ic
C mc: th,, ahc, Cc th th th mx p
‘Very frequently no one knows that contemporary music is or could be art. He simply thinks it is irritating. Irritating one way or another another,, that is to say keeping us from ossifying …’ (John Cage, Silence)1
I
y h b h c c wh now, music that reects its time, where multiplicity rules and music ts in, one
w h. o c h c c h h f being ‘contemporary’, ‘contemporary’, where where in many respects respects it has never really tted tted in, and has become self-reexive and critical in ways that relate not only to its own time but also to its own history. history. If you take this view – which, broadly speaking, is the view of the chapters in this book – then the contemporary music in question becomes
h f h v- h x, c c 1945, wh h difculties to which this has always given rise. If such music continues to have irritation value, in John Cage’s sense of ‘keeping us from ossifying’,2 h h discourses that surround it are also likely to prove provocative.
th f c h c, h f , whch h w h b. t c c c – , h w whch h – c v b b f wh wh c, v w cc, c f h h b hv h h h w c. W h h h c v ch , h h b c, f f h h h wh c b c ‘vc’ c c f c ch xc f c. th f h h h – c.3 i fc, c c, h f c h v b 1
John Cage, Silence (l: m B, 1968), . 44.
2
ib., . 44.
3
Taking his cue from Hegel’s philosophy of history, where the motor of history is driven by conict and contradictions, Francis Fukuyama had famously argued that perhaps
2
Contemporary Music
, wh h f hc , h c f h nw, h w f x, h cb f v, f whch were features at one stage seen as marking the shift to the postmodern – a concept
whch f w hw c f . i, h h b h c v c h cc w f c ch c architecture by Charles Jencks and more fundamental social, technological and epistemological changes by Jean-François Lyotard in the 1970s and 1980s. 4 i was also partly the result of the critique of postmodernism by Jürgen Habermas 5 and others on the grounds of the (neo)conservative implications of the critique
f bjcv f b c h w f Fc, l, dz g. a h , h c f c f vc c c c cc, stark in its contrasts, and confused in the face of conicting demands. The kind of
c cc c x c h 1980 b w ccb ch ch b h c bcz c f c b h w c whch e h 1980, wh c ccb, c, v f , . (You could see this as a market updating of what in the late 1970s had been known
wh cf b h a Cc h uK h ‘cz f c’ h , ‘a f a’, cc f v h d of hory hd occrrd 1989, follow h coll of h sov uo, h fll of h Brl Wll, h rh of Wr cl d h rc of h ud s as the world’s only super-power (see Francis Fukuyama, ‘The End of History?’, The National Interest 16 (Summer 1989), pp. 3–18). The falseness of Fukuyama’s argument was evident at the time, and has certainly been revealed t o be so by subsequent world events. Nevertheless, 1989 was a signicant date, but more so as the beginning of a new age of uncertainty. alr Wll r for h orc of 1989 r o coorry music in Germany (see Alastair Williams, ‘Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm and the aro-gr rdo’, h vol). Coorry c h r of ero d norh arc r o hv b lowr ro ( mx pddo, Adorno, Modernism and Mass Culture, London: Kahn & Averill, 2004, pp. 132–3). 4 i h What is Post-Modernism? (London/New York: Academy Editions/St Martin’s Press, 1986), p. 3, Charles Jencks traces the term ‘postmodern’ back to the Spanish writer Fc d o h Antologia de la poesía española e hispanoamericana of 1934 and to a tb’ A Study of Histor of 1938. What I’m referring to here is the emergence
f h ‘’ w b bh f f hc period dating from the late 1960s / early 1970s up to the early twenty-rst century, with the
1980 h v h / b, c h between Habermas and Lyotard. 5 See Richard Rorty, ‘Habermas and Lyotard on Postmodernity’, in Richard J. Bernstein (.), Habermas and Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985), pp. 161–75. See also Jürgen Habermas, Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne: Zwölf Vorlesungen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1985). Trans. as: The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures, trans. Frederick G. Lawrence (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987).
