Slovaks probably hold celebrities in a higher regard than the Czechs, and the composer was treated as a media star. During the closing interview, he was asked by Viera Polakovičová, then director of the Slovak Music Information Centre, about what he would wish the Slovaks for their future, as they embarked upon the path of independence and were creating their own government. Cage stared at her for a long moment and then he said: “You needn’t a government; you need intelligence […]!”

It is shameful for every small (and really, for any) nation, if its politicians are better known than its composers, writers, poets, and artists. For it is culture that better defines the quality of our lives and makes the nation respectable. Weapons and political power evoke fear, and economic strength awakens envy. Only culture can be loved…

In the European context, Slovak music represents a unique phenomenon. In terms of the 19th-century national schools, it only started to develop after the Second World War – despite its interesting history before that time2. Its major representatives, such as Alexander MOYZES (1906–1984), Eugen SUCHOŇ (1908–1993), and Ján CIKKER (1911–1989), maintained rather conservative attitudes.

They were inspired by both the late-Romantic style of Vítězslav

1 The following text was first published in German language in MusikTexte, Heft 114, August 2007. MusikTexte GbR, Köln 2007, ISSN 0178-8884, p.

45–54. Printed with permission of the publisher and of the author.

2 Very strange, for example, was the work of 18th-century composers who were active in the country and whose music absorbed striking folk elements (Paulín Bajan: Vánoční mše/The Christmas Mass, Daniel Speer: Turecký Eulenspiegel/The Turkish Eulenspiegel, etc.).

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Slovakia on My Mind

3 As for Alexander Moyzes, he progressed in the opposite direction: from his early explosions, influenced by contemporary jazz and Les Six, to romantic pathos and archaising classicist expressions in the late period.

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Novák (their pedagogue in Prague, who became a cult figure in Slovakia) and domestic folklore. But gradually and moderately they also absorbed selected stimuli of modern music.3 One of the first modern-oriented composers was Alexander ALBRECHT (1885–1958), a student of Béla Bartók.

His wide scope of knowledge and contacts (he was in touch with Bartók, Zemlinsky, and others) enabled him to react to newly formed aesthetic criteria. For Slovak music, Albrecht was an important personality who influenced the spiritual climate not only by his numerous (mostly chamber) works, but also by his rich literary and essayistic production.

Another person of interest was František DOSTALÍK (1896 – 1944), a mostly autodidactic composer with a great understanding of the interwar Modern, which can be seen in a number of his reviews. In 1919–1921, he studied with Leoš Janáček in Brno. He was predominantly inspired by folklore, and his struggle for personal expression was perceived as “formal disorder and creative fractionalism” by the period’s critics. Unfortunately, the majority of his works have been lost.

Another remarkable, and still underestimated, composer was his student Jozef GREŠÁK (1907–1987), who created a highly specific musical language based on changing meter and rhythm (irregular bar length), as well as on minimalistic instrumentation. His compositions represent a pulsation of music “cells”, the combination of which creates an original sound process.

Grešák also developed a special notation for his music which, however, prevented the broader distribution of his pieces. Fortunately, Grešák’s later admirer, the conductor Bystrík Režucha, transcribed Grešák’s complete works into conventional notation. Similarly to Janáček, Grešák also experienced the greatest creative explosion at the end of his life. But there are only a few recordings of his works and none of his four operas has yet been staged.

From about the beginning of the 1960s, a relatively strong generation born in the 1930s entered the scene: the composers Roman BERGER (1930), Pavol ŠIMAI (1930), Juraj POSPÍŠIL (1931–2007), Miro BÁZLIK (1931), Ilja ZELJENKA (1932–2007), Jozef MALOVEC (1933–1998), Ladislav KUPKOVIČ (1936), Ivan PARÍK

It is necessary to mention that the sinister period of “normalisation” (i.e. the process of “tightening screws” by the Communist regime after 1970) didn’t have such a strong impact in Slovakia as it did in Bohemia and Moravia (generally speaking, but with many exceptions). One of Slovakia’s advantages was the uninterrupted existence of the Experimental Studio of the Slovak Radio, which – despite many obstacles – regularly functioned in a period when its Czech counterparts either ceased to exist (Brno) or practically turned away from the experimental electroacoustic sphere. In this way, radio in Bratislava also became a refuge for Czech composers, many of whom devoted themselves primarily to electroacoustic music due to restricted

4 Only later (1967), the clearly experimental QUaX Ensemble was founded in Prague by Petr Kotík.

5 In 1969, Kupkovič emigrated to Germany, where great attention was given to his largest projects including hundreds of performers. With Klanginvasion auf Bonn (1971) he even engaged the whole capital of the Federal Republic of Germany in the project. However, Kupkovič increasingly inclined to classicistic tonal music in the new environment.

In spite of the fact that this type of music always was present in his work (even if only marginally), it clearly prevailed after 1975 and Kupkovič became its “radical” representative.

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(1936–2005), and Peter KOLMAN (1937) oriented themselves to the impulses of “New Music” and searched for their own ways of exploiting those impulses. Perhaps the most active was Ladislav Kupkovič, who founded the “Music of Today” ensemble (Hudba dneška) in 1964. Unlike similar Czech ensembles in Brno (Musica nova, Studio A) or Prague (Musica viva pragensis)4, and in terms of Western trends, the Music of Today ensemble maintained a clearly more avant-garde position. Its concerts were characterised by experimentation with space and form of presentation. Kupkovič also made his mark as a conductor in Darmstadt, successfully filling in for Bruno Maderna (who fell ill) in a Stockhausen project, and he thereby started his career in Germany.

Along with everything else they affected, the political changes after the Soviet intervention in 1968 also caused all the above-mentioned Czechoslovak New Music ensembles to quit their activities. Their most radical representatives (Petr Kotík and Rudolf Komorous in Prague, and Ladislav Kupkovič and Peter Kolman in Bratislava) decided to leave for abroad.5

6 Nevertheless, there were no idyllic conditions at the Experimental Studio and it wasn’t easy to access (e.g. Alois Piňos only created four compositions there in the course of two decades). But the possibility existed…

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opportunities to perform instrumental works in the 1970s and 1980s (such composers include Alois Piňos, Rudolf Růžička, and later Michal Košut).6 In the former Czechoslovakia, some Slovak musicians appeared like “pikes in a sleepy pond”. At that time, Bratislava was given little attention and the only place offering career success was Prague, where sooner or later a number of Slovaks went.

This magnified the surprise caused by newcomers from Bratislava.

Already in the previous periods of the common state, Bratislava – because it was viewed by Prague as a musical backwater – was always a source of unexpected impulses that made the entire Czechoslovak scene change. This “small-town” environment bore personalities who highly exceeded the Czechoslovak standard: whether in the field of rock music, where we were completely dazed by Dežo Ursiny (and all of his projects), or Marián Varga (Prúdy and Collegium musicum), or in jazz, with Laco Déczi, Ľubomír Tamaškovič, Gabriel Jonáš, later also Juraj Bartoš, Radovan Tariška, Juraj Griglák, Miki Skuta, and many others.

And also in the classical music sphere there came ever newer generations of remarkable composers: apart from those already mentioned (Berger, Bázlik, Malovec, Kolman, Kupkovič, Zeljenka), also Juraj Beneš, Jozef Gahér, Ivan Parík, Juraj Hatrík, Tadeáš Salva, Jozef Sixta, Milan Adamčiak, Vladimír Bokes, Iris Szeghy, Vladimír Godár, Martin Burlas, Daniel Matej, Peter Zagar, Marek Piaček.

And they are being joined already by younger generations (Marián Lejava, Boško Milaković, Lucia Papanetzová, Lukáš Borzík, etc.).

After the division of the state, Slovak musicians succeeded abroad more easily than Czech ones and the country also opened itself more to the world. In spite of a thorny political situation and economic obstacles, the Slovaks managed to organise a number of remarkable events: the visits by world personalities and the festivals dedicated to them (e.g. John Cage, György Ligeti, Arvo Pärt, Sofia Gubaidulina, Krzysztof Penderecki, Steve Reich, and others), as well as the concerts or CDs with contemporary Slovak music, certainly don’t fall short when compared to Czech accomplishments.

7 Hevhetia Records, HV 0011-2-131.

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Musical life is naturally concentrated in Bratislava. Nevertheless, notable personalities also appear in smaller towns, although the scene is dominated by “alternative music”, i. e. musical expression which is somehow based on the rock tradition. But even in this alternative music, instrumentation and forms are modified, and this is not seldom the result of relatively high creative ambitions. The song, however, remains crucial, the message of the text being a very important factor. It is interesting that whereas in the Czech area “alternative music” had its Golden Age in the 1970s and 1980s (representing a revolt against the official culture of the Communist regime and replacing certain functions of a practically non-existent contemporary classical music), Slovak music alternatives boomed after 1990 (defining themselves in opposition to the growing commercial pressure of the (neo)capitalistic society).

Bratislava is a relatively small town, but it brings together different traditions: the Slovak, the Hungarian, the German, the Austrian, the Jewish, the Russian, the Polish, and the Czech cultures have always mixed here and created a unique atmosphere.

There is a relatively high concentration of diverse individuals who represent different approaches – although a few trends also might be shared by very different composers. The situation could be defined as an attempt to embrace the widest range of music, find common measures, and reach a synthesis. Understood individually, however, these efforts can assume very different shapes.

Contributing to Bratislava’s interesting musical profile is the fact that new music succeeded in finding here a solid base of interpreters. Many of the city’s best performers show deep interest in performing contemporary music, and for many it became an integral part of their artistic profiles. This can be seen in the excellent recording of John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes by the pianist Nora Skuta7. However, it is also necessary to name at least the clarinettist Ronald Šebesta, the cellists Jozef Lupták and Eugen Prochác, or the accordionist Boris Lenko, as well as ensembles such as the VENI ensemble, Opera Aperta, Zwiebel Quartet, and the pianists Ivan Šiller, Andrea Mudroňová, and Magdaléna Bajuszová, etc.

They all are examples of musically mature personalities with their own opinions and strict repertoire philosophy. On the other hand, Czech players often view contemporary music as only an extension of the spectrum of their earnings. That is, no doubt, why both

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Slovak and Czech works (e.g. the extremely challenging unison compositions by Pavel Zemek) sound much more convincing when performed by Slovaks.

It would be interesting – although not easy – to uncover the causes of the differences between countries which developed together for such a long time. It was probably several influences and a concurrence of circumstances that gave rise to different situations in the two contexts. The milieu around VENI ensemble and the Evenings of New Music festival likely played the key role. Since its foundation in 1990, the chamber-music festival has become a platform for meetings between Slovak musicians and their colleagues from abroad. Moreover, the number of invited personalities has respectably grown during the years: apart from John Cage (who was already mentioned), these include Christian Wolff, James Tenney, Dieter Schnebel and Die Maulwerker, Jon Rose, Frederic Rzewski, Richard Ayres, David Dramm, Anne La Berge, Meredith Monk, Alison Cameron, Beth Griffith, Martin Erdmann, Chris Newman, Michael Finnissy, Ulrike Brand, John Oswald, Christian Fennesz, Zygmunt Krauze, Elliott Sharp, Alvin Curran, John Tilbury, Chris Cutler, Marc Sabat, Stephen Clarke, Nicolas Collins, Howard Skempton, Daan Vandewalle, Marianne Schröder, Hilary Jeffery, Gavin Bryars, Walter Zimmermann, Klarenz Barlow; the ensembles Orkest de Volharding, Ugly Culture, Smith Quartet, Ives Ensemble, London New Music, The Icebreaker, and Bang On A Can All Stars should also be mentioned. All this experience contributed considerably to the formation and artistic maturity of performers closely engaged with the festival. Of immense importance were also the visits by the Hungarian musicologist András Wilheim, who was often a guest in Bratislava in the early years of the festival. Being an expert on Cage, Kurtág, Feldman, Satie, and others, Wilheim helped Slovak musicians meet the unusual requirements set by their works.

From my perspective on the outside, the role of the German musicologist and pianist Martin Erdmann appears equally important. He visited Bratislava in 1990 for the first time, on the occasion of the Evenings of New Music festival, when accompanying the cellist Ulrike Brand. They performed Untitled Composition for Cello and Piano (Patterns in a Chromatic Field) by Morton Feldman.

Both the work and its performers impressed the audience as a miracle. Two years later, Erdmann came back to take part in the Cage festival and to lead the interpretation course in Cage’s piano music. With his zeal and expert knowledge, he managed to fire up

8 In 1995, together with András Wilheim, he organised a symposium dedicated to Eric Satie, the first such symposium in the world.

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the young participants and make them enthusiastic about a number of interesting tasks set by contemporary music. Slovak musicians met a strong personality in him, a man completely devoted to new music (Erdmann more or less restricted his performance interest to Cage, Feldman, and Satie), who based his interpretive approach on musicological knowledge. As it was, he represented a different type of artist than the one predominant in both Czech and Slovak music. In this way, Erdmann established a niveau and showed the way. Until the first half of the 1990s, he regularly attended the Evenings of New Music festival – even if only as a visitor or musicology lecturer.8 Although it may no longer be direct, his influence has continued by means of the discussions he led and the opinions he declared. His seed fell on fertile and well-prepared ground. Stated metaphorically, it was the straw that changed the state of things and actuated further development. Musicians in Bratislava gained the opportunity to get to know dozens of great world musicians and composers and to work with them.

All of that influenced both the artistic growth and the opinions of a particular group of players (mostly of those grouped around the VENI and Opera Aperta ensembles) who then determined the Slovak performance climate. They may not be aware of it, because they have fully immersed themselves in their numerous activities, but from my point of view Martin Erdmann’s and András Wilheim’s contributions played the crucial role in these developments.

Apart from the Evenings of New Music, there is the huge Melos-Ethos festival in Bratislava, which also brings together elite performers (and here we should mention at least the Arditti Quartet, the Hilliard Ensemble, and the Amadinda Percussion Group, etc.). All these stimuli have been of great importance for the growth of Slovak musicians.

However, the character of contemporary Slovak music was also formed by two great native Slovaks. Although not dealing directly with composition, their activities have had significant impact on the situation and practically defined two extreme positions between which Slovak music has oscillated up till now.

Ján ALBRECHT (1919–1996), the son of Alexander Albrecht, and called “Hansi” by his friends and followers, was the founder of the scholarly interpretation of early music in Slovakia. He was a welleducated musician, violist, conductor, “music enthusiast”, promot-

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er and organiser, a real “music lover” in the best sense of the word, a fine-arts collector, and a passionate admirer of Baroque music, who – at the same time – was open-minded enough to sympathise with the efforts of young composers. In Bratislava he founded the chamber orchestra Musica Aeterna, which today is an internationally recognized ensemble. He also tried to renew the tradition of private music-making, and from the end of the 1950s his household became an informal but important music centre in Bratislava. Young musicians got here the opportunity to immerse themselves into music practice. Among them there were also a handful of future composers, who absorbed history and tradition as something alive and constantly changing. Later, Albrecht’s passionate approach to the scholarly interpretation of early music also influenced a number of musicians who included contemporary music in their field of interest.

Since 1990s, the opposite pole has been represented by Jozef CSERES (1961), a conceptualist, aesthete, and theoretician of multimedia and “intermedia” productions. Settled and active not in Bratislava but in Nové Zámky, he lead here a remarkable avant-garde oriented Art Deco gallery. During Cage’s visit in 1992, Cseres organised the spectacular exhibition Hommage à John Cage in Bratislava, showing the influence of Cage’s ideas on both Slovak and Czech artists. Later he adopted the pseudonym HEyeRMEarS and under the name of Hermes’s ear published a series of reflective essays on contemporary music. He also founded a festival of intermedia creativity in Nitra under the same name. Cseres translated and published Radio Happenings: John Cage – Morton Feldman Conversations, texts by S. K. Langer, as well as the book by Eddie Prévost No Sound is Innocent. In his own book Hudobné simulakrá (Music Simulacra, Hudobné centrum, Bratislava 2001), he touches upon the basic questions raised by contemporary musical developments, including the issue of authorship loss in cyberspace.

Cseres is an international personality with numerous artistic contacts. He organised a number of interesting events and also their recordings, e.g. the thematic international festival Sound Off (1995–2002; in cooperation with Michal Murin) or the Warholes CD (played by Murin, Cseres, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, DJ Mao, and P. Skala). In a small village in southern Slovakia (with a bizarre name Violín), Cseres managed to create (in cooperation with Jon Rose) a unique Rosenberg Museum, where the original Rose’s fiction became reality.

at both the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and the Faculty of Philosophy of Comenius University. It was he who later made a number of young composers, musicians, and performers familiar with the existence of New Music and current artistic tendencies. Adamčiak was a charismatic man, and he generated a group of enthusiasts around himself under the name Transmusic comp. This relatively big ensemble aimed at performing non-conventional music and collective improvisation with striking theatrical elements. Adamčiak’s activities as promoter and organiser led to the foundation of the Society for Unconventional Music (Spoločnosť pre nekonvenčnú hudbu, SNEH), under the auspices of which he organised the Festival of Intermedia Creativity (Festival intermediálnej tvorby, FIT) in 1991 and 1992. The 1990s were marked by his personal crisis, which practically eliminated him from musical life. Although he was awarded the Leo Danihels Prize in 1998, his contribution has not been evaluated properly so

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Although Cseres’s activities were of great importance especially for the younger generation of musicians living outside Bratislava, and although his contribution to Slovak music culture is significant, he himself – dissatisfied with the Slovak state of affairs – moved to Brno few years ago.

The unique musical atmosphere of Bratislava is mainly a reflection of the composers living there. It isn’t possible for me to mention all of them. Therefore I have chosen (in my opinion) the most striking personalities and ordered them alphabetically: Milan ADAMČIAK (1946) played the initiator’s role for the younger generations of Slovak musicians. He experienced legendary seminars with Karlheinz Stockhausen (1968) and Mauricio Kagel (1970), as well as Ligeti’s Poème symphonique being performed at the Castle of Smolenice (1969). From the beginning, he has maintained a very untypical position among Slovak composers – his radical disavowal of any musical tradition and his orientation to conceptual ideas made him a misfit. Primarily, he concentrated on graphic music, acoustic objects, and unconventional music instruments. He inclined to conceptual and intermedia production, his graphic scores offering space for both musicians and non-musicians. Playfulness is the feature most characteristic of him. Despite the material hardship in the socialist Czechoslovakia, he managed to make a virtue of necessity by building the majority of his instruments from rubbish materials. During the 1970s and 1980s, he gave lectures on 20th-century music history

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far. It remains a fact, however, that without him, Slovak music would have developed in a different way. He was able to inspire others by personal example, raise enthusiasm by his visions, and make musicians and non-musicians cooperate. With Transmusic Comp., not only his own ideas were realised, but also the concepts of other artists, particularly Michal Murin and Peter Machajdík (both of whom later achieved international reputations in the field of intermedia production). The ensemble has hosted many musicians, who later became influential personalities of Slovak music life (among others, Martin Burlas, Daniel Matej, and Peter Zagar, whom I discuss below, as well as Oľga Smetanová, current director of the Music Centre Slovakia). All of these figures contributed to making Slovak music what it is today.

Roman BERGER (1930), composer of Polish origin. His arrival in Slovakia was a result of his father, an active Protestant priest, being relocated from Český Těšín to Bratislava by force. A talented pianist, Berger only started composing at the age of thirty, but he showed remarkable compositional maturity from the very beginning. Already his final academic piece Transformations for large orchestra (1965) proved that the Slovak scene had acquired an extraordinary personality. Nevertheless, because composing has always been both a creative and an ethical act for him, he refused to allow Transformations to be performed at the Warsaw Autumn 1968, because the Polish army also took part in the occupation of Czechoslovakia in the same year. His unbending ethical position has made Berger stand outside the mass of composers who are willing to do everything for their pieces be performed. But this has also prevented the broader distribution of his works.

Being the Secretary General of the Union of Slovak Composers and an active participant in the so-called “renewal process” in 1968, he fell into disfavour in the following years. Without any hope for performances, he wrote monumental pieces for solo string instruments titled Convergences (I – for violin, 1969; II – for viola, 1970; III – for violoncello, 1975), in which he explored the question of organising musical material between strict coincidence and rigid order. The majority of his work was brought to life in dramatic situations. This was also the case of his orchestral work Memento after the Death of Miroslav Filip (1973), dedicated to the memory of his friend, an outstanding musicologist who felt compelled to commit suicide at the beginning of the 1970s because of growing political pressure.

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Berger’s approach is primarily about “authentic creation”, which he views in opposition to “reproductive” creation, i.e. creation making use of already known techniques, patterns, and clichés of expression. His music is never just a game or pure “beauty” ( “pleasure” as he called it). Dramatic appeals – that is what his compositions always are. They are carried by the feeling of responsibility intellectuals have towards the society in which they live, because Berger considers the skills given to man by God as a commitment that should not be misused. Especially after the fall of the Communist regime, such beliefs brought him respect.

On the other hand, his decided and unyielding attitude makes it difficult for consumer society to accept his works, and the composer remains more or less lonely. Moreover, the conditions and requirements he sets for himself are the reason why the number of his works stays rather low. Nevertheless, each piece of music

by Roman Berger is an act of significance. He prefers monumental forms and small ensembles: e.g. De profundis for bass, piano, violoncello, and live electronics on texts by Tadeusz Różewicz (1980) is a stirring, nearly one-hour piece of music; the four-part Exodus for organ (1981–1997) lasts 70 minutes and its difficulty level poses quite a challenge for performers.

Our thinking about Roman Bergen can’t be complete without including his extensive literary works – i.e. his theoretical and socio-critical texts, essays and reflections on contemporary society and the mission of the artist. They were partly collected in three books (Hudba a pravda/Music and Truth, 1997; Dráma hudby/The Drama of Music, 2000; Cesta s hudbou/The Journey with Music, 2012). In Poland, an extensive selection of his texts was published in Polish (Zásada twórczości/The Creative Principle, Katowice 2005).

However, many of his texts still remain manuscripts.

Roman Berger is a type of musical thinker. His compositions are the fruits of his gradual maturing. Since Transformations, Berger has attempted to find the basic laws of composition that would embrace music as generally as possible – “from Xenakis to Gregorian chant”. This has led him to the concepts of form and universal acts, which are typical of his thinking about composition.

Accordingly, he understands music history as “a development towards a greater generalisation of terms that were understood too narrowly before.” His musical language can be characterised as expressive and dramatic; he considers music to be a “lamentation, protest or hope…”

9 Janusz Korczak (1878–1942), Polish-Jewish doctor, pedagogue and writer, who founded a home for street Arabs near Warsaw before the Second World War. At the time of Holocaust, when his orphanage was closed, he refused to be rescued and voluntarily left for the gas chamber together with his wards.

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In recent years, his language has been simplified and his music has explored softer and more lyrical fields – as already signalled in his two extensive pieces for violin and piano, Adagio for Jan Branný (1987) and Adagio No. 2, “Atonement” (1988–1989), and later fully developed in the cantata on texts by Janusz Korczak9, Korczak in memoriam (2000). Nevertheless, Berger’s music has still preserved its urgency and deep impressiveness.

Martin BURLAS (1955) was, in his youth, attracted by both the avant-garde and the nonconformist language of rock music.

He was probably the most radical member of his generation and achieved remarkable results in the field of electroacoustic music: he was awarded the Luigi Russolo Prize for his Music for a Blue House (1979). He was one of the first Slovak composers who started working with computers as well as one of those who accepted and absorbed the impulses of minimalism and postmodernism.

After his opera Pink-Rose Kingdom (1985–1986) had been rejected for stage performance (and has remained unperformed until today), he disclaimed any connection to official institutions and devoted himself to working in the experimental ensembles Sleepy Motion and The Matthews, which actually were fancy composition laboratories based on rock music. Burlas also collaborates with Transmusic Comp., VENI ensemble, Vitebsk Broken, VAPORI del CUORE, and OVER4tea.

Working as music producer in OPUS Publishing House and Slovak Radio – which forced him to deal with “exudates” of Slovak pop – strengthened his feeling of nihilism. On the other hand, his talent for music literally prevailed against the will of its bearer.

His 7th Day Record for unspecified instruments and tape reduces the music process to aggressively expressed rhythm, which in spite of all programmatic connotations still attracts by its stirring musicality. The same is true for Music for Robert Dupkala, one of the first Slovak compositions influenced by minimalism, which is full of musical vitality and surprising moments – thus disturbing the minimalistic purism in a funny way. The wide range of Burlas’s interests as a composer also includes “pop”, or rather “anti-pop” songs on his own – predominantly ironic or satiric – texts. Irony

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and paradox penetrate into both his quasi-ambient electronic music and his “serious” instrumental pieces, e.g. Agony for cello and piano. www.martinburlas.net Vladimír GODÁR (1956) considerably distinguishes himself from his colleagues by turning away from the Western rationalistic modernist tradition and orienting himself towards the Eastern (Byzantine, Greek, Georgian, Russian, etc.) tradition, spirituality, and emotionality. He would regard Arvo Pärt, Giya Kancheli, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Alfred Schnittke as his predecessors rather than e.g. Webern, Boulez, or Cage. As for his approach to composition, Godár is closer to Stravinsky than to Schoenberg. He also draws inspiration from ancient Greek philosophy and both Antique and Renaissance artistic theories. He is a brilliant author of essays and reflections on the poetics and semiotics of music, as well as of an interesting comparison of the creative methods used

by J. L. Borges and I. Stravinsky.

Godár studied composition and piano at the Bratislava Conservatory and later continued his composition studies with Dezider Kardoš at the Academy of Performing Arts. In 1988–1989 he studied in Vienna with Roman Haubenstock-Ramati. He worked as music editor in OPUS Publishing House, at the Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (in 1993, he became Candidate of Sciences), and in 1991–1996 as senior editor of the Slovak Music quarterly. He taught histories of aesthetics and music at Comenius University, in 1997–1999 was director of the Publishing Department of the National Music Centre, and was a lecturer at the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica (composition). Since 2011 he has taught at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava.

Private music-making in the circle of “Hansi” Albrecht was of great importance for Godár’s musical development. In the period 1973–1980 he played there the harpsichord/continuo – and not only got to know a huge amount of Baroque literature but also started to study historical compositional poetics. This experience shaped him and has been present latently in his works up till now – it can be traced in his approach to composition, instruments and their interaction, as well as in the special Baroque impetus of his music.

Inclinations for the Baroque are particularly obvious in his early pieces (Passacaglia and Fugue for strings, 1981; Grave, passacaglia for piano, 1983; Partita for 54 strings, harpsichord, timpani and tubular bells, 1983). For him, the crucial impulse was his encounter with the music of Bronius Kutavičius, Arvo Pärt, and Alfred Schnittke

10 ECM New Series 1985, 4765689. See the review by Helmut Peters in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 3/2007, p. 83.

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(at the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 1978), which made him realise that “music never is only about the relationships between tones (either seven or twelve)” and that “only a music with a past also has its future”.

Godár has gradually re-found the relationships between music and nature by making use of elementary forms (Concerto grosso, 1985). At the same time, he abandons the ideal of the autonomous work and understands the work as a result of a dialogue with other works and people.

Godár’s music production is very rich, including two symphonies (1980 and 1992) and a number of other orchestral works (Dariachanghi’s Orchard for viola, cello and orchestra, 1987; Via lucis, 1993; Tombeau de Bartók, 1995), numerous chamber-music pieces, songs, choral pieces, an oratorio Orbis sensualium pictus (on the text

by John Amos Comenius, 1984), later Magnificat (2004), and Regina coeli (2004). Moreover, he has also dealt with transcriptions and reconstructions of historical music and written instructive pieces.

Godár’s ability to adequately express or musically render atmosphere faithfully, enabled him to compose music for many movies by significant Slovak directors – his music thus addressing a much broader audience than the one attending concerts. And it is necessary to stress that Godár’s music contributed considerably to the success of these movies.

The Mater project is another of Godár’s steps towards engaging a broader audience, for which he also enlisted the charismatic Czech singer and actress Iva Bittová. The project is a collection of both older and newer pieces inspired by the talent of the remarkable woman, with whom Godár has already collaborated for many years. Mater represents a musical homage to Woman-Mother and at the same time demonstrates Godár’s understanding of music as deeply anchored in the past. The project has been published by the Munich ECM Records label10. The lovely sound of historical instruments, Iva Bittová’s charm, as well as Godár’s historically oriented poetics perfectly match the typical “ECM sound”. All this makes Mater a relatively successful attempt to unite new techniques and attractiveness for listeners.

Daniel MATEJ (1963) has been among the most active representatives of Slovak music since the end of the 1980s. His sociable nature predetermined him to become a successful organiser of

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musical events. In 1988–1989 he studied in Paris with Betsy Jolas and in 1990–1992 with Louis Andriessen in The Hague. Being a “DAAD composer-in-residence”, he lived in Berlin in 1995–1996. He founded VENI ensemble (1987), appendix CONSORT, and the improvisation group VAPORI del CUORE. His passion for founding new ensembles (with more or less the same musicians) can be clearly seen in the group of quadragenarians OVER4tea, the ensemble of fresh university docents at the Academy of Performing Arts called doc.END, or by the Slovak-Austrian project don@u.com.

Daniel Matej can just as easily catch fire as ignite others. During his stays abroad, he established numerous contacts, which enabled him to invite interesting musicians to the Evenings of New Music Festival (also founded by him).

Matej has an educated, but not an arts-oriented family background. He went through his “wild years” by playing in garage bands and jazz jam-sessions, and later joined Adamčiak’s Transmusic Comp. He started to compose during his studies of music theory at the Academy of Performing Arts and in 1987 also enrolled in composition. His Elegy for flute, violin and cello was a direct impulse for founding the VENI ensemble.

Matej’s music usually stands on a solid compositional framework, often making use of quotations (which, however, are transformed beyond recognition). He also likes to combine a poetic atmosphere with elements of his specific humour. Recently, Matej has devoted himself primarily to improvisation, or “real time composition”. His interest in materials already used, musical readymades, recycling, and so forth finally brought him to the decision to use an adapted old gramophone, CD player, and sampler. He has started to show interest also in music that is “still composed, but at the same time already improvised”. For instance, the basis of his piece P@GES [from] CH@OLDS is formed by the principle of “destructive replaying” – although applied to conventional notation and ordinary musical instruments. Single quotations come up in real time – with different degrees of recognisability; simultaneously, the same music is replayed by the CD player, where it is subjected to similarly destructive processes.

Marek PIAČEK (1972). If there exists an incarnation of Mozart in today’s world, it is probably Marek Piaček: he is close to him not so much by the music he writes (though his talent can’t be questioned), but rather by the “unbearable playfulness”, by which the genius of Viennese Classicism allegedly teased his contemporar-

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ies. For Marek Piaček, music production is primarily an occasion for play. That enables him to easily find his musical material primarily from “low” genres – a universe made up of current trends, from which he just needs to choose.

Piaček himself calls his compositional style “open Realism”.

His approach is oriented to the immediate present, which the composer accepts without judgement or prejudice. In practice, it means that he makes use of trivial materials (Unterhaltungsmusik, TV-tunes, advertisements, etc.) and puts them into unusual or even absurd contexts. From this point of view, all music genres and forms are equal and lose their original meanings if transferred to new contexts.

Piaček’s “open Realism” reacts to the attempt of modern art to bridge the abyss between Art and Life, its efforts to set itself free from the sterile milieu of concert halls and galleries. The composer reacts energetically to the various forms and techniques of mass culture which surround him: he chooses impulses from it, alienates them, and puts them into the context of “serious music”. On the other hand, his Požoň sentimentál ensemble does the opposite by introducing serious music to cafés! Apparently, there is an ironic thorn hiding in Piaček’s approach to music (the influence of Martin Burlas here can’t be overlooked – someone who, after all, is his uncle). Also his large symphony Nuntium Magnum. Symphony with a Closing Chorale That Brings a Message appears ironical (the “message” finally turns out to be the incipit quotation from a wistfully kitschy Czech hunting brass-band hit).

Another very weird project is his extensive cycle Urban Songs, on which he worked together with the philosopher Egon Bondy.

Bondy, a philosopher, writer, playwright and poet originally from Prague, moved to Bratislava in the last years of his life. Piaček adapted for him traditional Prague popular tavern tunes (which Bondy then authentically sang), also adding instrumental interludes to them.

Ambivalence is what attracts Marek Piaček, the oscillation between great and trivial. His opera The Last Flight (initiated by Bondy) was also written from this perspective, portraying the life and fate of Milan Rastislav Štefánik, the tragic figure of the Slovak history.

Nevertheless, Piaček is also able to create crystal clear and meditative electronic pieces (e.g. Hexagram 11). Recently, he has been intensely devoted to multimedia projects with the dance ensemble Gourounaki, led by the dancer and choreographer Monika Horná.

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Iris SZEGHY (1956) drew attention to herself in 1985 by writing the string quartet Musica dolorosa. The style of the piece was not a revolution, but its lyrical mood and the author’s message indicated a promising talent. Since then, Iris Szeghy has occupied an indispensable place among Slovak composers and time has only strengthened her position. Szeghy comes from a Hungarian family living in the eastern part of Slovakia. She felt attracted to composition since her childhood. She studied it at the Conservatory in Košice and at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, where she also completed her doctoral studies. Later, she received a number of residencies and study scholarships abroad (Budapest, Warsaw, Schloß Solitude in Stuttgart, STEIM Studio Amsterdam, Soros Center for Contemporary Arts New York, the University of California at San Diego, Boswil, Künstlerhäuser Worpswede, Stein am Rhein). She also was a “composer-in-residence” at the State Opera in Hamburg. Since 2002, she has lived as “freie Komponistin” in Zurich.

The music of Iris Szeghy doesn’t displease, rather, it charms by its originality, sophistication, and depth. It could be characterised as searching for balance between the impulses of the avantgardes and the great tradition of European music. Based on both the understanding of instruments and the possibilities of human voice, Szeghy’s music appeals also because of the composer’s exceptional capabilities. Szeghy aims at integrating the “new” and the “old” into one synthesising form, which causes shifts on both sides. For listeners, the material ambivalence is not emphasised but rather hidden, and this gives her music its characteristic mark.

Although making use of an already established reservoir of sonoristic tools, Iris Szeghy has acquainted herself with the field with enviable mastery. Afforismi, the cycle of six miniatures included in the CD by the Slovak ensemble Societa Rigata, blooms with genuine musical ideas, admirably combined into one organic whole. The connection of talent and patient, systematic work already bears mature fruit in Szeghy’s works. Her specific style, rich in ideas and emotion, is a pride of today’s Slovak music.

Peter ZAGAR (1961) is a type who gives a lot of energy to serving and helping others: as an outstanding pianist he has participated in activities by the VENI ensemble, VAPORI del CUORE, and Požoň sentimentál, as well as the alternative rock band Ali Ibn Rachid.

He worked as a music producer and programme annotator for the Slovak Philharmonic, and as a music journalist, editor and

Translated by Eva Bubnášová and Marcus Zagorski.

Jaroslav Šťastný is active as a composer, improviser, and writer.

Currently, he works as a senior lecturer at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts (JAMU), Brno, Czech Republic.

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translator, thereby successfully exploiting his language skills.

With his broad talents, he doesn’t lack sense for theatre (in 1998, he was awarded the best stage music prize for two one-act plays

by Chekhov), and his performances with STOKA theatre also give proof of his in no way negligible abilities as an actor. At secondary school, he privately studied composition with Víťazoslav Kubička and later with Ivan Hrušovský at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. He was granted study scholarships in France and in the USA. Apart from composing symphonic, chamber, and vocal music, he has also collaborated with dance ensembles and has written a number of pieces for them. The repertoire of the Slovak National Theatre included his ballet A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Zagar aims at achieving a synthesis of contemporary music and traditional compositional ideals. His efforts are based on selected historical models (among them is minimalism), which he transforms into new forms. In spite of archaisms or various stylistic affiliations, the results of his endeavours sound unique. Peter Zagar is a rare, modest, and gentle man, educated and formed in the Central-European tradition. In fact, he wouldn’t deny that any iconoclasm is foreign to him. (He doesn’t satisfy his need for nonconformity in the arena of composition, but by being a member of improvisation ensembles, such as VAPORI del CUORE or don@u. com). The unique character of his music is much more a question of its inner structure than, perhaps, of its outer impression. That is also the case of his surprisingly consonant Apocalypsis Iohannis for mixed choir and string orchestra (1997). In the sphere of chamber music, he often achieves bizarre forms by accumulating ordinary material elements (e.g. Blumenthal Dances, Two Pieces for Accordion).

Since his minimalism-oriented Music for Video (1992), his music has been marked by a strange, hardly describable but unmistakeable “Slovak sound”. Although no superficial resemblance to folk tunes can be traced in his work, it is as though it includes the breadth of Slovak music. Transformed into new forms, this music makes you feel a connection that reaches from the deep past into the wideopen present. Zagar’s pieces contain a kind of incomprehensibly and weirdly transformed continuity of Slovak music culture and embrace its real national character.

by Ľubomír Chalupka1 Self-identification and Acculturation Historiographical reflections justly describe the post-1945 stages of musical development as the most dynamic period in modern [...] Slovak music. It is indisputable that in just a few decades its profile evolved in a remarkably fast, very specific, and forward-looking fashion: from music with rather modest interwar experience to a professionally articulated system capable of becoming a part of challenging international contexts. [...]

However, in characterising the development as a process we will not succeed with just a simple enumeration of facts, events, and results that ignore causal connections. And the process was not linear; rather, it was a multi-layered, complex, and – at times – even contradictory set of movements, reflecting the nature of the development of European music in the second half of the 20th century, and subjected to specific domestic conditions and circumstances. For a long time Slovak post-war music formed within the coordinates of the politically and culturally split Europe, and simultaneously had to react to its own relatively short history of becoming modern artistic culture. In this geographical and historical setting, influenced by the interplay of external and internal determinants, favourable stimuli, and limitations and restrictions, both accelerating and stabilizing factors showed some overlaps.

That is why the historical development of Slovak music after 1945 can be understood as a continuous overcoming of obstacles—obstacles that resulted from a lack of experience and a lack of a fully built professional institutional framework.

1

This text was first published under the title Vývoj po roku 1945 (Development After 1945) in: ELSCHEK, Oskár (ed.): Dejiny slovenskej hudby.

Bratislava: ASCO Art & Science 1996, p. 273-322. Used by permission of the author.

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Development of Slovak Music After 1945

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During the stages in which Slovak music was asserting itself as an independent and equal voice in the polyphony of styles and movements characteristic of 20th-century European music, two significant cultural strategies were utilised: an attempt at selfidentification and an acculturation process.