Introduction
3
w h h h.)6 s vx f b demands, contemporary music cannot be identied as one thing, consistent
cz b . a wh h , f c social pressures to make art ‘useful’ or ‘relevant’ in some way, in order to justify
wh bc f. i, c h h fc b c c h w hv w ff f h c c wh c cx chcz b f, whch c vc c towards reexion. Put crudely, the role of a theory of music today is to identify and
xc h , h f hh f c bz h h c f w f c- groups and niche marketing. This collection of essays places itself precisely there, taking stock, seeking new patterns in the already-familiar, and casting a critical
v h h h f vc c . th emphasis is largely music-theoretical in the rst part of the book, philosophical
h c, wh cb f h w h c h h . sc f c c b bw h, hh cv cc, hwv, h fc h h vb most protably interact is evident throughout. Bu how e we o ue uch ie e ‘coepoy uic’, give i cpciy o efe o eveyhig ohig i picu? sicy speaking, ‘contemporary’ should mean ‘now’, right up to date, the music of our contemporaries in the twenty-rst century. The problem, however, is that ‘contemporary music’ has become a label just like those it has tried to replace in a fast-moving culture – labels like ‘modern’ (from modo, eig ‘ow’, bu ipce ieeigy by ‘pooe’), he ‘new’ (o ofe ecyce, o y o ‘new muic’), he ‘v-ge’ (which oigiy h oe peciize eig o o wih puhig bouie, bu i ow ege i oe cice distinctly old fashioned). In view of such difculties regarding the question ‘what i coepoy?’, ecogizig y ey evie bi ow he ie of ‘vce’ uic, we c oy be pgic, y h i he coex of these essays the term can be seen in two ways. The rst, and relatively simple we i h he ue of e uch ‘coepoy’ ‘vce’ efe hee 6
a cv h w f b bw h f ‘c cc’ h f h ‘cz f c’ h f c h 1970 1980 B, c h xch bw h c ow K h h sc-g f h a Cc, s r shw. s c ow K, Community, Art and the State: Storming the Citadels (l: C, 1984). th Fch v f h b cc animation socioculturelle v , cc h culture, and was taken up in Germany as soziokulturelle Animation. i bb f h bh c animation socioculturelle hv w bc hh z.
4
Contemporary Music
also to the legacy of very different but radical musics which can be traced back e o he begiig of he weieh ceuy. thi i egcy which pei, i pie of , hough i we coiue o egge wih pobe of uic ei, fo ucue i wy h c be be ecibe ciic self-reexive, in musical terms at least. (It has to be said that, while the politics of music strongly underpins the debates represented in this book, especially in Parts II and III, the question of directly politically engaged contemporary music i o focu.) the obviou expe of ‘egcy’ h pig o i e be seen as taking their orientation from the music of composers such as Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Stravinsky, Varèse, Cage and Carter, through Feldman, Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono, Berio, Pousseur, Kagel, Xenakis and Ligeti to Birtwistle, Feeyhough, Fiiy, lche rih, o e bu few. (debuy, for example, remains a strong inuence on many composers of the later twentieth and early twenty-rst centuries, including the Spectralists, as well as the French-orientated English composer Jonathan Harvey, and the German neoromantic composer Wolfgang Rihm, and therefore must also be acknowledged coiuig peece). Bu he pobe wih uch i i h he ep o trace a legacy or a characteristic line of historical development quickly begins to look like the construction of a tradition, and even a canon, and would therefore appear to come into conict with the idea of a critical and self-reexive music, of resistance and the search for the new and the unknown. The second, and more difcult, answer to the question ‘what is contemporary music?’ involves complex issues around the different forms taken by such musical self-reexion, he eio o pi eveope i echoogy o he oi cooiy cuue, he eio bewee wh i ofe ee he o exee uooy coiecy of uch uic he heeogeeiy iveiy of ociey ge, give he powe of he cuue iuy he ei. apec of rock music are also discussed, at times in abrupt juxtapositions around issues of heterogeneity and reexivity. Frank Zappa therefore also features, not because he wrote some ‘art music’ that happened to be taken up by Boulez and IRCAM in Paris, but particularly because his rock music appears as radically critical today as i i i 1966 becue i cu co uch bouie. By wy of ioucio I offer a thematic overview of the book before going on to take up some of the iue ie. Fi of , howeve, hee e oe ipo heoeic iue h ee o be ee.