The stages of continual self-identification and self-realisation were connected with reminiscences and a creative reapplication of the sources of Slovak music traditions, which were found in specific structural and tonal features of Slovak song and dance folklore, as well as in the affinity for specific modes of expression, thematic ranges, emotional reactions, and artistic-creative intentions. At the same time, this music was intended to appeal to the domestic audience. The concept of connecting national and social awareness had already been applied in the period between the wars, when Slovak music, similarly to music in other countries in central and south-eastern Europe, was trying to find its modus vivendi; and again, this same concept became relevant during the more challenging situation after 1945. The attempt at self-identification in the development of contemporary culture progressed from an introverted self-reflection to the evaluation of specific qualities of Slovak music in a more open international comparison, from factors of self-sufficiency, withdrawal and even isolation, to a dynamic concept of the recognition and employment of national values. This self-identification process was present not only in the realm of composition, but also in the development of interpretation and musicology. It also had a clear influence on the Czecho-Slovak context: in spite of some parallels with trends in the development of Czech musical culture and its long-standing coexistence in one common state, Slovak music began to assert its developmental alternative and its own creative potential.

Another inspiring and historically indispensable factor accelerating the development of Slovak music was its engagement in an acculturation processes, one that aimed at getting in touch with its surroundings in order to take stimuli from them both through imitation and through the specific selection and transformation of elements utilised for the growth and regeneration of the selfidentification effort. This issue of the relationship between a nationally defined Slovak music and more general trends existing in European music was not entirely new. However, the acculturation trends present in the 1930s artistic program of Slovak musical modernism started to be perceived as insufficient in the new historical context. They were outworn also due to a gradual influx

Slovak music. Besides the year 1918 (founding of the 1st Czechoslovak Republic) and the year 1939 (its end and the beginning of World War II), the year 1945 (the end of the war, the restoration of Czechoslovakia, and its becoming a people’s republic), and especially February 1948 (the establishment of socialist political regime) are considered major landmarks, and then also the years 1968–1969 (the adoption of the Act on the Czechoslovak Federation, but also the occupation of Czechoslovakia and the beginning of what was called the “normalisation”), and finally November 1989 (the end of the socialist system), and 1993 (the creation of the independent Slovak Republic). Some more detailed periodisation overviews also include the years 1956 (criticism of the Stalinist model of socialism) and 1963 (a certain liberalisation in Slovak culture and art motivated also politically). [...]

Innovation Trends in European and Slovak Music The year 1945 is considered critical also from the perspective of the history of 20th-century European musical culture. It marks the end of World War II, which caused an involuntary interruption in the preceding development (something seen already in the 1930s in the fascist ideology of entartete Kunst, a term that seemed to cover most 20th-century art made up to that point), and led to

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of music into European media, which facilitated the availability of information, the dissemination of music on audio records, and quick publicity. Thanks to these circumstances together with its internal creative dispositions, Slovak music was able to break through even the isolating barriers erected by its being a part of#the ideological sphere of the Soviet bloc.

The conditions necessary to integrate the self-identification and acculturation efforts were influenced by the external sociopolitical context. In past periods, the development of Slovak music experienced stages in which the self-identification trend prevailed, as well as those dominated by acculturation initiatives. A new social relevance and nationalisation of musical culture and art can be considered a long-standing determining constant of the post-war epoch. Along with the infiltration of ideological mechanisms, the development of Slovak music was seen as directly dependent on cultural-political and social changes. That was what determined concrete periodisation landmarks and partial stages, as can be seen in existing reflections and characterisations of 20th-century

the isolation of previously communicating musical cultures (the contacts among which were the breeding ground for the forming of individual layers of the interwar music avant-garde).

The search for the course of future development was dominated by two initiatives. The first one, stressing syntagmatic innovation [...], was based on the idea of continuity, whereas the second one elaborated on the idea of a dismissal of the past in order to seek and find a new quality of material sources, composition techniques, tectonic principles, the sound ideal, and creative intentions. The priority of this second trend, which we could refer to as paradigmatic innovation, was initiated by the younger generation in Germany and France and gave rise to the New Music initiative. [...] Besides these two rather global trends, there formed another partial one, which was important due to the fact that it got specifically reflected in the development of Slovak music and fell into the sphere of the cultural and political interests of the Soviet bloc. It was based on the theory that 20th-century classical

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music was in a crisis, resulting from the growing conflict between classical and popular music. It assumed that the crisis could be overcome through interference in compositional practice, which was supposedly affected by subjectivism, a lack of national character, and overcomplicated musical structure, all of which hindered its ability to be embraced by listeners. The idea of the sociological innovation of music was discussed at the 2nd International Congress of Composers in Prague in May 1948 (adopted as what was later known as the “Prague Manifesto”), and was applied shortly after in a more elaborated and dogmatic form as a substantial part of the norms of socialist realism in music. These norms had already been a part of the ideological system created in the Soviet Union between the wars, and they were designed to control and regulate the arts. After World War II they gradually spread from the Soviet Union to other national cultures of the Eastern Bloc, and to Slovakia after 1948. [...] Later, during the 1970s, the initiative of conceptual innovation, connected with a postmodern orientation, was gaining in importance in European music. It challenged the existing developmental constants, analytical trends, and the achieved syntheses of artificial European music.

The chronology portraying the historical situation of European music outlined here was specifically reflected in the course of the development of Slovak music after 1945. This course can be characterised as a gradually articulated poly-style system, co-formed

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Initial Situation after the War [...] The year 1941 saw the nationalisation of the Academy of Music and Drama (renamed the State Conservatory) and the Opera of the Slovak National Theatre (which began to stage shows

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by three main creative initiatives, whose origin, metamorphoses, and inner differentiation became stimulating factors in that development.

The first one, the continuity initiative, emphasising moments of self-identification on the basis of affinity to ethnic specifics of Slovak music, is related to the evolution of the generation of Slovak musical modernism after the year 1945 and with the distinctiveness of the individual maturation of its representatives, actively creating for over 40 years in the period under consideration. It both represented and stimulated concrete stylistic ideas and connections, inspired by and deeply rooted in the national context.

Underlying it were features of stabilisation, confirmation, recurrence, and continuity. It was connected with the preservation and cultivation of a system of compositional styles, a selectiveness of themes and genres, and an emphasis on elements of the tradition.

The idea of continuity was applied not only in the works of the oldest group of composers, but also, as one of the correctives to stylistic diversity (especially in the older composers’ teaching activities), it could influence the artistic efforts of younger, continuously maturing new generations.

The second, avant-garde initiative, which focused rather on the acculturation needs of Slovak music, is related with the generation of young composers in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s.

Similar to the first initiative, this one also had its own genesis, stratification, and developmental stages of activation, stabilisation, and synthesis. It is characterised by discontinuity in creative pursuits and orientations. By means of its dynamism, restlessness, and polemical views, it pointed at static and regressive moments in the development of Slovak music and managed to challenge the achieved stasis of the self-identification endeavour.

The third, most recent initiative emerged in Slovak music around the mid-1980s as part of the rise of post-modernism. It is mature in terms of acculturation, aspires to combine and employ seemingly contradictory style-forming elements, and elaborates on both the idea of a new avant-garde, as well as the idea of a new continuity.

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in Slovak translations during the wartime Slovak State). In order to provide more room for opera and ballet shows, the operetta ensemble left the Slovak National Theatre (SND) (and became the basis for the New Stage ensemble in 1946). In 1945, the opera in Košice, continuing in the tradition of the Eastern-Slovak Opera Theatre, was nationalised, too. The interest in concentrating nearly all musical activities in Bratislava was associated with the city’s changed ethnic structure: the inflow of people from rural areas brought about the requirement of educating the new audience. The focus was laid on performances of the SND Opera, which saw the return of the conductor M. Zuna after the Croatian conductor K. Baranovič left (J. Cikker was the dramaturge). It was the main place of activity for a generation bred by the Academy of Music and Drama.

Concert life in post-war Slovakia started gradually. Events were organised by the Music Chamber, and the first international partners were Soviet folk ensembles. Any higher demands were met by the radio orchestra at the time. [...] In the changed situation following February 1948, which marked the beginning of the new regime, nationalisation and the newly acquired role of musical culture and art in society were reflected in a specific way. The forming socialist state needed to gain as many supporters of its politics as possible; it did not, therefore, let the effect and impact of music go unrecognised. In the spirit of the new cultural policy, conditions were created that helped build an institutional basis for the professionalisation of Slovak music. But a system of ideologically motivated control over culture – including artistic creation – began at the same time.

In the course of a few years, institutions that mediated the production, dissemination, promotion, reflection upon, and reception of music were put into operation. Their establishment marked a significant phase in the development of Slovak musical culture. As early as 1949 the Slovak Philharmonic was founded, and it focused on the education of a new audience and the cultivation of original Slovak music. It was founded by the Czech conductor Václav Talich. Together with Ľudovít Rajter and Ladislav Slovák, he strove for a high artistic standard during the initial years of the operation of the orchestra. The Slovak Philharmonic was crucial for concert life not only in Bratislava (from 1953 in the form of subscription concerts), but also around Slovakia through its touring activities (still under Talich’s conducting). In 1950 the Philharmonic initiated the Bratislava Spring festival. [...] In 1949,

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the Academy of Performing Arts began to prepare young generations of professional musicians. These activities represented the top of a three-tiered artistic educational system, consisting also of the conservatory as a secondary school, and a network of elementary music schools located throughout Slovakia and taken over and maintained by the state. The innovation of musical life in Slovakia was facilitated by the establishment of the National Music Publishing Company (1951), the Slovak Music Fund (1954), as well as the state monopoly Music and Artistic Centre (1950), which organised concert life in Slovakia. The latter became the Concert and Theatre Office (1957). From 1951 academic research was concentrated in the Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. In order to cultivate folklore in collective forms having the broadest possible impact, folk ensembles were created as early as 1949 (such as the Slovak folk art ensemble SĽUK and youth ensemble Lúčnica), later to be followed by similar ensembles in ethnically mixed regions of Slovakia (the Ukrainian folk ensemble PUĽS, and the Hungarian folk ensemble Young Hearts, for example). The military art ensemble Vojenský umelecký súbor (1951) engaged in some amateur activities too.

As much as the above facts bear witness to the generous support invested in the development of Slovak musical culture, they were, of course, politically motivated. State officials and authorities expected musicians to accept the ideology of the system, which not only ensured the cultural and artistic milieu’s orientation to socialist principles, but also targeted the nature and structure of artistic creation itself. This acceptance was regulated by the Society of Czechoslovak Composers, which came into existence upon the merger of the Syndicate of Czech Composers and the Club of Slovak Composers. In contrast to these organisations, the Society was to instil the principles and norms of the new cultural politics into musical life.

The principles and norms of the Society reflected in particular the schematic differentiation between European musical creation of the preceding decades and the idea of a new “revolutionary” music. The general interpretations of almost the entire previous development of 20th-century music were swept aside and replaced by a vulgar, sociologically motivated ideal of simplicity, where the popular ideal of music, the collective and universal application of a given model allowed only certain material, modes, genres, and themes, and in which the option of an individual approach

to creation and the pursuit of new artistic techniques seemed undesirable. The glorification of a work’s capacity to convey certain ideas and serve a specific function led to the neglect of (more autonomous) artistic values and to a preference for those types and genres which allowed the composer’s political commitment to be clearly in the spotlight, especially through the text, programguided idea, theme, the work’s title, or dedication, etc. That is why vocal forms were desirable – from their simplest forms, such as mass songs, through what was called the popular cantata, to more extensive cantatas. Symphonic compositions, preludes, symphonies, and concerts written in line with a program were also accepted. A separate field of national-style music consisted of composed music for folk ensembles.

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[...] Musical life in this period was shaped by several generations. The new social dimension of music engaged a relatively large number of composers, who coped with the demands of that period in various ways, depending on their respective age and artistic experience. The group of the oldest composers – Mikuláš Schneider­Trnavský (1881–1958), Frico KAFENDA (1883–1963), Alexander ALBRECHT (1885–1958) [see p. 83], Štefan NÉMETHŠAMORÍNSKY (1896–1973) – contributed in an honest fashion and cut back on their creative principles only partially. […]

Alexander MOYZES (1906–1984) accepted the new genrerelated demands perhaps most openly. He wrote mass songs, politically motivated orchestral compositions (Februárová/February Overture, 1952), and cantatas (Chceme mier/We Want Peace, 1951). In them, however, he tried to maintain the professional level of his style. He partly continued in his interwar series of montages by writing numerous compositions for SĽUK (he authored the first music programme for this ensemble), and he created a tradition of symphonic-sounding folk music – e.g. Tance z Pohronia/ Dances from Pohronie (1950), Tance z Gemera/Dances from Gemer (1956). That this period represents a distinctive intermezzo in the composer’s creation is evidenced by his symphonic works. [...] The original form of Siedma symfónia/Symphony No. 7 bears witness to the author’s creative concentration (although its cyclic arrangement reveals a tension between the objectiveness of the first two “folkloric” parts and the profound subjectivity of Largo).

in what is today Slovakia). With regard to its dramatic concept and symphonic sound, as well as its chromaticism and employment of dance elements, the opera shows similarities with Jánošík.

The composer was at his best in his opera Vzkriesenie/Resurrection (1961), based on the novel by L. N. Tolstoy.

Younger representatives of Slovak musical modernism largely agreed to fulfil the demands of the period; and, therefore, they had to give up some attributes of their own pursuits for some time. Rather than the descriptive type of cantata [...], Dezider KARDOŠ (1914–1991) preferred to be in contact with folklore, which allowed him to elaborate on the styles applied in his Východoslovenská predohre/Eastern Slovak Overture. Kardoš’ ability to express himself through an orchestral sound of a quality approaching that of other 20th-century symphonic thinking (Honegger, Shostakovich) was manifested in its initial form in his Druhá symfónia „O rodnej zemi“ /Symphony No. 2 “On Native Land” (1955), even though the finale (a dancing fairy tale) was still consistent with the concept of a folklore symphony. Whereas Kardoš resisted simplification, Andrej OČENÁŠ (1911–1995) benefited from the requirements for transparency and simplicity, for they helped him clean up the dense scores of his cycles of symphonic poems and encouraged

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Eugen SUCHOŇ (1908–1993) was a composer who, even then, maintained a high artistic standard, a standard documented by his opera Krútňava/Katrena (1949). It is a socially inspired drama celebrating the ethical qualities of Slovaks by means of cultivated artistic stylisation. With respect to the composer’s individual style, it represents a synthesis of his past experience and, in particular, a perfection of a full-fledged modal language based upon a diatonic total. In addition, it crowned the efforts to create a Slovak modern opera and set high criteria for the future development of this genre in Slovak music. Due to the pressures of socialist realism, Suchoň was forced to make changes in the libretto and rewrite the ending of the opera (later he returned to the original concept); however, the corrections did not affect the musical score. [...]

This period saw the creation of another Slovak opera, Ján CIKKER’s (1911–1989) first work, called Juro Jánošík (1953), which – contrary to Suchoň’s vocally conceived and concentrically built Katrena – was written as a symphonic suite. In it he applied his sense for orchestral colours, as well as his characteristic means (ostinato, typical motifs, figurative accompaniments). Cikker’s second opera, Beg Bajazid (1956), was also inspired by subjectmatter from national history (the Turkish raids in the 16th century

him to employ some individual structural qualities of folklore, or the straightforward character of melodiousness (a cantabile style). [...] Melodiousness, simplicity, optimism – attributes of artistic production in socialist realism – were present in the work of Šimon JUROVSKÝ (1912–1963). His Mierová symfónia/Peace Symphony with concertante piano (1951) repudiates the impressionist features of the composer’s previous work. Ladislav HOLOUBEK (1913–1994) gained attention through the expressive directness of his song cycle Dcérenka moja/My Daughter (1952). Tibor FREŠO (1918–1987) inclined to a romantically coloured symphonic form (with two symphonic poems Nové ráno/New Morning, 1950 and Oslobodenie/Liberation, 1955). Both appearing in the late 1940s, the two composers who were most affected by the implementation of demands for simplicity in artistic creation were Oto FERENCZY (1921–2000) and Ján ZIMMER (1926–1993), who graduated from E. Suchoň’s composition class at the conservatory in Bratislava and the Music Academy in Budapest.

Another group of composers appearing at the end of the 1940s – Zdenko MIKULA (1916–2012), Tibor ANDRAŠOVAN (1917–2001), Bartolomej URBANEC (1918–1983), and Milan NOVÁK (*1927) began conducting in folklore ensembles (such as SĽUK) and in amateur ensembles (the military art ensemble). Therefore, their creation was initially oriented to applied genres; the only one who strove for a wider compositional range already in his early career was Andrašovan (in 1947 he wrote the first Slovak ballet Orfeus a Eurydika/Orpheus and Eurydice).

Around the 1950s, Slovak music experienced more considerable change, brought about above all by composers’ efforts to react to the regressive moments and states of crisis in their own artistic development in that period. Creative intentions were again dominated by individual pursuits, an urge to seek suitable areas of inspiration, to refuse the existing ideological demands and conventions of the creative system, and to implement new style-forming standards. It was manifested in an extension of expressive modes through the reassessment of the superficial demand for rusticity, monumentalism, and pathos, and included instead tones of reflective lyricism, of elegy, and the ballad, especially in the sphere of instrumental program music. Music types and genres got rear-

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Liberalisation of Creation, Acceleration of Development

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European music, including the sphere of compositional practice, seemed justifiable. It escalated also due to the fact that Slovak music culture had to come to terms with new trends of an advanced media society, which stemmed from the flexible and quick availability of information. Thanks to the growing quality of recording techniques, music increased its presence not only through concerts, but also through radio shows and audiotapes.

In 1957, in the 2nd edition of the magazine Slovenská hudba/Slovak Music, the young musicologist and composer L. Burlas published his Myšlienky o vývine slovenskej hudby/Thoughts about the Development of Slovak Music, in which he pointed out that Slovak music had to free itself from the idea that the current level of creative work represented a stabilised norm of the national style. In his view, becoming familiar with the values of 20th-century European music, including the works of the Second Viennese School, as well as having contact with contemporary compositional trends, was an important part of making the development of Slovak music more dynamic. However, this desire for acculturation was misunderstood by older composers, and it caused their aversion to newly created works of the younger generation of composers. [...]

That, in turn, intensified the avant-garde qualities of the younger

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ranged in a new hierarchy, one which showed a notably higher interest in chamber music and a simultaneous diminishing, if not absence, of the still desirable vocal instrumental cantata-type compositions. The transparency of elements derived from the relationship with folklore began to lose its prominence, while the emphasis was shifted to the author’s individual message. Rather than proceeding by abrupt leaps or radical disruptions, these innovations built on the previously achieved stages and elaborated the existing stylistic foundations.

The movement for innovation also had external incentives.

It emerged and formed in a period in which Slovakia, like other socialist countries, took in cultural and political impulses calling for the liberalisation of artistic creation, associated with a critique of the dogmatic model of social development, and encouraged democratisation of musical life and a relaxation of the methods of centralised management of music culture. In addition, it increased during a temporary relaxation of international tension, when there was a prospect for overcoming the isolating information barriers.

The above-mentioned situation was reflected in the dynamics of musical life. The desire for broader contact with 20th-century

generation’s emotions and actions, and led to their ambition to assert themselves both at home and abroad, and subsequently contributed to an increasingly dynamic development of Slovak music and musical life. [...] The period between 1956–1960 is characterised by the solitary seeking of Ilja ZELJENKA (1932–2007), even though several young composers – Juraj POSPÍŠIL (1931–2007), Ladislav BURLAS (*1927), Pavol ŠIMAI (*1930), and Ivan HRUŠOVSKÝ (1927– 2001) – completed their studies in mid-1950s. [...] A group of students including Ladislav KUPKOVIČ (*1936), Peter KOLMAN (*1937), Roman BERGER (*1930) [see p. 91], and others, in conjunction with the young musicologists Ladislav MOKRÝ (1932–2000) and Peter FALTIN (1939–1981), organised a cycle entitled A Seminar in 20th-Century Music, during which they listened to and discussed

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the 20th-century classics, as well as the representatives of postwar New Music. The 1st Congress of the Society of Slovak Composers in December 1959 judged the means employed by New Music as “unacceptable for Slovak music”, and the results of I. Zeljenka’s pursuits (but also the stylistic innovation of his teacher Cikker) were dismissed as undesirable.

The most active phase in the appearance of the young generation can be delimitated by the years 1960–1965. That is when Miro BÁZLIK (*1931), Dušan MARTINČEK (1936–2006), Ivan PARÍK (1936–2005), and Jozef MALOVEC (1933–1998), educated in Prague, completed their studies. In the pages of non-music magazines, Kolman and Faltin argued that the young composers’ new aesthetic and stylistic orientation was a legitimate part of the development of Slovak music. L. Burlas published a series of articles dealing with “avant-garde” techniques in the magazine Slovak Music; in 1962 the Society of Composers organised a trip to the Warsaw Autumn Festival with an increased number of participants. [...] The younger generation’s avant-garde trajectory was accepted at the 2nd Congress of Slovak Composers in December 1963. As early as January 1964, the group Hudba dneška (The Music of Today), led by L. Kupkovič, began to perform publicly.

This generation’s new works were increasingly programmed and published; Slovak music could be also heard in events organised by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) – in 1964 Zeljenka’s Druhé klavírne kvinteto/Piano Quintet No. 2, and in 1965 Kolman’s Sonata canonica were performed. Thanks to P. Kolman and J. Malovec, there was an Experimental Studio established in the studios of Bratislava radio in 1965. Among other things,

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it focused on the production of authentic electroacoustic compositions. It elaborated on the experience gained in the sound studio of Bratislava television (the first institution of its kind in what was then Czechoslovakia), in which Zeljenka, Berger and Malovec created the first electroacoustic music for films.

A stabilisation phase covers the second half of the 1960s.

This period saw the appearance of another class of composers – Juraj HATRÍK (*1941), Tadeáš SALVA (1937–1995), Jozef SIXTA (1940–2007), and Juraj BENEŠ (1940–2004). L. Burlas got near to the generation’s motivations not only in theory, but also in his compositional practice. Dominant was also an acculturationoriented avant-garde. Works by Slovak composers could be heard at international festivals, exhibitions, and contemporary music competitions (at the Warsaw Autumn Festival 1967 the Slovak Philharmonic under the baton of Ľ. Rajter performed Zeljenka’s Oświęcim, Hrušovský’s Hirošima/Hiroshima and P. Šimai’s Víťazstvo/ Victory, in 1969 T. Salva’s Canticum Zachariae, and in 1970 Sixta’s Asynchrónia/Asynchrony). The Music of Today ensemble also performed more abroad than at home at the time. This generation’s attempts at self-identification culminated when three contemporary music conferences, the Smolenice Seminars, were organised between 1960 and 1970. The seminars were supposed to provide a space for exchange and stimulus for the creative desires of the domestic avant-garde, a platform to meet with prominent New Music representatives, and they were meant to help Slovak music reach the world. (In 1968 it was attended by Stockhausen and in 1969 by Ligeti.) [...] Initially, playfulness, wit, and even parody suited Juraj Beneš best (Préférance for 9 instruments, 1974; Waltz for Colonel Brumble, 1975; Musique pour Grock, 1975). Also, at the time he was writing his opera Skamenený/Petrified (1974), inspired by the balladic verses by J. Kráľ, he began to concentrate on capturing the modal qualities of music. Even though Beneš often wrote vocal or vocal-instrumental compositions, he kept a distance from the narrative layer of the text. Neither did he follow the plot in his following opera Hostina/The Feast (1980), based on verses from Hviezdoslav’s poetry selected by the composer (in line with the principles of spiral drama, Beneš does not adhere to traditional dramatic time, but instead creates an autonomous suspense). [...]

The appearance of new composition graduates is worth mentioning, too. Almost all of them embraced the idea of returning to the works by the 20th-century masters and to the Slovak tradition.

They include Vladimír BOKES (*1946), Hanuš DOMANSKÝ (*1944),

Igor DIBÁK (*1947), František POUL (*1945), and Jozef PODPROCKÝ (*1944). A characteristic feature is the activity of older composers, whose presence was not very significant over the previous years because they engaged either in conducting at various institutions, or in teaching, [...] e.g. Pavol BAGIN (1933–2013) and Miloš KOŘÍNEK (1925–1998). Shortly after graduating, Vladimír Bokes changed his course: the criticised avant-garde of the 1960s proved to be fruitful, for it both matched his rational nature and provided a good basis for rather expressive contrasts, rougher expression, and richer confrontational correlations between the “traditional” and “more recent”. For this turn in his style, he chose a chamber setting (Druhé sláčikové kvarteto/String Quartet No. 2, 1974; Druhé dychové kvinteto/Wind Quintet No. 2, 1975), in which serialism blends together with the aleatoric technique of loosening the fixed rhythmical-metrical plan. He later utilised the golden ratio principle (Koncert pre klavír a orchester/Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, 1976; piano cycle Dobrý deň Mr. Fibonacci/Hello, Mr. Fibonacci, 1977; Druhá symfónia/Symphony No. 2, 1978). He did not give up the rational techniques even after the aleatoric elements in his scores were considered “socially dated”. […]

A truly dynamic invigoration, connected with the 1980s, was the appearance of the generation of postmodernism, which formed in two waves – Vladimír GODÁR (*1956) [see p. 94], Iris SZEGHY (*1956) [see p. 98], and Víťazoslav KUBIČKA (*1953), and later Martin BURLAS (*1955) [see p. 93], Daniel MATEJ (*1963) [see p. 95], Peter MARTINČEK (*1962), Pavol MALOVEC (*1957), Alexander MIHALIČ (*1963), Róbert RUDOLF (*1963), and Peter ZAGAR (*1961) [see p. 98]. […] and Marcus Zagorski, cross-references and chapter titles added by editor.

Prof. PhDr. Ľubomír Chalupka, PhD. specialises on music theory and analysis, the history of Slovak music in the 19th and 20th centuries, and on the methodology of the science of music. In 2001 he delivered his inaugural lecture entitled The Musical Avant-garde in Slovakia. He lectures at the Philosophical Faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava and has taught at universities in the Czech Republic (Prague, Olomouc), Austria (Vienna) and Poland (Krakow). He is a member of the Arbeitskreis für systematische Musikwissenschaft in Hamburg.

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Shortened and edited by Peter Zagar, translated by Jana McCuskey

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by Robert Kolář On the night of November 17, 1989, the very moment of the fall of the Communist regime in former Czechoslovakia, the Slovak Philharmonic performed a programme that included the Symphony in E Minor by Jean Sibelius. Although it had been apparently programmed months before the massive public demonstrations were held that autumn, its dark and gloomy sounds turned out to be prophetic for the era that was to follow.

The initial optimism, or even euphoria, caused by a sudden sense of freedom, soon faded away and was suppressed by new challenges – severe economic hardship, a growth of unemployment and criminality, and the rise of nationalistic sentiments which finally led to the end of the common Czechoslovak state and Slovakia’s declaration of independence. But independence didn’t make the situation any easier, as the first five years of the Slovak Republic were marked by an authoritarian rule (this time not imposed from outside but chosen in free elections), which caused further economic problems and which nearly brought the tiny country to the edge of international isolation. The threat was averted only after the elections in 1998...

From Banning Symphonies to “Culture?

Later, gentlemen...”

Though the 1980s are widely seen today as relatively relaxed with respect to official cultural policies, the regime would still occasionally impose restrictions on artistic freedom: this happened in case of the aleatoric Second Symphony by Vladimír Bokes (who by that time was already an established composer), which was banned immediately after its first performance in 1980. Yet through the end of that decade, fresh musical currents were felt also in Slovakia, though performances of new music, music not heard before, took place only unofficially. The young composer Daniel Matej led a group of his fellow students (later to become known as VENI ensemble) in an enthusiastically received semiprivate performance of Riley’s In C in 1987. Also, composers and conceptual artists Milan Adamčiak and Peter Machajdík convened

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After November…

The Avant-Garde in the Postmodern Era Melos-Ethos, a kind of a pendant to Poland’s Warsaw Autumn, with its aim to fill in the gap in the presence of contemporary music on official stages in Slovakia caused by decades of communist oppression, was basically a child of the former avant-garde generation. Composers like Ilja Zeljenka, Roman Berger, Ivan Parík, Peter Kolman, Ladislav Kupkovič and others represented in 1960 the living Slovak branch of what one could call the avant-

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private sessions where recordings of Western avant-garde music were played, and, shortly before the collapse in 1989, it was already possible for young music students to travel to the West – as did Matej who spent few months studying at the Paris Conservatoire in 1988.

After “November”, once the spell of communism had been broken, the young generation of Slovak composers and performers did not hesitate to take action. VENI ensemble, “eager to perform music nobody else wanted to play here”, as Peter Zagar put it, needed a regular performance platform. Thus the Evenings of New Music, the first Slovak new music festival ever, came into being. For 20 years it introduced to Slovak audiences a variety of music that had been undesired by the official circles or for whatever reason neglected – ranging from Satie and Varèse to Cage, Feldman, Riley and much of what came after, be it Louis Andriessen or Elliott Sharp or Jon Rose, free improvisation or electronic music. The activities of Milan Adamčiak and his fluxus-oriented Transmusic Comp. in the 1990s also deserve mention, as do those of Jozef Cseres, the aesthetician, author, performer and co-founder of the alternative music festival Sound Off. And there was a hunger for contemporary classical music at this time. Composer Ilja Zeljenka and musicologist Naďa Hrčková initiated the foundation of Melos-Ethos, a biennale that has to this day remained probably the most prestigious festival of new music in Slovakia. It allowed Bratislava to welcome composers like György Ligeti, Henryk M. Górecki, Krzysztof Penderecki, Arvo Pärt, Steve Reich and others. And although the beginnings were not without difficulties – “Culture? Later, gentlemen...” was the emblematic attitude of the new officials, as Roman Berger mentions repeatedly in his writings from those times (and one can hardly find traces of optimism in them despite the immediate post-November euphoria) – the concerts were immensely successful.

Eclecticism Postmodernist eclecticism dominated Slovakia’s musical landscape in the 1990s and early years of the new millennium. Two composers are especially relevant here. The first is Vladimír Godár, who had a well established reputation as a composer since his seminal works of the 1980s and is probably the most important Slovak composer who followed the path outlined by the „Polish school“ and also composers like Schnittke, Pärt or Kancheli; he also caught the attention of wider audiences as a prolific composer of film music. The second is Martin Burlas, who always stood near the edge of the mainstream musical establishment,

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garde movement that followed the most audacious trends in the West. Needless to say, the Soviet invasion in August 1968 and the subsequent social and political changes in Czechoslovakia virtually crushed the ambitions of these young artists (most of them in their thirties, at their first peak of creative powers), who either chose permanent emigration or were to face severe repression from the regime. Their position in the 1990s was of course different. Ilja Zeljenka became an immensely prolific composer, writing symphonies and chamber works for perhaps all existing classical instruments and their constellations (and he was, until his death in 2007, probably the only Slovak composer who was able to enjoy the luxury of making his living exclusively by composition).

His style clearly bore the symptoms of what he himself called his “return to harmony”. Ladislav Kupkovič, the most outspoken and the most radical advocate of the avant-garde in the sixties, now turned (with the same degree of verve and determination) to composing in style of early Mendelssohn. Roman Berger and Miro Bázlik were able to produce significant works, yet the voice of the “men of the sixties” naturally lost its appeal and dominance.

Their somewhat younger contemporaries Vladimír Bokes, Juraj Hatrík and Juraj Beneš became venerable teachers at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, and their compositional output mirrors the variety of (usually irreconcilable) styles and paths a composer was to choose from: Bokes adhered to the aesthetics of Darmstadt, while Beneš tried to cope with the lures of postmodernism (in a similar way to Ligeti, of whom he was a great admirer), as one can observe in his multi-faceted and multilingual Hamlet-based opera The Players, one of the last works he produced before his death in 2004.

dedicating himself to a variety of alternative (or even underground) genres; this probably gives some of his “classical” compositions that hardly definable appeal perceived (not only) by young listeners. Deliberate eclecticism, intellectual plays with listeners’ expectations, is the hallmark of the group of Slovak composers who turned up as fresh forces on the scene in the 1990s: Peter Zagar, Daniel Matej and Marek Piaček, all Burlas’ fellow musicians from the free-improvisation group Vapori del Cuore, love to play with musical clichés and pastiches and, in Piaček’s case, with a strong infusion of (self)mocking irony...

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The New Millennium

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These conditions determined the situation for those who came after the turn of the Millennium. And it didn’t take long for new voices to be heard. In 2002 a bunch of young, academically trained composers, including Marián Lejava, Lucia Koňakovská, Lucia Papanetzová, Peter Groll, and Serbian-born Boško Milaković, together with visual artist Viktor Fuček, founded the artistic group SOOZVUK (which barely translates into English as ‘harmony’, but its meaning is closer to the German ‘Einklang’). Its foremost purpose is the promotion of new music through performances, workshops, seminars, etc., and stylistic unity is not essential. This has proved very fruitful, as the promotional activities are not selfishly aimed exclusively at the members, but at a wider range of young and not-yet-established composers. With regard to the musical style of SOOZVUK members, and what it reveals about the identity of Slovak art music after 2000, the range of inclinations is wide. If these composers have anything in common – artistically – then it would be seriousness. Be it the calm flow of quasi-tonal harmony and pre-eminence of melody in Koňakovská’s works, the ecstasy of repeated clusters of Papanetzová, or the Ligetian murmurs and Lachenmannian scratches neatly organised within a carefully pre-determined compositional frame typical of Lejava, there is always an element of seriousness and complete responsibility for the musical work offered to the public. There is no trace of the light-hearted parody of Marek Piaček...

Marián Lejava has also won a reputation as a conductor dedicated to the promotion of new music (he conducted innumerable premières of more recent Slovak works), and for working with young musicians. Seeing VENI ACADEMY, a sequel to VENI ensemble composed of young music students interested in newer,

The Academy and the Musical Demimonde Is there a way to characterise the most recent generation of Slovak composers, those born after 1980? So far, there can be doubts as to whether one should even speak of a ‘generation’ in the sense of common artistic values, aspirations, etc. But one thing can be observed and may be regarded as natural and, indeed, positive: the worlds of academic musical education (represented by the Academy in Bratislava and the conservatories) and that of the unofficial musical demimonde (the alternative, electronic and free-improvised music scenes) have become gradually closer to each other; in the case of several musicians they almost automatically overlap. In the virtuosic and eclectic orchestral works and piano pieces of Vladislav Šarišský as in the witty and intricate chamber pieces by Lucia Chuťková, one can detect the strong influences of their non-academic musical backgrounds, quite like in the music of the gifted composer and dulcimer player Michal Paľko, to name only the most promising and outstanding examples. The case of Miro Tóth may be seen as remarkable – as a saxophonist and free improviser he gained a reputation as the author and leader of a series of multimedia performances (named Frutti di Mare) and oratorios that touched socially and politically controversial topics between 2007 and 2010; he also led the improvising ensemble Musica Falsa et Ficta. Only later did he enter the Academy to pursue the career of a composer. Recently, he was joined by his fellow-students Marián Zavarský and Matúš Wiedermann in a project titled Composition Lab, which opens for themselves (and their friends, who are not necessarily music students) the possibility to explore new ways of creating music and

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and less conventional music, enthusiastically hammering out the discomforting rhythms of Martin Burlas’ 7th Day Record under Lejava’s baton can be a powerful experience...

As far as ensembles of new music are concerned, 2008 saw the birth of the Quasars Ensemble. This group of prospective professional musicians under the leadership of composer/conductor/pianist Ivan Buffa at first sought to promote predominantly French spectral music, but they quickly widened their scope and embraced the agenda of performing the music of Slovak composers too – notably of women like Viera Janárčeková, a spectralist composer who lives in Germany, Jana Kmiťová or Petra Bachratá, whose works are more often performed abroad than in Slovakia.

having it performed. The range of activities is very wide – from the construction of DIY instruments, to electroacoustic composition, to free improvisation, and to the utterly conventional medium of string quartet... The fact that authors from outside the Academy are let in has proved to be a great enrichment.

Certainly, it is not only in the higher Academy where things slowly begin to move in a positive direction. Pianists Ivan Šiller and Fero Király have been active in the field of elementary musical education, presenting innovative ways of introducing new music to children and youngsters, and thus fertilising the soil for its growth among the generations that are to come. All in all, that dark and gloomy Sibelius symphony, which unwittingly sounded in Bratislava at the wake of a new era in Slovak history, also offers few rays of hope...

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Translated by Robert Kolář and Marcus Zagorski.

Robert Kolář was born in Bratislava. He studied musicology at the Comenius University in Bratislava where he also taught between 2009 and 2013.

Since 2008 he has been a co-editor of the Musical Life monthly.

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by Slávo Krekovič In Slovakia the roots of sound experiment and the kind of music that may be conceived as organised sound (contrary to music handling mainly pitch material) go back as far as the late 1950s.

This study is a brief probe into the history of production of organised sound; it also attempts to sketch superficially the cultural and political contexts of its emergence.

During the first decades, Slovakia was an integral part of Czechoslovakia, a joint state, which lasted until the end of 1992.

Nevertheless, there were many cultural aspects very specific to the Slovak part of the country that played a significant role in the rich history of experimental music production going back to the 1950s. Numerous interesting activities, which took place in institutional as well as unofficial or semi-institutional domains, had an international element to them. Productions by pioneers of electroacoustic music and live electronics joined avant-garde manifestations of the New Music and later combined with influences of American experimental music, the Fluxus intermedia movement, audio-visual arts and improvised music.

Many experimental sound-related projects in Slovakia originated under a totalitarian system, which restricted free artistic production in favour of party-prescribed preferences. Periods of political detente (1962–1968 and from 1987 until the collapse of Communism in 1989) were rather short but ranked among the 1 This contribution partly supplements the text Organised Sound and Experiments in Slovak Music, published on http://soundexchange.eu/#slovakia_en (see also http://www.soundexchange.eu/#anthology_en) and as a part of the book book Sound Exchange – Experimental Music Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe, ed.: Carsten Seiffarth, Carsten Stabenow, Golo Föllmer, pfau verlag saarbrücken, 2012, ISBN 978-3-89727-487-7. Printed with permission of the publisher and of the author.

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Tracing Ruptures: Fifty Years of Organised Sound in Slovakia1

most fruitful creative periods. The development of Slovak experimental music can be perceived as a shift from the first establishment of a classical music avant-garde to a full-fledged pluralistic setting, but also as a shift from the phenomenon of a universityeducated composer to a creative sound engineer and then to a general democratisation of music-making during the 1990s.

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The Beginnings

2 See Slovenská hudba, 1-2/1996, vol. XXII. Bratislava : Slovenská hudobná únia 1996.

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Music production after 1948 was subjected to ideological screening, and avant-garde approaches were considered to be in conflict with the officially pursued aesthetics of so-called socialist realism. Political pressure on art started to be relaxed gradually after the fall of Stalinism in 1956. At that time a new generation of composers was studying at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Bratislava; these composers did not identify with the traditionalist and politically motivated direction of their teachers and they tried to find their own way, inspired by contemporary international developments. Notable representatives of that generation include Ilja Zeljenka (1932–2007), Peter Kolman (1937), Roman Berger (1930), Ladislav Kupkovič (1936), Jozef Malovec (1933–1998), Ivan Parík (1936–2005) and Pavol Šimai (1930).