II
i h h c f fc f h critical theory, and in particular that of Theodor Adorno. In the 1920s and 1930s Adorno was already engaged on a critique of the music of the period and its social
Introduction
5
. B h 1940, wh Philosophy of New Music (1949)7 a c b hv v c h c f wh w h c c, ffc h h c f -cc h c f Webernian serialism. Further interventions were his critique of total serialism at
d 1954,8 h h c f une musique informelle 1960.9 i his essay ‘Vers une musique informelle’ Adorno put forward the idea of a music
whch h w z something of the exploration of the unknown and the unforeseen which goes back to decisive moments of pre- and early modernism: the spirit of Baudelaire’s
w f h 1840 1850, h Fch sb f h 1880 1890, h f f h sc V sch ex f h 1908–1914. i, h cc f musique informelle h to be an intriguing, enigmatic and inuential ideal, and, as it is often invoked
h vw h v, wh c c h. 10 th f a’ f h musique informelle c f cb of unlikely theories is being put forward to explain where Adorno got it from. To attempt to put the matter straight, I would suggest that it is quite clear that Adorno took the concept from existing usage in painting, as anyone with a knowledge
f h art informel v e fw h sc W W the inuence of American Abstract Expressionism from which it in part derived
w cz – , g B h c f h connections in detail in his book Musikalische Avantgarde um 1960.11 a w c w f h f h cc f h informel g
7
th W. a, Philosophie der neuen Musik (1949). Gesammelte Schriften
Vol. 12, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1975). A new
, Philosophy of New Music, ., . wh c b rb Hullot-Kentor (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), supersedes
h Philosophy of Modern Music, . a g. mch W V. B (London: Sheed & Ward, 1973). 8 Originally given as a paper in 1954, ‘Das Altern der neuen Musik’ was published
Der Monat m 1955, x v h fw h cc f c, Dissonanzen (1956), Gesammelte Schriften, V. 14, . rf Tiedemann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1973, 1980), pp. 143–67. 9 Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Vers une musique informelle’ (1960), Quasi una Fantasia (1963). Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 16, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1978), pp. 493–540. Trans. Rodney Livingstone, ‘Vers une musique informelle’, Quasi una Fantasia: Essays on Modern Music (London: Verso, 1992), pp. 269–322. 10 I am grateful to Joris De Henau for providing me with the occasion to revisit
a’ cc f musique informelle. o c c b thinking on the subject. 11
g B, Musikalische Avantgarde um 1960: Entwurf einer Theorie der informellen Musik (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1993).
Contemporary Music
6
h 1950 informelle Kunst , informelle Malerei,12 b c b tch ch h g W (af o Wf schz) , c h, h f informelle Bilder wh cf , Bh schz. 13 i h g v f Fch f h , art informel (‘ wh f’) f h sch f p h -w f h 1940 1950, use further legitimated by an exhibition under the title ‘Signiants de l’Informel’
p 1952 b mch té.14 gv h v h, a needed only to take it over into music as musique informelle to designate a kind f w c h x, b whch w b ‘ f’, h w f cc -v , c h f d (informelle Kunst , f c, ‘f ’, v h, x , vh h ‘f’, v f c all previously known and familiar forms). All this, I think, is pretty convincing,
c h h f h informel h b motivating factor in the visual arts for fteen years prior to Adorno appropriating
, hw h x whch a w h f c f-b c v- w hz b x h v . a h Adorno’s rm conviction that it is the task of a critical theory to attempt the
b, cc v f wh v on in order ‘to nd something new’.15 Wh ao focue o cuey i hi heoeic phioophic wiig, and what makes them so relevant to the situation today, is the dilemma of theory (boh phioophic uic) i eio o ief. th i o y, hee 12
s th W. a, Ästhetische Theorie. Gesammelte Schriften, V. 7 .
Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970), p. 329, where Adorno uses
h ‘f ’ ( informelle Malerei) cjc wh c c c. 13 th bf f h c f ‘f B’ [Bernhard] Schultze in ‘Vers une musique informelle’ ( Gesammelte Schriften, V. 16, . 526) hw h a w f wh h f informelle Malerei, c b schz, K.o. göz W g h v 1950. g B c vc wh schz hf h a w xhb of Schultze’s work in Düsseldorf in 1957; Borio also suggests that Adorno had visited the Quadriga Exhibition of ‘informal painting’ in Frankfurt in 1952. He is also rmly of
h vw h a v h cc f ‘f K’ f : B, Musikalische Avantgarde um 1960, . 90, 45. th fc h a h Fch f f h , hwv, h h w w f p h 1940, h h g h f h. 14
Gianmario Borio also shows much evidence for this link, as well as for connections
wh i f h : B, Musikalische Avantgarde um 1960, . 129. 15
Adorno often quoted the nal line from Baudelaire’s poem ‘Le Voyage’ from Les feurs du mal , ‘a f ’ic v nouveau!’.