The first simple experiments with recording technologies in Slovakia were made as late as 1958 by Roman Berger and Ilja Zeljenka. The interest of a new generation of composers, later to be called the ‘Slovak musical avant-garde of the 1960s’, in new means of expression can be understood as a response to conservative teachers and as a need for individual composers to define their voice in the context of what was going on in the world at that time.

The beginnings of electroacoustic music in Slovakia were long considered an experiment at the periphery of musical events, and the status of that kind of music moved between being tolerated and being banned.2 However, the Sound Workroom of Czechoslovak Television (Zvukové pracovisko) was established in 1961 as the very first studio of its kind in Czechoslovakia and joined the family of a few other similar studios abroad. The Sound Workroom was the first workplace for teamwork between composers and sound engineers, which from then on became the working model in Slo-

The Avant-garde Pioneers In early Slovak electroacoustic music, procedures of musique concrète were applied, and electronic sound generators also shaped the final sound array. A strong fascination for exotic sound structures predominated, but the formal outlines of the compositions were firmly anchored to rational compositional thinking.

The approaches by individual young composers soon developed into varied profiles.

Roman Berger composed his first autonomous electroacoustic composition Elégia in memoriam Ján Rúčka in 1969, drawing from older film music. Peter Kolman produced seven electroacoustic compositions before 1976 in which he applied an interesting way of using specific sounds and electroacoustic material. Ivan Parík (1936–2005) arrived in the Radio Studio in 1969. His works of the following period included recordings of his own or borrowed compositions, or modifications of sounds produced on acoustic instruments.

Coping with, or rather having a dialogue with, classical traditions and historical musical materials can be found in electroacoustic works by composer and mathematician Miro Bázlik (1931).

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vak production. In 1961 Ilja Zeljenka, with assistance of the sound engineer Ivan Stadtrucker, made music to the film 65 miliónov (65 Millions) directed by Miro Horňák.

The idea of having an independent electroacoustic music studio – detached from television or film production – within Czechoslovak Radio appeared in 1964. The studio, called Triková réžia (Special Effects Studio), was eventually established, and in June 1965 it became the Experimental Studio of Czechoslovak Radio. The studio was managed by Peter Kolman until his emigration in 1977. Composers who were interested in electronics moved from the television Sound Workroom, which ceased to exist in 1966, to the Experimental Studio.

The first independent electroacoustic composition in Slovakia goes back to autumn 1966. Jozef Malovec produced the composition Orthogenesis using genuine synthetic sounds with assistance from sound engineer Peter Janík. Two years later the stereo version won an award at the First International Electronic Music Competition at Dartmouth College, USA.

Tadeáš Salva (1937–1995) tested out electronics in 1965 for the first time and took an interest in folklore and its combination with avant-garde means of expression.

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Event, Happening, Performance

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Ladislav Kupkovič (1936), an educated violin player and conductor, and a self-trained composer, is one of the key personalities of the musical avant-garde who came to the scene in the early 1960s. His activities covered an unusually broad scope, including compositions for classical instruments, electroacoustic music, conducting of contemporary compositions, but also organising concerts and intermedia events. Kupkovič was the first artist in Slovakia to experiment not only with use of electronics in concerts, but he also explored spatialisation, graphical scores, indeterminism and improvisation in an array of works ranging from chamber music to large ensembles.

In 1964 he established the Hudba dneška ensemble (The Music of Today), which specialised in performing contemporary works by domestic and international composers for the following five years.

The works by Kupkovič of this period display conceptualism, an open form and playful search for non-traditional solutions – they aim to break stereotypes in musical performance practice. Many of the experimental concerts by Kupkovič were held after his emigration to West Germany in 1969. A concert experiment with a remarkable scope and variety of ideas was the project Musikalische Ausstellung (Musical Exhibition), held in the West Berlin Art Academy in 1970, where musicians called “playing exhibits” played on nineteen stages for several hours.

The Slovak musical avant-garde was mostly oriented towards the European cultural context until the 1980s. The influences from American experimental music, such as indeterminism, improvisation, the compositional use of the space, and a related intermedia approach, were first present in works by Kupkovič, and only later in the creative and organisational work of Milan Adamčiak (1946), who became a key personality in early Slovak experimental music.

Adamčiak has always been interested in a creative linking of several media and art forms, including music, experimental poetry, performance and visual art. A characteristic feature of his

The Smolenice Seminars and “Normalisation” One of the benefits of détente during the 1960s, and also proof of the involvement of the young generation of Slovak composers and theoreticians in engaging in active exchange with the international community, were three editions of the Smolenice Seminars.

These were small presentation-festivals for contemporary music featuring internationally acclaimed guests, including Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Ligeti, Vinko Globokar, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Peter Kotík, Mauricio Kagel, as well as local composers such as Ladislav Kupkovič, Ivan Parík, Milan Adamčiak and others.

The Seminars were an important part of experimental music history in the country, and they took place from 1968 to 1970 (after 1968 the organisers struggled to keep the seminars alive for two years).

The more-or-less free period of electroacoustic music production intersecting with global developments that appeared in the 1960s was abruptly brought to a halt by the invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968, an event which caused a major turning point in the thenemerging democratisation. The following three years were used by the ruling elite to strengthen their control over art, to close the borders, and to cut off communication lines with the Western world. Many personalities who were the drivers of musical events and innovation emigrated from the country (Šimai, Faltin, Kupkovič, Kolman).

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works is a natural crossing of borders between several genres and media, realised in the form of graphical scores, installations and environments including various sound objects, the production of non-traditional musical instruments and also various actionforms typical of intermedia art at that time.

In 1969 he and Róbert Cyprich (1951–1996) established an art and music group called Ensemble Comp. Their Manifesto included a definition of the new perception of music as a participative, creative process in the intermedia spirit of the Fluxus movement, and it favoured indeterminism and the open form of AngloAmerican experimental music as well as the latest tendencies of improvised music.

The cessation of the Smolenice Seminars, the Slovenská hudba journal, and Czechoslovakia leaving the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) were just some of the signs of the process going on that was euphemistically called “normalisation”. The early 1970s saw the end of any continuation of trends and brought a downturn in creative art, a withdrawal of certain authors from the public scene, and an end to public happenings and other non-traditional forms of free art communication. New electroacoustic compositions were made but they were banned from public presentation for several years.

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“Post-modern Generation”

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Public performances of electroacoustic music resumed in 1977, and the end of the decade also saw activities develop around the Electroacoustic Studio (the former Experimental Studio). Juraj Ďuriš became the sound engineer in 1978, and young composer Víťazoslav Kubička was appointed the programme director. Members of a new generation started to be interested in electronic music, and their positions could be described as post-modern and leaning away from the previous avant-garde tendencies.

Martin Burlas (1955) is perhaps the most universal and productive personality who enjoyed crossing borders between genres and was actively involved in several music contexts, from electroacoustic studio works, pieces for classical musicians, through alternative and experimental rock, alternative pop and the use of elements of electronic dance music. Burlas was the first musician in Slovakia whose multiple musical identities can be perceived as a specific expression of the post-modern era. Starting from the late 1980s, Burlas has also been active as an improviser in various projects (Transmusic Comp., later VAPORI del CUORE, OVER4Tea). In his solo projects he drew sound inspiration from electronic dance music, used sampling in his avant-garde rock project Sleepy Motion and also worked with computer music.

Víťazoslav Kubička (1953) is another member of the postmodern generation who arrived at the end the 1970s. His electroacoustic works have distinct features, such as tonality, the use of atmosphere, orchestral sound, pathos, the variation principle and references to pre-modern musical traditions.

Sound engineer Juraj Ďuriš (1954), who later in 1991 became the art director and driving personality of the Experimental Studio and other projects related to electronic music, entered the scene

Climate Change and Centres of Activity The end of the 1980s brought political detente and a revival of free art experiments going beyond official culture to seek ways of reaching the public. This occurred also because of a new creative generation seeking new inspiration in addition to historical connections – to art exploring the potential of new technologies, Fluxus inspirations, improvisation and indeterminacy, performance art, and intermedia projects ranging from theatre through music to visual art. After 1987, centres of unofficial activity developed, and subsequently interconnected; these usually surrounded active artists and later turned into organised events, festivals, happenings or new established art groups.

After the regime change, the years from 1989 to 1993 experienced a strong surge in cultural activities. International contacts were re-established and new civic associations were established.

This further development was driven mainly by the organisational efforts of artists associated under the umbrellas of non-profit associations, which, from their own initiative, bridged the gap brought about by absent or poor infrastructure, including alternative and unofficial cultural venues.

In 1987, Štúdio Erté was established in Nové Zámky upon the initiative of performer József Juhász, and a year later it marked the start of an annual performance art festival Transart Communication. The event was the first significant platform that brought together musicians working with new technologies, visual artists, performers and theatre artists after years of an attenuation of artistic activities.

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of electroacoustic composition in 1983. Since the end of 1980s, he has been interested in combinations of sound with other media such as video, sculpture and laser.

Since the 1970s, experimental methods and innovative work with sound (collage, improvisation) appeared also in the music of Marián Varga, which is usually labelled as classical rock and is characterised by the juncture of the elements of classical music and rock.

3 See Avalanches 1990-95 : Zborník Spoločnosti pre nekonvenčnú hudbu.

MURIN, Michal (ed.). Bratislava : SNEH 1995, 216 p. ISBN 8096720643.

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One of the most important moments at the turn of the decade was the establishment of Spoločnosť pre nekonvenčnú hudbu (SNEH, Society for Non-Conventional Music) in 1990.3 SNEH was founded on the initiative of Milan Adamčiak. The founding members were active musicians, performers and theoreticians – Peter Machajdík, Jozef Cseres, Michal Murin, Oľga Smetanová, Peter Martinček and Zbyněk Prokop. This represented the first platform ever in Slovakia for the long-term promotion, presentation and documentation of shifts and developments in experimental music, covering both sound and its combination with other media. SNEH played the role of an umbrella organisation, affiliating collective members such as art ensembles, Transmusic Comp. and the Balvan theatre group.

The SNEH projects (festivals Konvergencie – 1990, FIT – Festival of Intermedia Creation – 1991, 1992, Musicsolarium concert series – 1993–4) covered a large array of genres and were open to a variety of styles, with emphasis on creativity, free art expression and intermedia drawing from the Fluxus tradition; they combined visual art, music, theatre, performance and experimental poetry. After 1995, SNEH focused on organising the festival of “contemporary progressive music in intermedia overlappings” – Sound Off, upon an initiative by Michal Murin and Jozef Cseres, and held in Bratislava, Šamorín, Nové Zámky and Nitra. 2003 marked the official end of SNEH, but its agents are still active and have implemented numerous projects.

Daniel Matej, the founder of VENI ensemble and an intern and programme director of the Music Fund in 1989, initiated the establishment of the first festival of contemporary music in Slovakia called Večery novej hudby (Evenings of New Music), which were held from 1990 to 2009. The festival was organised by the Slovak Section of ISCM, and the program included presentations of world and Slovak contemporary art in various areas (composed works inspired by the Anglo-American experimental music tradition, post-minimalism, improvised music) and often showcased new special projects that interlinked domestic and international musicians. The festival, which featured John Cage in 1992, reflected the trend of combining composition and improvisation, inviting for collaboration improvisers or composers of experimental music.

classical composers but has included also concerts of electroacoustic music.

The Experimental Studio resumed its original name after the regime change in 1989 and started flourishing then, inspiring cooperation and numerous new works by the younger generation of composers who were interested in electronics (Peter Zagar, Robert Rudolf, Alexander Mihalič, Marek Piaček and others). Juraj Ďuriš became the art director of the Studio in 1991, and together with Andrej Zmeček, they started a civic association Centre for Electroacoustic and Computer Music (CECM) in 1992 to implement projects of electronic music presentation in a somewhat less formal setting than that of a state-run institution.

The Centre produced the first CDs with electroacoustic music

by Slovak composers and organised seminars for the professional community, namely the International Forum of Electroacoustic Music (IFEM) ’92 in Dolná Krupá with a follow-up in 1994. The most extensive CECM projects were an interlinked series of events called BEE95CAMP and BEE96CAMP (Bratislava European Electronic Computer Art & Music Project). This network platform was an umbrella for several festivals, presentations and exhibitions held in cooperation with other organisers.

Intermediality, Improvisation and Plurality of Identities Slovak experimental music from the end of the 1980s and especially from the following decade embraced a multitude of concepts including studio electroacoustics, live electronics, and improvised music with various degrees of freedom, Fluxus impulses, audio-visual combinations and post-modern ways of working with various genre manifestations.

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Melos-Ethos, the largest (biennial) festival of contemporary music in Slovakia, was established in 1991 upon the initiative of several members of the avant-garde generation of composers of the 1960s. Its principal idea was to overcome the historical deficit through presentations by authors who had been banned under the previous political system and for that reason were unknown to the public. The idea of having a representative festival of contemporary music, which, for political reasons, could not take place in the 1960s, materialised after the fall of the totalitarian system. The program has focused predominantly on 20th-century

Compositional strategies included the idea of a blurred musical identity, for the fear of falling under a genre category, or at least an individual style, appeared in Slovakia around that time. One of the signs of the second wave of post-modern musicians of the 1990s was the feeling of a need to master several musical languages and incorporate these into new musical works.

In 1989 Adamčiak, Murin and Peter Machajdík initiated the establishment of a unique intermedia performance group, the Transmusic Comp. It had operated as an integral part of the Society for Non-Conventional Music up until 1996, and its members included professional musicians as well as visual artists and non-professional members: the founders, plus Martin Burlas, Peter Horváth, Peter Cón, Zuzana Géczová, Daniel Matej, Vladimír Popovič, Oľga Smetanová, Peter Strassner, Michaela Czinegeová, Peter Zagar, Juraj Bartusz, Zbyněk Prokop and others.

Referring to the fading Fluxus tradition, Transmusic Comp. focused on the interpretation of graphical scores, free improvisation, the use of electroacoustic components and frequent combinations with the theatre, experimental poetry and strong visual elements. Performers used traditional instruments and Adamčiak’s collection of several hundred home made musical instruments, ready-mades and sound objects.

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The Second Post-modern Wave

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Peter Machajdík left for Berlin in 1992. His activities include the composition of electroacoustic works, cooperation with dancers and improvised music (cooperations with David Moss, Jon Rose, Malcolm Goldstein) and numerous sound environments.

Daniel Matej (1963), the art director of several contemporary music ensembles with various focuses, developed graphical scores, implemented improvisations with the use of electronics (gramophone, CD-players, objects with sound) and implemented a studio-based electroacoustic composition SATIollagE (1995).

With the VAPORI del CUORE formation (since 1993) he made improvised music and composition at the edge of both, frequently with visiting international personalities of the experimental scene. Ľubomír Burgr (1964), author of several electroacoustic compositions and a peculiar violin/guitar improviser (later he also used live electronics in the project Pink Big Pig with Marek Piaček) is

After Y2K: Infrastructure At the turn of the century, the organisational activities in sound production were maintaining the continuity with the existing movements realised by state institutions (Experimental Studio, Melos-Ethos festival) as well as following-up several projects from the non-profit scene (festival Evenings of New Music, Sound Off, Transart Communication). At the same time a new generation of artists, curators and organisers emerged, who started to build new layers of independent cultural infrastruc-

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also known for his role in alternative rock and pop domains (Ali Ibn Rachid, Dogma) and theatre. He has been active as a member of VAPORI del CUORE and other improvisational ensembles.

Peter Zagar (1961) worked with studio electronics at the beginning of his career and subsequently has focused mainly on composing for classical instruments. He is also a piano player and an active improviser in collective projects (VAPORI del CUORE, don@u.com).

Robert Rudolf (1963), living in Paris, has been extensively using electronics, including in live contexts (project Joystick Radio Melody Orchestra with conducted electroacoustic improvisation).

Another composer working with live electronics and living in France is Alexander Mihalič (1963), who is also known a constructor of music instruments/interfaces who studied at IRCAM in Paris.

In 1997, Michal Murin and the aesthetician Jozef Cseres started the duo Lengow & HEyeRMEarS, whose performance and other activities range between “discursive and non-discursive ways of expression”, eliminating the boundaries between artistic performance and its theoretical interpretation, between the real and virtual worlds, and also between seriousness and intellectual humour.

The above-mentioned authors, whose work can be mostly included in the second post-modern wave, are still distinct actors on the Slovak scene. Yet another creative generation made their voices heard towards the end of the 1990s. They display even more variety in styles, a pluralism in genre settings, including sub-cultures (post-industrial, glitch, noise, ambient, DIY-scene), an easy attitude to technologies (computers, both analogue and digital electronics) and also the abandonment of academic composition education.

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ture of two kinds: a “hard” one, e. g. venues, and a “soft” one – record labels, festivals, publication activities as well as short-term projects. The creative and organisational efforts of groups and individuals with different cultural backgrounds became increasingly fragmented and pluralistic. Because in the academic education of composers little accent is given to experimental and electronic music and new compositional trends, and the awareness of the significance and history of sound experiments in Slovakia is relatively low, and with respect to the increasing international cultural exchange, only a small part of the generation emerging in the new millennium sets out to follow this tradition. Musicians interact with the contemporary international discourse more readily than they adhere to a historical continuity. Since the creative scene in Slovakia is small, we see cross-generational collaboration together with spontaneous co-operation between the official and independent scenes.

Initiated by the head of the Experimental Studio of the Slovak Radio Juraj Ďuriš in 2001, a multimedia web portal and database Radioart.sk documents the experimental electroacoustic production and fosters reflection upon it. Digitisation of the radio archive enabled online access to a substantial part of original electroacoustic pieces produced in the Experimental Studio during its history, and to the archive of the Ex Tempore radio programme. Other activities included the organisation of concerts of electroacoustic music which featured also non-academic composers, and the publication of recordings of Slovak music.

Apart from the Evenings of New Music festival, the Slovak Section of ISCM began organising in 2002 the (New) Music at Home concert cycle in Šamorín, and from 2003 to 2011 the Space festival focused on music for classical instruments.

From 1999 to 2007 Julo Fujak organised and programmed in Nitra the Hermovo ucho (Hermes’ Ear) concert cycle of nonconventional music. Since 2011 this tradition has been followed by the festival POSTMUTART. In 2000 Fujak also founded the association Animartis, which for eight years served as an organisational and publishing platform.

In 2000 Oliver Rehák and Slávo Krekovič founded an association named Atrakt Art, which in the following years focused on the organisation of cultural projects and support of contemporary production. Some of these projects (concert cycles, issue of recordings, a festival, international projects of artistic exchange, the 3/4 magazine) concentrated also on experimental

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and innovative music. Annually since 2000 the festival Next has been taking place, and this features contemporary Slovak and international projects, the origination of which was helped also

by Jozef Cseres from SNEH. The Next festival works to combine various genres with an accent on the current music language, innovativeness, and the paradigm of real-time sound organisation ranging from free jazz and electroacoustic improvisation to audiovisual projects, interactivity, non-traditional musical instruments and sound art. Atrakt Art participates also in the preparation of the festival of new media culture Multiplace and administers the ever growing web database of Slovak experimental sound projects Kraa.sk.

In 2004 the association Atrakt Art was one of four organisations establishing the independent cultural centre A4 – Space for contemporary culture. This space in Bratislava city centre has brought regular programs focused on current production and experimentation in various artistic fields. The musical part of the program concentrates on modern approaches, from improvised and electronic music to multimedia performances. Apart from concerts, the A4 space also offers educational activities – presentations, workshops for the creative work with sound, collective improvisation, hardware and software, etc. During its existence, A4 has evolved into a place with a pronounced artistic profile, as well as an open space in which many festivals take place.