Introduction
7
i he ipeive, o he oe h, fo heoy o ecibe, expi iepe, whie, o he ohe h, hee i he ee fo heoy o ecogize i fiue o explain that which in the work of art resists interpretation – what Pierre Boulez has insisted, citing André Breton, is an ‘indestructible kernel of darkness’ 16 he he of he ceive poce. a hi eio wihi heoy phioophy eice o iepeio i pee, of coue, boh wihi he ceive process and within the work of art itself. The shared premise of all these essays, discussions and interviews is that musical works are themselves highly structured hu coiue oe of cogiio, bei – ipoy, i ce we mistake music for language or philosophy in any literal sense – non-conceptual. 17 However apparently unorthodox they might at rst appear, musical works are yeic i hei ucue coiue eiohip bewee p whoe which hve coheece ogic of hei ow which c be ye, theorized and philosophically interpreted. Indeed, it could be said, taking up Adorno’s important insight, that the experience of art works, and musical works i picu, e coiuio i hough. thi i o e of becue he systematicity of art is frequently troubling and provocative, turning out to be antiyeic i eio o peviig ye ouie – aoo’ uggeio (foowig K Ku) h ‘i ociey whoe i i h hou iouce cho io oe he h he evee’. 18 a he e ie, uic ucue, howeve eceiy uooou hey ppe, he hei ei, hei eee eve hei yeiciy wih ociey whoe, epeciy whe epig to shake themselves free from it. An important task of both theory and philosophy of uic i o ieify hee poi of ieecio, bu wihou uccubig o he euio h eveyhig i heeby expie.
oh hc hhc h hv v ff jc: c hh, cv ch, v. th f cc bw a h c 16
‘… “ fcb ”’, aé B, c p Bz, ‘Nécessité d’une orientation esthétique’, Points de repère I: Imagine (p: Ch B, 1985), . 552. t. : ‘p h ph Fh’, Orientations, . Martin Cooper (London: Faber & Faber, 1986), p. 83. 17 i Aesthetic Theory Adorno talks of art in general (and music in particular) as a f f begriffslose Erkenntnis (‘conceptless cognition’); he also talks of music as having ‘-chc’ (Sprachcharakter ), arguing that it is ‘language like’ but is not a
. s ‘th l-Chc f mc: s mf a’, in Richard Klein and Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf (eds), Mit den Ohren denken. Adornos Philosophie der Musik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1998), pp. 71–91, where I c h . 18 th W. a, Aesthetic Theory, trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Athlone Press, 1997), p. 93. See original German: ‘Mehrfach ist, zuerst wohl von Karl
K, ch w, ß, gchf, K h Ch o z b hb g.’ Ästhetische Theorie. Gesammelte Schriften, V. 7, . 144.
8
Contemporary Music
evident in a number of contributions, even where the emphases are quite distinct
cc. a h h h a h w bc hx f h f c c c h – f f , h cc f h c p iii c f: Jonathan Harvey, for instance, nds Adorno’s interpretation of Wagner through
h cc f h c fh c h w f h c, b b a’ mx . ev a’ f une musique informelle, c speculated upon by theorists and composers alike, and described by Lachenmann
‘ bf ’, c f c cc (h w b ‘ v!’, Fhh), b wh i w c ‘c cc’ – h , -fc cc h b h f ff w f h. i other words, it alienates or estranges our thinking about form. Even though Adorno
h b h, h v ff fc f it, making an effort to think beyond the immediate problem and to provide new
cv, h c j v h w hw, h a-g c f h h c, c h c hw h w c h f. lch’ bv h vw h v , f w-: ‘i hv f c f a, b … h w [] f f h h c.’ B h h : ‘F h cv h h v c c f wh h .’ a b wh f h v- f h , b h c w bb h c f h, h b h w w . Solutions, however, were for composers to nd. Critical reactions and responses to Darmstadt orthodoxies of multiple serialism led, as it turned out, to remarkably creative solutions – one thinks of Kagel, Ligeti, Nono and, later, Lachenmann,
rh, Bw, Fhh, m g – v f a c hv c h, h c , v ff c, b fc f b musique informelle. III
While different, and sometimes conicting, theoretical or philosophical perspectives characterize the chapters in this book, what is also striking is
h x whch c cc c. o f h h acknowledgement of the signicance of the new musical developments that took place in the period from the late 1940s up to the early 1960s, and which particularly involved innovations from Messiaen and Cage taken up by, among others, Boulez and Stockhausen. Célestin Deliège, chronicler of the avant-garde, music analyst and author of one of the rst books in French on Schenker, puts forward an uncompromising case for the enduring historical signicance of
h v, c d, h ‘a f
Introduction
9
cf: h -Wb ’; h , hwv, h cc assessment of the successes and also the failures of these years is equally
c. ah cc h wh h w whch h echic eveope of uic i coey ie o he echoogic eveope of society itself. This is the central theme of Hugues Dufourt’s chapter ‘The
c f c h z f h’ – xhv hc v f h f c ch, wh vw h c f Fch sc c c ( w b philosopher, Hugues Dufourt is also himself a composer and a founding member of
h f Fch sc, h wh t m gé g). u df’ h h x w f h c mx Wb’ cc f z, c h hf h c h Die rationalen und soziologischen Grundlagen der Musik (1921) (The Rational and Social Foundations of Music ).19 a fh h h c f c . a f h v. th cc wh h c c f c c, h h-w , f bh Cé dè h rationalization of atonal harmony and François Nicolas on musical logic. In his
ch, ‘a h: f c’, Cé dè fw h c v h f h f h which takes account of fundamental tones, resonance and timbre, and through this is able to make a meaningful connection with the Spectralist composers. François Nicolas, in contrast, from his research work at IRCAM, carries out a philosophical
f h c c f c c, fc and consistency, the dialectical relationship to other works, and the possibility
f , c c c, b x fc. th fc bh h cb hf cv h f c c h cc, h whch hw f h c ‘h’ f c c. th c b seen in different ways in Pascal Decroupet’s contribution ‘Heterogeneity: or, on
h chc f b v’, rf F’ ‘i ch f h’. i, F h iv C hv hw ‘h c w f hc wh h c h ww h exterior world penetrate into his work’. Decroupet ostensibly focuses on ‘ways in
whch c v c f ff of music’. He explores the crossing of boundaries, quotation, montage, attempted
h, c-v, c f c c C, schff, p, musique concrète, Zimmermann, rock music, jazz and ‘world music’, ch, cch. th cb 19
mx Wb, Die rationalen und soziologischen Grundlagen der Musik , wh Introduction by Theodor Kroyer (Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, 1921). Trans. as: The Rational and Social Foundations of Music, trans. and ed. Don Martindale, Johannes Riedel g nwh (Cb: sh i uv p, 1958).
10
Contemporary Music
f bh F dc hw f h f c . a c f c , whv , c c f f, f h c f c, f h, hc v, c ‘’, f c . th h bc f a Bè’ ‘m c: a, Bj, a’, wh h c h -f f h f ‘ c’ c h f h cc f f h h material its poetic value, as well as seeking to counter the accusation sometimes
v a, h h w ‘ anti-v-’. Bè’ ch original one, drawing on Walter Benjamin’s concept of storytelling and Hannah Arendt’s dual concept of work as both process and as object to emphasize the idea
f hc f v . th fc f w ch h f c c, ‘mc c : w h f ’, ff c f h cc f c a cc v f c’ . B h hc c f c c v , cc a, h c f z – mx Wb’ ‘ c f ’ – b c f f. th f ch ‘’ c f f c h c vb , hwv v , bc v h z hh b h c in an age of mass culture. The tendency of art to take extreme rationalization into
h w f f, bc wh Vé h c ‘ c w’, creating its own individual context of meaning with each new work, had long been
c chcc f h v-. o f h h b cx taken to its extreme, as seen, for example, in Brian Ferneyhough’s music, where the work itself sets up, quite literally, a resistance to interpretation, discussed by
rch t h ‘a h f c (w) cx’. th h x, b bh F dc, ch by Herman Sabbe in ‘A philosophy of totality’, is the omnivorous acceptance of everything as material, as seen in the case of John Cage. I take this further
w ‘p h vv f h v-’ hh contrasting the omnivorous example of Frank Zappa with the complexity and self-
f f B Fhh, bh cc f h b. th b fc f h – hc hhc cv – , h h, fc h f c x f c c (dc’ c f Vè, t on Ferneyhough, Deliège on post-Webernian music, in particular Stockhausen and Boulez). On the other hand, it also means an emphasis on critique – in effect a metacritique of theory itself. The debates that arose over the last three decades of
h wh c cc h c f f h v wh h cc f h ‘c f ’ c wh h f w ( b h i ’ h h cz f ‘c h’, b hc c h , c
Introduction
11
philosophy). Indeed, Marc Jimenez goes so far as to suggest that there may be
c bw w c: ‘ f z, c cc, whch h fc, f cf , vc f f c’. t h x, h , h – h c aesthetics – must be prepared to take risks.