Multifunctional independent cultural centres have emerged after 2003 also outside the capital and have become the venues for concerts of contemporary music: Stanica Žilina-Záriečie, IC Culture Train and later Kasárne/Kulturpark (Kulturpark Barracks) and Tabačka Kulturfabrik in Košice, Nástupište 1-12 (Platform 1-12) in Topoľčany, Banská St a nica in Banská Štiavnica.

Also, a decentralised art and culture festival of new media named Multiplace, which originated in 2002 under the initiative of the Buryzone association, is devoted to electronic music and multimedia projects, and it united several independent organisers from several countries into an expanding international net.

Part of its music program is formed by projects including the whole spectre of technology-using contemporary sound production – from a DIY approach and hardware hacking, through new music interfaces, to live-coding, algorithmic composition or net improvisation, and it includes educational activities as well as workshops and lectures.

In Banská Bystrica a similarly oriented festival named Intermedia has existed since 2008. Experimental electronic music based on the overlapping of various genres is presented also by the concert cycle Music Laboratory and post-industrial festival Hradby samoty (Walls of Solitude).

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Fragmented Aesthetics: Academic and Radical

From Composed Electroacoustic Music to Improvisation Since the middle of the 1990s a new generation of institutionally trained composers has started to be active, one that works with electronics alongside their production for acoustic instruments.

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We have seen a growth of music production in the field of organised sound in Slovakia since 2000, something made possible also by ever more accessible technologies. A rare stylistic pluralism and stratification have occurred in response to different cultural surroundings. Besides academically educated composers representing the continuity with the past, others have emerged whose inclination towards sound experiment has a different origin – even subcultural origin (industrial, techno, noise). Unlike previous generations, the new generation brings about a great widening of the spectrum of sonic material and a differentiation of stylistic attitudes, ranging from composed and improvised electroacoustic music to pop-cultural inspirations and multimedia projects, to the most extreme elements of expression.

We may compare the movement in Slovakia to the development on the international stage, where genre classifications of the used elements have become only an auxiliary device and play no real role in music practice. Free jazz, however, and the kind of free improvisation based on it have no strong basis in Slovakia, contrary to many other countries of the Western Europe. Improvisational techniques occurring since the late 1980s are more probably following Cage’s tradition of experiment in classical music, and later they lean on the idioms of music making without a score such as are common in popular music genres. The scene is increasingly populated with groups and ad hoc projects, and artists often create parallel musical identities.

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Let us mention Marek Žoffaj (1970), who was once active also in the Experimental studio, and Boško Milaković (1973), a member of the non-formal composers’ association Soozvuk.

Marek Piaček (1972) entered the experimental musical world in 1991 with an award-winning electroacoustic composition Flauto dolce. Aside from his electroacoustic works, the scope of his projects has developed far and wide. Many of his works share certain features, such as drawing from platitudes and pop-culture, transitions between genres, the creative use of the newest technologies, an equality of composition and improvisation, experimentation with new approaches and a specific musical humour. Ľubomír Burgr, Martin Burlas, Daniel Matej, Marek Piaček, Ronald Šebesta and Peter Zagar are engaged in improvised music, including electroacoustic improvisation. The improvising ensemble VAPORI del CUORE led by Daniel Matej was active since the 1990s, and it frequently collaborated with foreign guests (Otomo Yoshihide, Jon Rose, John Oswald and others). Later it was replaced by the similarly oriented Slovak-Austrian ensemble don@u. com. In 2004 Matej, Burlas and J. B. Kladivo founded the trio OVER4tea, which presents electronic instruments accompanied by conceptually tinged videoprojection.

J. B. Kladivo (Richard Sabo), formerly known as a songwriter in the context of alternative popular music, also started to compose experimental electronic music in 2003. Alternating both of these approaches, he has released a number of albums.

Marek Piaček is engaged not only in his solo projects with composed music. He is also known as a member of various ensembles working with electronics, improvisation, multimedia and scenic rendition. Piaček’s improvisational electroacoustic duo Pink Big Pig (2005) with Ľubomír Burgr was replaced by a “live plunderphonic” project of the laptop trio Voice Over Noise (2007, with Slávo Krekovič and Oliver Rehák), as well as Mio-Mio (2008) with Stanislav Beňačka, conceptually focusing on experiments with pocket computers.

The composer and saxophonist Miro Tóth has become a distinctive representative of the young generation due to his ensemble projects of various kinds, which bridge genres – from classical music through free jazz and free improvisation to the usage of pop- and subcultural elements. He is the founding member of the groups Shibuya Motors (with Slávo Krekovič), Dunkeltherapie and My Live Evil (with Alexander Platzner).

In 2006 Tóth initiated the improvisational orchestra Musica falsa et ficta, which brought to the Slovak scene new forms of conducted improvisation and games with references to the classical forms realised in compositions of longer durations. The members of the ensemble are predominantly music students. The project Frutti di mare (2007–2008) also belongs to Tóth’s collective projects. This cycle of thematic audiovisual performances combined sound, video and text with musical multigenre elements in a live setting.

The creative surroundings of the Musica falsa et ficta ensemble resulted also in the origination of other formations, e.g. improvisational electroacoustic trio LEaD (2012), made up of composition students (Lenka Novosedlíková, Matúš Wiedermann, Marián Zavarský).

Likewise, Julo Fujak has been engaged in acoustic improvisation for a long time in varied manifestations of the group tEóRia OtraSu (thEoRy Of diSruption). There is also Spoje & Škvíry (Joints & Fissures, and its members Dalibor Kocián, Michal Matejka, Jozef Krupa and Petr Vrba, who work also independently), Ankram, Alexander Platzner, Robert Kolář, Paulína Rónaiová and other young musicians.

The methods of controlled improvisation in the context of performing 20th- and 21st-century music are partly applied also

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by the student ensembles VENI ACADEMY and studEND.doc led

by Daniel Matej.

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In 1998 Daniel Tóth (1982) and Róbert Bittner (1980) originated a distinctive new post-digital aesthetics in the project Poo, which is filled with complex, evolving sound structures and influenced by the elements of post-industrialism, glitch, ambient and noise (often also with live projections of the visual artist Zdeno Hlinka).

Both later performed as soloists, too, and in other groupings (::.:, 1/x, Amen Tma, Angakkut, Rentip).

Likewise, the solo projects Casi Cada Minuto (Slávo Herman) and Strom Noir (Emil Maťko) move in the ambient-expressive area. The visual artists Jozef Tušan and Boris Sirka established an audiovisual group BIOS (in 2010), using both analogue and digital electronics for the creation of slowly evolving drones. Each of them is also active in other projects (OMM, Æ, Brada).

DIY-scene and Subcultural Inspirations Since the 1990s a tradition of industrial music has existed in Slovakia represented by the internationally established group Einleitungszeit, known for its extreme performances using visual elements. Matej Gyarfáš claims his affinity to the industrial approach with his electronic project Phragments (2002). Postindustrial and drone ambient inspiration is present also in the production of Aidan Zaal (2012, Peter Kerekes) from Rožňava.

The appearance of experimental electronic music based originally on a subcultural do-it-yourself scene has been distinctively influenced since 2001 by the artistic collective Urbsounds.

Its members use computers and home constructed hardware, performing either together, or as soloists, and in various combinations. They are active also as publishers and concert organisers.

Urbsounds group members are Michal Lichý (Urbanfailure), Tobiáš Potočný (rbnx), and Daniel Kordík (Iskra) with Monika Šubrtová, all living in London and performing together under the project Jamka. Their recordings were released also by the Belgian label Sub Rosa (2011).

The stylistically more heterogeneous collective, more radical in sound and variable in line-up, Noize Konspiracy (2005) is also rooted in the underground DIY scene. It regularly releases compilations of experimental music. The members of the group, demonstrating a rather wide scope of musical abilities, are Lukáš Sigmund (Hlukáš, Total Trash, Morda Noise System), Juraj Ďurček (Avoided) and Slávo Herman (Casi Cada Minuto). The elements of metal, ambient, noise, cut-up collage, spoken word and pop-cultural genres open a wide expressive range of surprising sound combinations.

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An example of an experimental “bedroom producer” is the extremely productive musician and filmmaker Andrej Danóczi from Trenčín, who produces and releases at his own expense recordings in which he creatively elaborates various materials into new works, ranging from noise to plunderphonic collages.

Digitally generated music ambiences are used by Jonáš Gruska (multimedia project Binmatu, 2012), who also constructs his own instruments, and Matúš Kobolka (Bolka, 2012), who explores different possibilities of digital synthesis, programming and controlling music with the help of sensors.

Extreme expressive means – various appearances of noise generated mostly by analogue electronics – are used by several musicians acknowledging the aesthetics of noise music: Noise Mortanna (Vavro Záhradník, 2005), Drén (Erik Ochránek, 2006), 900piesek (Matúš Mikula, 2007) and their common project “…lesom” (2011), as well as Sigi Tobias (Lukáš Sigmund and Tobiáš Potočný, 2008) and Slovak-Czech duo Jack Jack (Ladislav Mirvald and Barbora Šedivá, 2007) working with feedbacks on no-input mixing boards.

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Pop-cultural Crossover The young musicians Pjoni (Jonatán Pastirčák) and Ink Midget (Adam Matej) are engaged in music experiments with acoustic and electronic instruments, sometimes at the intersection of several (including pop-cultural) genres.

A different, more ironical post-production approach to pop music is applied in the dance mashup electronica aesthetics of Batcha de Mental (Alex Gutrai). Similarly Samčo, brat dážďoviek (Samčo, Brother of Earthworms, Samuel Szabó) works with the adopted material using it conceptually for cultural and social critique.

Interactivity, multimedia concepts, poetics of (pop)cultural recycling are close to the projects of Jakub Pišek (Halogenerator, Turbosampler). The music alter egos of Michal Šuranský named Zelený Antoin and Jacques Kustod are connecting the elements of noise and dance electronics; the same can be said about the production of Ľubomír Panák (Drakh, Vrtačky po desáté hodině).

The number of authors engaged in the organisation of sound or experimental creation has been growing immensely in the recent years. They are, as in other countries, musicians from various backgrounds using variable compositional or improvisational techniques and sound material in the sense of some kind of an “open paradigm”.4 The music is released not only by the artists themselves, but also by many labels on physical media as well as

4 Web database http://kraa.sk registers more than 70 projects. About the creation related to new media see also http://www.monoskop.org.

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Boom of Slovak Experimental Music?

Translated by Katarína Godárová and Marcus Zagorski.

Slávo Krekovič splits his official identity into being a musician, sound artist, musicologist, contemporary music and new media art curator and cultural organiser. Holds MA and PhD degrees in musicology. Head of the Multimedia Studio at the Faculty of Fine Arts of University of Technology in Brno and Deputy Director at A4 – Space for Contemporary Culture in Bratislava. Founder of Atrakt Art association, the organiser of NEXT advanced music festival and publisher of 3/4 magazine. Founding member of various experimental music projects (Voice Over Noise, Shibuya Motors, Feed the Tiger). Lives and works in Bratislava.

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online (Atrakt Art, HeyeRMEarS Discorbie, Construct.Destroy.

Collective, Animartis, Urbsounds, LOM, Easterndaze, Nomad Sky Diaries, Exitab, Hudobné centrum/Music Centre Slovakia).

Contrary to this explosion of a great breadth of activities taking place typically independently, there is relatively small interest in official institutions and rather limited possibilities for such support – a gradual reduction of activity has been observed also in the long-working Experimental Studio. There is an increase in international collaboration; however, it seems that an international awareness of the work done in Slovakia – and in other Eastern European countries – has yet to come.

Report on World New Music Days 2011 in Zagreb, Croatia

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by Jim Hiscott, President, ISCM Canadian Section

WORLD NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE NO. 23, 2013

The Croatian Composers’ Society (Secretary-General Antun Tomislav Šaban), Artistic Director Berislav Šipuś, and Producer Mirna Ores, and their respective teams, working with Zagreb Biennale Head Producer Nina Čalopek, put on a stimulating and concentrated five-day Festival with many highlights. This World Music Days was short – 5 1/2 days – but very intense. There were 17 ISCM concerts in the larger Zagreb Biennale with about 90 works.

The events happened in two main venues, a room in the Mimara Museum for smaller ensembles, and two halls at the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall – the large Central Hall (KDVL) for orchestra concerts and the Small Hall (MDVL) for medium-sized events – larger ensembles and big bands, etc. There was a good deal of stylistic and instrumental variety overall, including some jazz bands and unusual groups such as tamburitza orchestra and tuba quartet.

The opening concert featured the biNg bang percussion ensemble. This was a highly skilled group, which spread its large membership in various configurations throughout the concert.

The repertoire was very diverse, which made for a strong opening for the WNMDs. Norio Fukushi’s Couple focused on two percussionists – helped out by their colleagues at key points – going through a wide range of instruments and sounds, with the clever dramatic subtext of an amorous relationship. It was well conceived and well performed, with colour and lots of humour. Another high point was ex nihilo by Portuguese composer Rui Penha, which featured four groups spread around the hall, and quiet, repetitive, meditative music verging on the tonal, with interesting use of the differences between marimba and vibraphone timbres.

The massive sound of group tremolo on the four cymbals in Sergey Khismatov’s Cymbals Quartet was also very effective.

octet concert. Many of the pieces shared effects such as key-pops, slap-tongue and slap-notes, etc. Works that stood out for me included Jean-Luc Darbellay’s Sequences, which had a wide and contrasting variety of effects, a concise and effective ending and good control of overall shape; and Mexican composer Mario Stern’s octet As I Lay Dying, with a broad aesthetic palette including references to jazz and popular music, and strong melodic materials.

And of course an octet of saxes is an amazing sound.

Then a concert of solo voice with electronics, in which the interplay of speaking and singing figured prominently. Nicoletta Andreuccetti’s L’altro canto featured a counterpoint of speaking/ singing, layers of meaning, altered consonants and other modified vocal sounds, and moved towards a dramatic duet between live and recorded voice near the end, with a strong ending. Viviane Mataigne’s Le Rêve de Caliban also used alternations, here between spoken & sung texts and pentatonic & chromatic materials; it was concise and effective.

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Next, one of the more unusual concerts, the Tamburitza Orchestra of Croatian Radio and Television, including all sizes of these traditional folk instruments of Croatia. The repertoire was quite diverse, from the straight-ahead folkloric to more adventurous use of the instruments’ particular colour in a more contemporary music context. In the latter category, Zlatko Pibernik’s Playful Fire with tape was quite interesting – even though it was strange to see an orchestra of tamburitzas sitting inactive as the tape part took a solo – as was Ivo Josipovic’s Drmes for Penderecki, in which Penderecki references mixed with more traditional Croatian material. The two ISCM pieces were Josip Magdic’s Prelude & Burlesque, Op. 221, with many subsections going back and forth between folkloric materials and more abstract sections, and perhaps the highlight of the concert, Hong Kong composer Gordon Dic-Lun Fung’s three-movement And the Strings Resound. Fung’s piece began with colouristic textures and an extended solo set against slow dramatic repeated notes from the three basses. In the second movement there was a reference to a traditional Cantonese melody, with pentatonic harmonies in the orchestra. The third movement featured the unexpected element of the members of the orchestra singing, in a stately and strangely compelling way, a Croatian folk song, against non-traditional accompaniment.

This piece was very effective and brought a completely different aesthetic world to the concert.

Monday the 11th got underway musically with a sax quartet-to-

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Tuesday April 12th opened with one of the more rarefied events of the week, the XL Tuba Quartet. There were in fact two XL tubas and two L tubas. The challenge for composers was to find variety in colour and texture for four voices in this low pitch range. Each composer used her/his own strategy. I enjoyed the use by Chi-Hin Lueng in Utmost Attack of a contrasting ‘raw’ sound to bring out higher partials and thus extend the effective range of the instruments. The highlight for me was Catacombs of Light by New York composer Julie Harting, who comes from a tuba-playing family and so has a special affinity for the instrument. She used the low register very effectively – both bass lines and well-voiced low chords – as well as the higher register to construct a wide pitch range. There was also good use of colour and harmonic progression to give variety and impetus to her piece.

Then the Croatian Armed Forces Symphonic Wind Orchestra.

I’m a fan of wind orchestras, and they’re not often written for in new music circles. In this concert Mladen Tarbuk’s energetic RE was followed by six ISCM pieces. B. J. Brooks’ Cadence Fantasy showed a confident command of the medium; it was a jazzy rollercoaster with a wide stylistic range embracing American Band music, Broadway and film music. Julia Gomelskaya’s The Riot was marked by interesting textures, contrasting colours, sudden shifts to smaller sub-groups and good use of trombone slides towards the end.

This was a full day of concerts, with the Plovdiv Philharmonic from Bulgaria taking the stage next. Tansy Davies’ Tilting had a complex cross-rhythmical focus with melodic fragments gradually coming together – a feat sometimes difficult to achieve with a large slow-moving orchestra –, and it gave a breath of aesthetic fresh air to the week. Bent Sorenson’s Exit Music seemed to avoid large symphonic gestures, instead featuring a careful succession of sounds and textures. It made good use of lyrical melodic materials as well as orchestral colour.

The concert schedule on Wednesday April 13th began with the Camerata Garestin, an ensemble specialising in Baroque music, but here playing new works. I particularly enjoyed Hugi Gudmundsson’s Händelusive, based on a theme from the Water Music.

Over its four movements it explored various facets of Handel, always avoiding the obvious. There were long suspended chords, minimalist segments, long sensuous lines followed in the next movement by lively, energetic, rhythmic music, with complex con-

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trapuntal relationships between lines. Textures were sometimes reminiscent of baroque music, but always fresh. The scherzoesque third movement introduced seconds in a parodic sense; then the last movement used legato lines with slow contrapuntal rhythms, speech-like harpsichord phrases, wind-pipe-like sonorities, and glassy, meditative chords. A highlight of the week.

The Song String Quartet concert combined electric guitar and string quartet in a varied and successful program. The bass-y amplified guitar sound was often hard to balance with acoustic strings, which had a fuller pitch spectrum. Most successful of the combined guitar/ string quartet pieces was Nicolo Colombo’s Four Darks in Red, especially in the segments with ‘raunchier’ electric guitar, which has more treble in the tone spectrum. There were also interesting textures, effective tuttis, and some nice contrasts, eg with col legno battuto strings against semi-acoustic but distorted guitar. Daniel Matej’s E (for e.g.) used the electric guitar in a variety of idiomatic ways – scrubbing (no amp), then, after the amp was turned on, feedback, distortion, ‘dirty’ sounds, ‘go nuts’ and punk segments, etc. Good variety and a convincing fusion between ‘rock’ and new art music. Also strong – and a highlight of the Festival – was Chiu-Yu Chou’s String Quartet No. 1, for string quartet only, an expressive piece which featured extensive use of glissandi and a variety of colours and successful textures in movement 1, duos in the second movement, good structural use in the third movement of obligati and solos, and a convincing conclusion. This piece later won the ISCM/IAMIC Young Composer Award for Chiu-Yu Chou. A different sort of world was created by Marcel Wierckx’s electric guitar/video piece Zin Tuig (Sense machine), in which two hands, one with only three fingers, intertwined and were multiplied in increasingly complex and interesting patterns and designs, against guitar solos dipping into 60s/70s raga rock.

Then the Croatian Radio and Television Big Band. The style was for the most part fairly straight-ahead big band jazz, on the funky side, with a strong rhythm section throughout. Music well-written for band and well-performed by the ensemble led by Sasa Nestorovic. I particularly enjoyed the crunchy chords in Steve Wiest’s Ice-Nine, very idiomatic but also innovative, and the flugelhorn solo and chromatic lines in Randy Bauer’s Wide-Eyed Wonder.

Thursday began with a youthful choral concert – the Zvjezdice Girls’ Choir led by Zdravko Sljivac. It was refreshing to hear the change of pace provided by this repertoire. John Frandsen’s The

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Divine Zoo; Spring; The Lamb featured syncopated rhythms very tellingly. Chan Ka Nin’s She Who Hears the Weeping World began with big piano chords against the delicate sound of the choir, and ended very movingly with the surprise entrance, from the back of the hall, of a solo violin, playing the final phrase.

The electronic concert which followed began with Japanese Garden by Doina Rotaru for bass flute/piccolo and pre-recorded sounds. It was visceral and effective and got the concert off to a good start. Fellow Romanian Nicolae Teodoreanu’s Abyss of Interference used body sounds in contrasting ways, along with big chords and suggestions of gamelan music for an evocative result.

Angie Mullins’ Breach evoked a violation of home security with disturbing and tortured sounds of sobbing and screaming.

During this concert, there was an occurrence that might suggest tighter restrictions on photography during performances. In a pause in the middle of one of the electronic pieces, the photographer stood up between the speakers and began taking photos of the audience with a fairly loud SLR-type digital camera, compromising the experience of the piece. The sound of SLR cameras during quiet moments in performances was often distracting throughout the week; if photos must be taken during performances, perhaps a noiseless digital camera such as the Leica M8 might be mandated.

The Croatian Radio Orchestra performed later that evening at the KDVL Hall, and offered some strong pieces. Streams by Katarina Leyman described the life cycle through a series of well-varied and often brightly-coloured textures and rising lines, with a feeling of lightness and space, and then growing power, which was very effective. Stanko Horvath’s piano concerto Memorial was bold and riveting – a memorable piece and a strong and expressive performance by the soloist, Filip Fak, and the orchestra.

This was another full day of concerts – at 10 pm, the zeitkratzer ensemble presented longer works by Cage, Stockhausen, and an improvised piece by the group. A memorable performance was Burkhard Schlothauer’s arrangement of John Cage’s number piece Seven2, re-titled Nine. Around a half hour in length, it was a sublime experience – quiet, meditative, intense, and hypnotic.

The last day of the WNMDs began with a concert by the famous Zagreb Soloists – known for decades around the world for their many excellent recordings. With conductor Zoran Juranic, they gave a very fine concert. Matthew Hindson’s Crime and Punishment for bass solo and strings featured strong solo and string

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orchestra writing, contrasting textures and a jazz-based section.

Sebastian Stier’s Strahlensatz made effective use of glissandi and other effects, as well as using subtle and varied string colours.

Later on in the day, the Zagreb Philharmonic was led by Krzysztof Penderecki. His horn concerto, played excellently by soloist Radovan Vlatkovic, seemed to reference a variety of 19th- and 20th- century styles, at times seemingly Wagnerian or John-Williamsian, with warm, lyrical passages. An inspired choice of encore by Vlatkovic was a solo from Messiaen’s Des Canyons aux Etoiles. Ivo Josepovich’s effective Epikurov vrt began with gentle, airy textures, then became harsher and darker, with solos in pairs set against dense textures.

The WNMDs Festival, the ISCM portion of the greater Zagreb Biennale, closed with an excellent concert by the Zeitfluss Ensemble, with many strong pieces including Luc Brewaeys’ OBAN, which played with the harmonic series (a Scottish folk music allusion?), Katia Beaugeais’ commissioned piece (as winner of the 2010 ISCM/IAMIC Young Composer Award) Manifesto pour la paix, which had many good structural ideas and something of a rondo-esque form, and Benet Casablanca’s Dove of Peace. Homage to Picasso, with good lines and very effective writing for the solo clarinet / bass clarinet, played very well by Davorin Brozic. Daniel Moser’s Earlicker began with sax wails from Clemens Frühstück but eventually brought the week to a quiet end.

There were several installations placed strategically outside the concert halls throughout the week. I noted particularly Maria Panayotova’s In the Forest, outside the MDVL Hall. It was a peaceful and colourful work, with projected forms of leaves and forests, beautifully videoed, processed and cut together, and with atmospheric music and sounds. It provided a space of calm and respite between concerts, in the natural beauty of a Pennsylvania forest.

The General Assembly meetings all happened in a compact, well-set-up room at the hotel, with a sweeping view over the city. The agenda went very smoothly, thanks to the ever- efficient chairing of John Davis and the organisational work of the Executive Committee, and the attentive Zagreb staff handling mikes, etc. Details of the meetings will be in the minutes, of course, but briefly: there were three presentations involving imminent Calls for Works – Belgium (6 cities), Košice/Bratislava/Vienna, and Wroclaw – a busy year for Sections coming up. Sofia Gubaidulina was elected an honorary member. There was an appeal for content and editorial work on the archives of the ISCM as we gradually

approach the centenary of the organisation in 2023. Also, further clarification and emphasis on the new rules for Sections submitting works, which will hopefully lead gradually to a greater representation of composers from around the world at the World Music Days festivals. Also, concerning the responsibilities of Sections and Associates, there will in the next year or two be a more formal list of duties, including reporting procedures, annual deadlines, etc.

I have fond memories of two of the official receptions – the first at the presidential residence, hosted by Croatian President Ivo Josipovic, also a well-known composer and former head of the Croatian Composers’ Society; and the other in the beautiful Vojkovi - Orai - Rauch palace & former mayor’s residence, hosted by the current mayor of Zagreb.

Congratulations again to the Croatian Composers’ Society and thanks to the organizers and all those involved on the artistic, production and hospitality sides, for making us feel welcome in the beautiful city of Zagreb, and for giving us an enjoyable and varied World New Music Days.

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WORLD NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE NO. 23, 2013

by John McLachlan, ISCM Irish Section I attended the World Music Days 2012 in Flanders and Wallo­ nia – known as Belgium to everyone except the Belgians – between the dates 26th and 31st October inclusive. This means that it is just an account of one person’s visit, and leaves out 5 days from before and after. My comments will surely therefore fail to cover some wonderful work or other, and I hope other reports catch those.

This report takes the form of a chronicle alternating ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ memories...

It was evident from the first concert that the performers were very much behind the music, and that they were of a very high standard. Typically what happens in ISCM festivals is that an international Jury goes through submissions from the composers of the ISCM member sections, and then gives the scores selected out to the ensembles that have a matching line-up. The great brainwave this year was to simply sort the scores by instrumental forces and let the ensembles themselves select from the resulting piles. This simplification might sound lazy or incoherent, but it was neither, in terms of result. It directly led to the higher than usual quality of performance, as each group felt some ‘ownership’ and artistic sympathy for the pieces they were playing; this translated into strong and clear communication of the composers’ ideas – a whole dimension of the ISCM festival that usually gets caught in the systemic mire. Indeed I heard that some ensembles were saying that they would play some of the scores in future concerts. We, in contemporary music circles, term this ‘a result’.

The organisers stated early on that since each member section already sets up a national jury to find six scores that represent the quality and diversity of practise in their area of the globe, then, if the member sections do their job well, quality has already been screened for. I hope this method is remembered for future ISCM festivals, as we have not generally taken account of the artistic input of our performers, increasingly relevant in the contemporary music world.

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Report on the ISCM World Music Days 2012 in Belgium

Thursday Oct 25th My first taste of Brussels was arriving at my hotel late on the th 25 to discover that I had been robbed of my e-reader by smooth criminals at Brussels Central Station. This put me in such a cross mood with myself that I couldn’t think straight, or bear to go to the last part of the 10pm Acousmatic Music concert. Instead I ate a quick meal and went late to the concert venue, the Marni Theatre, to connect with old ISCM friends. Thus began a balmy parallel festival of beer discovery which I recommend to all visitors to the country.

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So it was that the first concert that I successfully entered was the Het Collectief in Brussels Conservatory. But before we got to that pleasure we delegates had to pay in advance with the first session of the ISCM General Assembly.

I won’t bore the casual reader with any details from this except to say that it is alarming to me that I seem to enjoy these more every year – I used to really hate grinding through an agenda over five mornings, full of society procedure and statutes! The exercise and stretching of my attention and patience over 14 ISCM festivals and Assemblies can’t all be a good thing, can it? I suppose I am increasingly engaged by the society’s aims because I have been actively pursuing them for years. (If you actually yearn for Assembly coverage you can slake your thirst at the ISCM website where all the minutes can be enjoyed in extra-dry, distilled form.)

The hall in this venue was rather large for chamber music and in bad need of renovation, and I felt the Het Collectief had to push through an ambience barrier that they certainly don’t deserve.

They started with a cello solo that was so strongly idiomatic for the instrument that I was sure the composer, Tomas Garrido (SP), was a cellist. He isn’t, but he plays viola da gamba and double bass. His piece, Sonata “De Lamentatione”, had a strong sense of line and a passionate sense of drama, with subtle hints of flamenco guitar along the way. Dan Dediu’s Furia (RO) was for four players and explored their musical availability to the full. This was a piece of extremes throughout that sometimes probed the border of kitsch, but was contained by linear and harmonic compositional discipline holding down a very broad range of dramatic explorations. These were the pieces that spoke best to me but the other two from Mauricio Sotelo (SP) and Petra Bachratá (SK) had many colourful and expressive moments.

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I then skipped lunch to run to the police station in Brussels to report my theft for insurance purposes, queued, got a nice report in Flemish that will perhaps require €200 worth of translation, ran back to the conservatory, was advised to run forth to the Palais de Justice where our bus for Leuven was parked, waiting for me – phew – I got on, in a lather of sweat… to commence a stately procession of 3 hours in holiday traffic… a thirsty trip.

Later that day the Burghers of Leuven provided a routine investigation into the beers of Belgium, with a ‘walking meal’ of little crackers and toppings. After our extended bus trip this was dived upon; though many – including me – hoovered up only a sample before zooming away in order to fit in a full restaurant meal before the next concert.

At 8.30 pm at the wonderful venue Stuk we heard the group Champ-d'Action. This was one of many highlights in the festival: a programme of wide expressive range with something good in every piece. Tatjana Kozlova's Horizontals (EST) was a finely filigreed homage to Ligeti that gave us a variety of pace and texture, while Hikari Kiyama's Kabuki (JP) was a monolithic and very loud tour-de-force, but its variety of texture and drama within this made a very convincing case for itself, notable features including long decelerandos and accelerandos which are tricky for most composers, here they were vivacious and fun; one of the outstanding pieces of the entire festival for me. I also enjoyed Mihaela Vosganian's Il gioco degli centi, a heterogeneous and theatrical piece with a fine countertenor part, and Serge Verstockt's Fingerfertigkeit (BE), which was an unexpectedly diverting piece based upon finger exercises such as Hanon and his equivalents for clarinet etc. This had much humour and drama but also a satisfying shape overall, none of which the programme notes would lead you to expect. ...I avoided programme notes as much as I could for the rest of the festival.

Stuk is a Flemish word for three things: a piece, broken, or stuck. The institution is strict about late entries to concerts: in fact it is off the scale on this and on presentation of tickets etc, even to well-labelled delegates. While this reflects a hearteningly high public demand, one cannot help but feel the place is well named. On the plus side it has a student hang-out upstairs with excellent wi-fi, coffee and beers. The wi-fi is free, once you give your identity card over to them! Startlingly communistic, as noted by one eastern European visitor.

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Saturday Oct 27th I had great hopes for Ian Pace’s concert the next day, as I have heard him often before. However, I can’t say that I enjoyed the first two pieces in his programme, from Heather Hindman (CA) and Santa Bušs (LV). They were both mostly dry and short on interest, in rather different ways, as the first played around with sostenuto pedal effects and the second with static and bland effects inside the piano. Then there was the hyper-complex Schönes Klavierstück from Harald Muenz (DE), which was more colourful, with stretches of texture varying greatly in harmonic colour and pacing.

Despite its textural busyness it had moments that reminded one of Scriabin, plus some swerves towards calm eddies that seemed a little out of context. I would normally relish such a piece, but here it seemed too long. My favourite in this programme was Herman Vogt’s Concordia Discors Etudes 4-6 (NO), which explored the implications of strict process in pianistic terms, while letting its rules break pleasingly from time to time. André Laporte's Graffiti on a Royal Ground (BE) was the only one to use piano sonority to the full, and had a piano-derived tape part, but the piano part sounded like a collage of Ravel-type effects; perhaps a contextual jump too far?

I had not heard of cellist Arne Deforce before, but I was glad to correct such a gap in knowledge, since here was someone really stretching the boundaries of cellism. The outstanding piece here was from Raphael Cendo (FR). His FORIS, for cello and electronics, was a huge noise-piece in which much spectral colour variety could be heard—a coup de théâtre. Daniele Venturi's Riflessi di luna (IT) was also very effective, using live electronics to process the work of the cellist, with interesting spatial effects, though with an over-reliance on reverb. Wieland Hoban’s staring (MisLogue I) (UK) was hard to listen to in one go purely because it had his voice speaking in two languages through the speakers which made the attention wander away from the cello, or when it was on the cello, wander from the text. I really think it is fair to say that this one needs to be heard three times to be heard once.

One night in Leuven I met Wieland Hoban with Ian Pace and Ian’s wife Lindsay. I was immediately struck by WH’s voice, which would be radio gold in BBC terms. An interesting background, I presumed, and which he confirmed.

I very much wanted to attend the next concert, the ‘interactive online concert’, which would undoubtedly point the way for some future directions in contemporary music, but I had to prepare

At 2 pm on Sunday the Danel Quartet played, with electronics from the Centre Henri Pousseur. There were four pieces in the programme of varying styles but all somehow unified by the quartet’s consistent and phenomenal artistry. I was very struck by how Sergei Newski's Quartet no. 3 (RU) built up a long compositional line out of initially disparate and marginal musical elements; also by how Richard Whalley's Interlocking Melodies (UK), began with uncluttered melodiousness that was startlingly freshly achieved, and rolled on to be a neatly distilled piece that built up the layers and came to a witty ending. I did not take to the enigmatic and mainly inaudible combination of electronics and quartet that was Maarten Buyl's Tilted Pyramids (BE). It bore no relation to its programme notes, which didn’t even tell us about its movements.

The instruments appeared to be playing/miming, entirely without pitch, a full quartet by a classical master, this you could tell by the hand movements. Afterwards I learned they were playing normally but with no resin. The audience speculated: was it meant to convey how Beethoven heard his late works? It could have made its point in half the time. Jean-Luc Fafchamps’ Lettre Soufie: Kh[a’] [Esquif] was a more rewarding piece, beginning with wonderful attention to sound spectrum richness while weaving extended string techniques expertly into its texture. However, it aimed to unite another style which entailed a painful lurch into populist Philip Glass-like areas, before reconciliation to its old self.

Thanks to the ever-totalitarian Stuk approach to tickets, I only got in to the Danel concert due to a stern intervention from Marie-Paule Wouters, who is known as the dictionary of Flemish music. We pretended I was security, I think. Several others remained excluded, as we had left tickets at the hotel, having assumed there would be time to get back there. Even our Flemish Vice-President and chair of the organising committee of the entire festival was shut out. Obviously I am a slow Stuk-learner, as

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myself for the following Sunday morning, where I would run for election to the Executive Committee of the ISCM. I retired to my hotel to marshal all my thoughts on the recent past and best future direction for the society. The following day, I was rewarded with coming a narrow fourth in a field of thirteen candidates.

There were only three places, but I was happy for the new ExCom members: Nina Čalopek from Croatia, Riin Eensalu from Estonia, and Alper Maral from Turkey.

Sunday Oct 28th

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I was to miss entirely the next event by dint of a short delay in the wi-fi-land of Stuk’s bar. I heard that this, a concert of new music by young students, was of great interest. Instead I had a very energising chat with a German publisherabout the one-sided media rhetoric of the EU neo-liberal bank-saving programme...very soon, it seemed, it was time to walk on to the fine Theatre Schouwburg for the next concert.

I was especially looking forward to the Ensemble Intercontemporain. The piece I most wanted to hear, in a programme of just three, was Luc Brewaeys Fêtes à tensions: (les) eauxmarchent (BE). His piece from the previous ISCM festival (in Zagreb) had stayed in my mind. It turned out I enjoyed everything in the programme, but even more than the Brewaeys I loved Unsuk Chin’s Gougalon (KR). This was endlessly inventive in terms of ways to invoke the music of street theatre. It struck a very delicate balance between giving hints of street music (an endangered species, like our own?) and being constantly novel, achieving success through extraordinary timbre invention and unexpected dramaturgy. It is hard to explain exactly why this was among the best pieces of the festival – a skilled navigation of heritage, perhaps. The Brewaeys was next and this divided its audience purely because it used quotes from Debussy, Stravinsky etc. It is up to the artist to be free to subvert, and I enjoyed the piece, but I had the same nagging,disturbing prejudices that we all have with quotes, however brief. Enno Poppe (DE) was next with his 30’ Speicher II, III, IV. It occurred to me that the composer might have been taking Rihm’s Jagden und Formen as a model, by writing a lengthy, energetic and sectional work-in-progress that promises to continue to 80’ in future versions. Open-endedness is always a provocation to a composer audience but I am of the opinion that we have too many outside-time ‘rules’, which are merely unquestioned presumptions, and that an attempt to be free of them should be judged on its own sonic merits. It worked. ...It probably helped that I only really strongly tuned in onethird through the piece. This was the end of the Transit in Leuven part of the festival, which was marked with another beer reception joyfully received, with giant and amusing boards of cubed cheese.

This was followed by a late bus transit to Mons, on which I had a good chat with Emilio Mendoza about the relationship of folk music to the calendar of religious festivities, how this exists in Latin America but not in Ireland.

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Mon(s)day October 29th The General Assembly in Mons was exciting – a healthy airing and letting off of tension regarding financial priorities of the Society. An extra meeting in Ghent was requested to sort out a loosening of the purse strings in the direction of music activities that combine society members. Now a little bleary in Wallonia, we dusted down our French...

Ensemble On played in a ground level ‘underground’ venue.

Some of the audience were disturbed by the casualness of their staging, but to me it was a no more than a change of social atmosphere. Not every piece was as short as its material seemed to justify, so I will just pick out three. Helena Tulve’s Silences/ Larmes (EST) feature the composer herself playing wine glasses expertly. It was a poetic blend of voice and glasses with an oboe part that stood apart, showing personality and conviction. Piece for 7 instruments from Pierre Slinkx (BE) was a calm, nicely blending piece where almost twitchy elements combined insouciantly with longer spectral elements, while through speakers we heard something like a tape part, though apparently it was only amplification (presumably with live manipulation) that was subtle in its relation with the ensemble. I found this well-judged and attractive. Claude Ledoux’s Un ciel fait d’herbes (BE) was from 1992–and this may have helped it sound fresh! Everything seemed to be in the right proportion in a fairly pointillist and poetic whole.

The next concert was violin soloist Izumi Okubo. All of the pieces had live electronics and so the Centre Henri Pousseur received equal billing to the soloist. As a programme, it seemed to blend well, with satisfying, but not problematic, contrasts between the styles of pieces. Izumi Okubo played with utter conviction throughout, and we heard many entertaining transformations of her sound that ranged from sci-fi film quality to micro-canonic hysteria. The pieces I found most striking here were Douglas Geers’ Inana’s Descent (US) and Peter Swinnen’s Hen’az (BE), both were pleasingly idiosyncratic.

I was reaching the end of my tether by now, simply drowning in music. I had a restorative and inexpensive meal with delegates and composers from Slovakia, Estonia and Australia in the centre of Mons...I proceeded to the Théâtre Le Manège thinking I was ready for more, but during this concert I made notes in the dark which turned out to be non-existent, the pen having run out. I left the final concert a piece early to make new notes and to allow some of the music to pour back out of my ears.