Iv
But creativity involves living with risk, uncertainty and ambiguity, and developing r o co d rcl h hroh v h for – howvr informel h h clly r o o b. th coor rrd pr III of this book have themselves also all written extensively about music in both theoretical and aesthetic terms, and here speak directly of their ideas and concerns. idd, h b r ho h hv crly co o occy coor for wll ovr cry ow – how o dl wh h l rbrr of cl rl h bc of y ovrrch d rlly ccd y for organizing them, and the evident need with each new work to build a new structural cox wh whch ch lly rbrry d, , l rl, of hr hrd ‘cooly’ d hdd-dow horcl , c b orzd d bco fl w cox. irbl fro h cocr c, ocll coly bw o d h r o systematize, are questions of freedom in relation to control, chance in relation to drcy, d d orly rlo o c d lzo – rcr, xrc, d h rl ro, of h ror of h, of objc c. i vw of ch ll-rvd instability and uncertainty it might seem all the more remarkable that composers hold b cocrd ll wh d of ‘rh’ rlo o hr c; fc some kind of ‘truth concept’ emerges directly or indirectly as an issue in most of the coor rrd pr iii, lod h vr-r robl of . For Jonathan Harvey, in his chapter ‘Music, Ambiguity, Buddhism’, truth in
c – ‘x h f c’, h – wh h c ‘ kind of … Uncertainty Principle’, and there is a sense in which he has recourse to
Bh w f f c h b b f h w, w whch, c, h c hh music. The transcendent and mystical character of Harvey’s form of Spectralism
, h vb, b c f ch f , c f h h bw . Faced likewise with the dilemmas of choice and the unforeseen in his work, Pierre
Bz C, c b h f -c h, f bc c. a h h vw wh dv W, ‘y hv wh w c b – h h w f dc – b f; ‘… don’t doubt, you cannot nd the truth, or the temporary truth.’ The life’s work of
12
Contemporary Music
h h c f ‘b ’ – h , ‘ that is totally adapted to his own thinking … “Original,” as in the sense that it goes to the origin of himself.’ Here, the instrument is h c – , h more accurately, the unique and systematic instrument which becomes a new ‘second nature’ through which the music emerges. While it’s difcult to imagine a composer more different to Pierre Boulez than Helmut Lachenmann, there is a striking convergence on the need to create a unique context of meaning through
h c f c. Wh wh lch C h h mé who is the dominant inuence, in his interview with Abigail Heathcote he says:
‘i c h’ ch h chc. … th’ wh i wh i , “c b ”. C cv v w, v . i c h b h ch ’ x bf i v b composing the piece. So my composing is full of helpful “mistakes”.’ There is a
f whch h – h cx f b b, c w wh whch ch c bc f, wh h b chc bc b h cx f the work, and a kind of consistency is achieved as ‘truth’ to the dominating idea of the work, its ‘scheme’. When, at one point in his interview with Lois Fitch and John Hails, Brian Ferneyhough states: ‘If music is not true, it can’t be beautiful’,
h h h h h – h h that animates a work permeates every detail at every level, and the beauty of the work is this consistency of idea and work, in a very Schoenbergian sense. Indeed,
’ c h hh h Bz v f mé, h ‘h i is reected in everything’. In Ferneyhough’s opera Shadowtime, whch of a longstanding engagement with the work of Walter Benjamin, it is the concept
f f h c – h, v ff cc f , f , hc , c , wh h c ‘f ’ – whch systematically structures the work. On the other hand, fundamental to Wolfgang
rh’ ch c jc f v z, wh c hh c h cv wh rch mcg h v h h f h c wh xf h f f f h c f h 1910 – db, mh h - schb, h c, hh h ch h vw, rh c b hv ch c wh a’ f une musique informelle, c again to that seminal ideal. Speaking of his early experience of taking part in a
fc f db’ Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien rh : ‘th w a music which only consists of itself, self-sufcient. The music was not something a teacher talks about with words … the music was a living creature, and singing
wh h v c .’
Introduction
13
v
th c f rh lch c c g as gures who have emerged since 1968, and therefore after the rst wave of the
-1945 v-, c b vhz. th Fch of this book in 2001 had little to say on either composer, and it gives cause for
fc h h h w b . a h English edition of the book Alastair Williams was invited to provide a commentary on the signicance of these two very different composers who could be said to encompass the extremes of contemporary music in Germany today. His chapter, ‘Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm and the Austro-German tradition’, brings together a number of important strands also highlighted elsewhere in the book and links developments in contemporary music in Germany to a larger European ac cx.20 As Williams argues, we probably need to rethink the signicance of what has happened in advanced music since the mid-twentieth
c. th v b 1945, b 1968, wh h c last that the revolution of the late 1960s was signicant after all, together with the enormous political and cultural signicance of 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. What is more, the key role played by Germany in contemporary music may need
b v cz f c . i g c as such – although the importance of Stockhausen, Henze, Huber, Lachenmann
rh w bb c h – b v c c in g, f c f wh – ch n, K, l, Ferneyhough – who had chosen to work in the country either permanently or for
x f h v, w h : g c wh have chosen to live outside Germany, like Henze in Italy. As Alastair Williams suggests, all this challenges us to rethink the musical historiography of the later twentieth and the early twenty-rst centuries, and compels us to experience again
h h f bjcv bjcv f . i h v ff w lch rh c hv v w cc c ‘’ whch, W’ w, ‘cb h c jc f b h bc c f cc with heightened, self-reexive forms of perception’. Finally, it needs to be re-emphasized that this book does not claim in any way
b -cv, ff hc v f c c h wh f c vb , f h , c h -wh c,21 hh h hc cx f certainly important. It is the theoretical and philosophical questions arising 20
s a W, ‘a f h nw: th m f mc Modernism’, in Nicholas Cook and Anthony Pople (eds), The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 506–38. 21 For a book that does precisely that, see Célestin Deliège, Cinquante ans de modernité musicale: De Darmstadt à l’IRCAM (Sprimont: Pierre Mardaga, 2003).
Contemporary Music
14
f h f c f vc c c in the context of key developments in earlier twentieth-century music that the contributions seek to address – difculties, problems and dilemmas at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-rst centuries. In many respects the book is likely to
v vcv, ch b wh c b wh v , b the kinds of theoretical and philosophical approaches taken. All this is completely
wh bc h h f v h, hh c22 – that is to say, it is speculative, sometimes difcult, often contentious, and hopefully thought-provoking. As Carl Dahlhaus said at
h c c h d 1966, whch included Adorno, Ligeti, Kagel, Haubenstock-Ramati and Earle Brown: ‘But difculties are provocations, or at least they should be.’23
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a, t.W., Philosophie der neuen Musik (1949). Gesammelte Schriften V. 12, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1975). Trans.
: Philosophy of New Music , ., . wh c b rb Hullot-Kentor (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press,
2006) ——, ‘Das Altern der Neuen Musik’ (1956 version), Dissonanzen (1956), Gesammelte Schriften Vol. 14, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1973, 1980), pp. 143–67 ——, ‘Vers une musique informelle’ (1960), Quasi una Fantasia (1963) Gesammelte Schriften Vol. 16, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1978), pp. 493–540. Trans. Rodney Livingstone, ‘Vers une musique informelle’, Quasi una Fantasia: Essays on Modern Music (l: Verso, 1992), pp. 269–322
——, Ästhetische Theorie. Gesammelte Schriften V. 7 . rf t (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970). Trans. as: Aesthetic Theory, trans. with introduction by Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Athlone Press,
1997) 22
The original colloquium of invited papers at La Monnaie, Brussels, in 2000, and the original French edition of the resulting book – Irène Deliège and Max Paddison (eds), Musique contemporaine: Perspectives théoriques et philosophiques (sro: mrd, 2001) – hv b rly xdd for h r elh do. s prfc for dl. 23 ‘Schwierigkeiten aber sind Provokationen oder sollten es sein.’ Carl Dahlhaus,
Form in der Neuen Musik: Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik X , . e th (mz: B. sch’ söh, 1966), . 49 ( .). F eh v f dhh’ introductory paper to this symposium, see the chapter ‘Form’ (trans. Stephen Hinton), in C dhh, Schoenberg and the New Music, trans. Derrick Puffett and Alfred Clayton
(Cb: Cb uv p, 1987), . 248–64.
Introduction
15
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