MusiqueNouvelles is a large ensemble that provided the next concert. The conductor, cellist and composer Jean-Paul Dessy spoke eloquently in three languages to introduce the group, mention its 50th celebration and praise its co-founder Pierre Bartholomée (Pousseur being the other), who was present and celebrating his 75th birthday. The first piece, Subsonic, was by Dessy (BE) and was a cello duo with amplification. It combined a striking virtuosity and incredible timbres and colours with some rather kitschy motifs: a crowd-pleasing opening not afraid to make the composers and musicologists feel a little ill. Fausto Romitelli’s Domeniche alla periferia dell'impero (IT) was the highlight of the programme for me, but next to that was surely Hrim from Anna Thorvaldsdottir (IS), a strongly atmospheric piece with a sense of harmonic line. Philippe Boesmans’ Ornamental Zone (BE) also made a strong individual statement. Of interest for its unusual orchestration was Analemma from Veronika Krausas (US), though she mentioned later that the amplification did not suit the piece at all.

Despite enjoying the considerable beauty and expertise from this group I had to go out at this point, missing other pieces in the programme. To mark the end of the Mons leg delegates had a nice impromptu party in the hotel, including useful networking. I introduced Hikari Kiyama to a Swedish performer who I felt would be interested in his music.

Tuesday October 30th

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Initial bus journey to Ghent, pleasant conversation with Texan Steve Lias about whether high artistic achievement and eccentric or wild lifestyles are in any way related, among other things... before that, a less cheering breakfast chat with Turkish delegates about the US Presidential election which drifted on to Armageddon territory. Oh dear.

At the Logos foundation we heard 6 pieces for robot orchestra, one of which required a naked viola player to dance, in order to trigger motion sensors which in turn organise the robots’ thoughts, as it were. I told everyone I would entitle my entire report ‘World Nude Music Days’...

A most interesting field trip to the Logos Foundation, where we heard six pieces. They did not all make the most of the sonic potential there, but I was very impressed with the place and the organisation that Godfried-Willem Raes has created. I would recommend it to any composer to try to write for these forces. Fred Momotenko’s Dust Against the Wind (NL) and Willem-Raes’ Namuda

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Although one had heard some aesthetic differences between all the groups and soloists thus far in the festival, Nadar (an ensemble of ten) swerved us off the road into a more youthful field of glitch, noise and collage aesthetics. They also played in civilian clothes, on school chairs, which made it seem likely that they would be a bit amateur, but they definitely weren’t. Malin Bång’s Turbid Motion (SE), was frenetic, enjoyable and had a high proportion of non-pitched material. The next piece was a welcome gearchange, to a study in inharmonicity: Daan Janssens’ [...en paysage de nuit...], where harmony and timbre were blended expertly.

Stefan Prins’s Fremdkörper 1 (BE) was more noise-centric than even the first piece, more in the ‘glitch’ style. Plenty of fine work went into the piece, though I had issues with the cymbal part which was not well balanced. I quite liked how in the thickets of the piece one note was often the binding element. Johannes Kreidler (DE) provided a big talking point for the festival with his Outsourcing. He verbally moderated four movements in his piece to explain

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Study#27.3: Specs’ were the most engaging. The Momotenko piece would make excellent film music, while there was a great sense of flexibility and assuredness in the Raes, which you would expect.

There was of course debate going around on whether the nudity can possibly be other than a clever marketing ploy...and/ or a 60s hangover...despite Raes’ assertion that it is a necessity from the infra-red-based motion sensors. I thought: surely skimpy covering would work, but I was not sufficiently troubled to ask Raes, in any case...

The historic Handelsbeurs concert hall is housed in what used to be the Stock Exchange. Major renovations in 2000 provided it with a very comfortable and acoustically flexible space, and this gave Het Collectief ’s second appearance a superior air. Again their performance was pretty gripping, and it allowed the audience to bridge the style gulf between George Benjamin and Reich, for example. Evis Sammoutis’s Metioron (CYP) had for a while a novel way of bringing the listener along: organising itself into ready-parsed time-packets. I thought it then veered off to rather basic gestures, but I would watch out for future pieces by this composer. Go Hua from Oleg Paiberdin (RU) and [how does the silver cloud s]ou[nd?] from Vykintas Baltakas both made positive impressions. Thomas Dieltjens (pf), Toon Fret (fl) and Benjamin Dieltjens (cl) each shone in a solo piece.

Wednesday October 31st

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(or claim) that he had written the first one, but outsourced the remaining composing and algorithmic coding to very cheap experts in China and India. He explained the tiny proportion of the commission fee that was thus required for three-quarters of the piece.

It was a wonderful political provocation that angered some of the audience. I thought it excellent as agit-prop art – as a starting point for endless recursive discussion; but nearly everyone agreed that his collage piece that seeded the process was not very good.

Maybe that is necessary for the piece to go downhill sufficiently, to better illuminate the audience’s discomfort.

Spectra (a medium-sized ensemble) played at the Kraakhuis, or mortuary, of de Bijlok, a converted ancient hospital. After the concerts so far, I was underwhelmed by the entire repertoire here.

The best thing in the concert was the first movement of Raminta Šerkšnyte’s Almond Blossom (LT), which twisted by glissando some pretty chords. In the other two movements it rested in a tonal language, getting more and more like music for a TV nature documentary. Pedro Álvarez’s Interalia (CL) was the most convincing whole piece, where scordatura harp reflected amidst a stubborn musical argument. The long rectangle shape of the venue went against properly hearing the vocalist in the last piece, the richly-tapestried Memories of an Index, by Annelies Van Parys (BE).

Later, after a hurried meal, we heard the Brussels Philharmonic, who had programmed some Mozart and Franck to go with Texan and Croatian living composers. They made sure it was a tonal programme throughout. Karim Al-Zand was the former, with Visions from Another World. It was not as otherworldly or proto-surreal as its inspiration, the illustrations of J. J. Grandville.

The middle movement had an air of personal introspection but the last one was rather cartoonish. Srdan Dedic’s Symphonic Movement came across as someone re-creating patches of Debussy and Schoenberg (hyper-romantic period) using only theory textbooks.

My final after-concert socialising was at Vooruit, a theatre with an artsy bar – a chance to mingle with performers and composers and catch up with Ghent-based friends. Vooruit (and definitely not voorhuid, which is how I was saying it) means ‘forward’!

Readers who may not be familiar with the ISCM festival structure(s) should know that this festival appears in a different country every year and has to adapt quite widely from year to year. The two most typical models are (i) where it backs its jugger-

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naut into the parking space of an existing week-long festival, as in Zagreb Biennale 2011, or (ii) where it stitches together the existing contemporary music activities in a country to create a one-off degree of co-operation. This festival falls squarely into the latter category, so it was a convergence of festivals, series, and one-off concerts in Brussels, Leuven, Mons, Ghent, Bruges and Antwerp.

For everyone concerned this means much packing and moving, patience and co-operation, logistic brilliance and grace, and, when the unexpected intervenes, forbearance and understanding. The payoff should be lasting new relationships within and across the musical circles in the country, and a far greater interest from mass media. It is too early to say exactly how positive the legacy will be in those terms, but it is possible to say that even in the presentit succeeded with both the media and the large audiences. The organisers executed everything very well, and the only thing that went even slightly wrong, from the delegates’ point of view, were extra hours spent on buses...the bus approaches to both Leuven and Ghent involved entering the city centre, passing the street parallel to the hotel, leaving again for 30 minutes on the ring road, and re-entering at a slightly different angle. The festival theme could be ‘navigating heritage’.

I congratulate and thank very warmly Peter Swinnen, head of ISCM Flanders who made it possible, and the festival team: Evelyne Lauwers, Bruno de Cat, Ken Hendriks and Karolien Polenus, and also the other board members of ISCM Flanders and others who helped the festival team.

Nadar Summer Academy

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by Juraj Beráts, ISCM Slovak Section

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Over twelve days the 89th ISCM World New Music Days presented a variety of interesting and innovative concerts and projects, enabling a comprehensive insight into contemporary music. One of the projects involved educational activities intended for children, young people and their pedagogues. The project comprised the international conference “NEW EARS” organised by the Centre of New Music (MATRIX), educational concert of the electric guitar ensemble (Guy De Bièvre) and the Nadar Summer Academy, on which I would like to comment in detail. Briefly, music education in Belgium is highly developed on all levels. With its rich (especially historic) background, the country provides favourable conditions for young performers and for a rich musical life ranging from the earliest to the most contemporary musics. The Nadar Summer Academy focuses on students of music between 14 and 18 years of age and provides them with a higher level of education in the form of summer courses. MATRIX backs the project with its headquarters in splendid Leuven. Professional supervision is provided by the Nadar Ensemble, founded in 2006 by a group of graduates of several Belgian conservatoires. The ensemble focuses on music by the youngest composers from all over the world, inviting them to collaborate during rehearsals. The Nadar Ensemble has appeared on several festivals, such as Ars Music, Flagey, the Bruges Concertgebouw, De Nieuwe Reeks in Leuven and the Music Harvest Festival in Denmark. In 2010 the Nadar Ensemble was the ensemble-inresidence at the 45th Darmstadt Summer Courses.

Preparations for Nadar Summer Academy took six days in August, when ten young musicians worked under supervision of five tutors (members of Nadar Ensemble) during private lessons and workshops of chamber and ensemble music. Improvisation, unconventional musical instruments and many other aspects of 20th- and 21st-century music also constituted an important part of the process. Intensive professional work resulted in an interesting project that led to a concert within the 2012 ISCM World Music Days in Leuven. The concert took place on Sunday, 28 October in the packed multimedia space STUK. I would like to take a closer

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look at some compositions. The concert opened with Studie voor Shopping 4 (Michael Maierhof), which created a surprisingly spatial sonority. Half a dozen of students rubbed balloons (“musical instruments”) with varying intensity and colour. Piano Hero # 1 (Stefan Prins) joins a MIDI keyboard with a sequence of images on the screen behind the pianist (Bram Rooses). MIDI keyboard triggers pre-recorded video footage of a pianist playing on the strings of the piano. “Classical” repertory was represented by Berio’s Duetti per duo violini and Varèse’s Density 21.5, rendered outstandingly by violinists Mieke Poppe and Emelie De Bruyne, and flutist Lotte Bryan. Two compositions Popular Contexts (Matthew Shlomowitz) combine the sound of piano and synthesiser. A melody in two unison parts blends piano and synthesised sounds. In the first piece we heard pre-recorded sounds of everyday life (performed

by Hannah Serneels), in the second the sounds of telephone, jazz trumpet and Jimmy Hendrix’s riffs (Rani Theunis). Summer courses featured also live electronics; hence the concert included also Mondwerk (Benjamin Thigpen) performed by Elisabeth Klinck.

Voices and Piano (Peter Ablinger) uses a recording of the voice of Hanna Schygulla, the German actress; its rhythms and intonations were perfectly followed by the pianist Noreen Broeckhove.

The combination of voice and its faithful “copy” in the form of a melodic line was particularly impressive and effective. Ziek! was composed during the courses and also employs live electronics – loops of recordings in real-time (Karin Broeckhove – cello, Mieke Poppe – violin). So much for a brief outline of the variety of new approaches to music and music education of teenagers.

2012 Nadar Summer Academy featured these lecturers: Marieke Berendsen, Daan Janssens, Katrien Gaelens, Pieter Matthynssens and Elisa Medinilla. Such a conception has great potential, and I am assured that the projects of the ISCM – Slovak Section (VENI ACADEMY and New Music for Kids & Teens) are going to achieve their goal – acceptance of contemporary music and new approaches to performance and pedagogy into common practice.

Nadar Summer Academy points to attractive methods of music education, and I think we can learn a great deal from it. Information on the project is available at www.matrix-new-music.be and www.nadarensemble.be.

ISCM Executive Committee John Davis, President j.davis@australianmusiccentre.com.au

Nina Čalopek, Member nina.calopek@hds.hr

Peter Swinnen, Vice-President voorzitter@iscm-vlaanderen.be

Riin Eensalu, Member riineensalu@gmail.com

Arthur van der Drift, Secretary General arthur@iscm.org

Alper Maral, Member alpermaral@yahoo.com

Lars Graugaard, Treasurer lars@graugaard-music.dk

Franz Eckert, Legal Counsel mybeckert@aon.at

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ISCM Secretariat Loevenhoutsedijk 301 3552 XE Utrecht The Netherlands Tel: +31-6-29069173 inf0@iscm.org www.iscm.org

ISCM Members SECTIONS ISCM – BULGARIAN SECTION Union of Bulgarian Composers www.ubc-bg.com

ISCM – AUSTRALIAN SECTION Australian Music Centre www.australianmusiccentre.com.au

ISCM – CANADIAN SECTION Canadian League of Composers www.clc-lcc.ca

ISCM – AUSTRIAN SECTION www.ignm.at

ISCM – CHENGDU SICHUAN SECTION Sichuan Conservatory of Music, China www.sccm.cn

ISCM – BEIJING SECTION Beijing Modern Music Festival, China www.bmmf.org.cn/en/index.html

ISCM – CHILE SECTION Sociedad Chilena del Derecho de Autor SCD www.scd.cl

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ISCM – ARGENTINE SECTION Fundacion Encuentros www.aliciaterzian.com.ar

ISCM – CROATIAN SECTION Croatian Composers’ Society www.hds.hr

ISCM – HONG KONG, CHINA SECTION Hong Kong Composers’ Guild www.hkcg.org

ISCM – DANISH SECTION SNYK: Secretariat for Contemporary Music www.snyk.dk

ISCM – HUNGARIAN SECTION Hungarian Composers’ Union

ISCM – ESTONIAN SECTION Estonian Composres Union www.helilooja.ee ISCM – FAROE ISLANDS SECTION Faroe Islands Faroese Composers Association http://heima.olivant.fo/~summar/ composers.html ISCM – FINNISH SECTION Society of Finnish Composers www.composers.fi ISCM – FLEMISH SECTION ISCM-Vlaanderen VZW www.iscm-vlaanderen.be ISCM – GERMAN SECTION Gesellschaft für Neue Musik www.ignm-deutschland.de ISCM – GOTLAND SECTION Visby International Centre for Composers www.vicc.se ISCM – GREAT BRITAIN SECTION c/o Sound and Music www.soundandmusic.org ISCM – GREEK SECTION Greek Composers Union www.eem.org.gr www.iscm.gr

ISCM – ICELANDIC SECTION Society of Icelandic Composers www.mic.is ISCM – IRISH SECTION c/o IMRO www.composers.ie ISCM – ISRAELI SECTION The Israeli Composers’ League www.israelcomposers.org ISCM – ITALIAN SECTION Società Italiana Musica Contemporanea www.novurgia.it ISCM – JAPANESE SECTION c/o Japan Society for Cont. Music www.jscm.net ISCM – SOUTH KOREAN SECTION www.iscm.or.kr ISCM – LATVIAN SECTION Latvian Composers Union www.komponisti.lv ISCM – LITHUANIAN SECTION c/o Lithuanian Composers Union www.mic.lt ISCM – LUXEMBOURG SECTION Luxembourg Society for Contemporary Music www.lgnm.lu

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ISCM – MEXICAN SECTION c/o SACM www.sacm.org.mx

ISCM – SLOVENIAN SECTION Society of Slovene Composers www.dss.si/?spada=1&lang=en

ISCM – NETHERLANDS SECTION Gaudeamus Muziekweek www.muziekweek.nl

ISCM – SPANISH SECTION Musica Moderna – c/o Grup Instrumental de Valencia www.grupinstrumental.com

ISCM – NEW ZEALAND SECTION Composers Association of New Zealand www.canz.net.nz ISCM – NORWEGIAN SECTION c/o Ny Musikk www.nymusikk.no ISCM – POLISH SECTION c/o Polish Society for Contemporary Music www.ptmw.art.pl ISCM – PORTUGUESE SECTION Miso Music Portugal www.misomusic.com ISCM – ROMANIAN SECTION Union of Romanian Composers & Musicologists www.cimec.ro/Muzica/SNR/default.htm

ISCM – SERBIAN SECTION c/o Union of Serbian Composers www.serbcompo.org.rs ISCM – SLOVAK SECTION www.iscm-slovakia.org

ISCM – SWEDISH SECTION www.iscm.se ISCM – SWISS SECTION nicolas.farine@bluewin.ch ISCM – TAIWAN SECTION http://taiwanesemusic.blogspot.com ISCM – TATARSTAN SECTION c/o Tatar Union of Composers www.rashidkalimullin.com ISCM – TURKEY SECTION Borusan Kocabiyik Vakfi, Kultur ve Sanat Isletme www.borusansanat.com ISCM – UKRAINE SECTION Association New Music www.anm.odessa.ua ISCM – USA SECTION League of Composers www.leagueofcomposers.org ISCM – WALLONIAN SECTION Le Forum des Compositeurs www.compositeurs.be

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ISCM – RUSSIAN SECTION Intl. Association of Composers Organisations www.iscmrussia.ru

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FULL ASSOCIATE MEMBERS ARFA, Romania http://www.cimec.ro/muzica/inst/arfa

Society for Contemporary Music - c/o Centre for Contemporary Music, Russia www.ccmm.ru

Florida International University – The School of Music, USA www.fiu.edu/~garciao/Miami_ISCM_ Information.html

Stephen F. Austin State University – School of Music, Texas, USA www.sfasu.edu

JFC, Japan Federation of Composers, Japan www.jfc.gr.jp/contents/jfc/AbouttheJFC.html

Soc. Venezolana de Musica Contemporánea, Venezuela www.musica.coord.usb.ve/svmc/

MACM, Malta Association for Contemporary Music, Malta www.maltacontemporarymusic.org

ALLIED ASSOCIATE MEMBERS Festival l’Art pour l’Aar, Bern, Switzerland www.jean-luc-darbellay.ch/pdf/l_art_pour_l_aar_07.pdf

AFFILIATED ASSOCIATE MEMBERS NewMusicSA, South Africa www.newmusicsa.org.za

ISCM HONORARY MEMBERS Louis Andriessen Milton Babbitt Béla Bartók Sten Broman Ferruccio Busoni John Cage Elliott Carter Alfredo Casella Friedrich Cerha Chou Wen-chung Edward Clar Paul Collaer Aaron Copland Luigi Dallapiccola

Edward Dent Franz Eckert Oscar Espla Manuel de Falla Michael Finnissy Sofia Gubaidulina Vinko Globokar Alois Hába Ernst Henschel Paul Hindemith Arthur Honegger Klaus Huber Sukhi Kang Zoltán Kodály

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Charles Koechlin Zygmunt Krauze Ernst Křenek György Kurtág André Laporte Doming Lam György Ligeti Witold Lutosławski Walter Maas Gian Francesco Malipiero Yori-Aki Matsudaira Arne Mellnäs Olivier Messiaen Darius Milhaud Conlon Nancarrow Arne Nordheim Per Nørgård Vítězslav Novák Reinhard Oehlschlägel Krzysztof Penderecki

Goffredo Petrassi Willem Pijper Maurice Ravel Hans Rosbaud Hilding Rosenberg Albert Roussel Antonio Rubin Kaija Saariaho Paul Sacher Hermann Scherchen Arnold Schönberg Roger Sessions Jean Sibelius Igor Stravinsky Karol Szymanowski Toru Takemitsu Chris Walraven Ralph Vaughan Williams Yannis Xenakis Joji Yuasa Isang Yun

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WORLD NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE NO. 23, 2013

WorldNewMusic Magazine 2013 Volume 23

WNMM is a magazine on contemporary music published annually by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). WNMM is published in connection with ISCM’s annual festival World New Music Days, hosted by one of ISCM’s national (regional) sections. WNMM is distributed worldwide by way of membership organisations of ISCM and by ISCM.

ISSN: 1019-7117

WorldNewMusic 2013 Magazine Volume 23