73 x 3 answers
For decades, Bálint András Varga has asked contemporary composers the same questions over and over again. The results are workshop reports in nuce, which receive an enormous range of information.
The problem of bringing proximity and distance into a healthy relationship is a profoundly human one - and therefore also one of historiography. Anyone who wants to find out something about recent musical practice usually encounters distanced, abstract theories, cultural-historical constellations or observations from a bird's eye view, as befits a scientific approach. Bálint András Varga, long-time head of the promotions department at Editio Musica Budapest, takes a different approach: he takes the shortcut and lets the participants have the floor. Varga asked 73 composers from Gilbert Amy to Hans Zender three questions: Did you have an experience that changed your musical thinking? Are they influenced by the sounds of their surroundings? To what extent can one speak of a personal style and where does self-repetition begin?
Not all composers are able to deal with such questions - either because they prefer to compose or have to compose, or because they have heard the questions too often and have often answered them. Those who did get involved gave a huge range of answers. While the American Elliott Carter, for example, interprets self-repetition as a sign of fatigue, the Italian Sylvano Bussotti apparently considers it unavoidable: "Self-repetition (Vivaldi, Rossini, Webern etc. etc. etc. etc.) is first and foremost a biological constant of man, not of the composer in particular. It does not arise, it is already there. Style is a retrospective category that is usually defined a posteriori by critics, often without considering the deep meaning of musical creation."
Many antitheses paint a very heterogeneous picture of music after 1945. A large part of the lively diversity of opinions is due to the selection of composers, which shows no signs of blinkers. Through his many contacts, Varga has reached well-known representatives of the American school (Earle Brown, John Cage, Morton Feldman), many greats of the European avant-garde (Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Helmut Lachenmann), younger composers such as Mark André, older ones such as Klaus Huber or Krzysztof Penderecki. Only female composers are largely absent; unfortunately only Unsuk Chin, Sofia Gubaidulina and Rebecca Saunders have their say.
Nevertheless, the collection, which is certainly very elaborate, remains fascinating. You won't read it all in one go. The more than 400-page tome probably serves more as a reference work that allows initial approaches to a selected composer. However, much of it also throws an illuminating light on the music of past centuries. When the Swiss Klaus Huber talks about the pressure of production, including time pressure, then one can also think of the working conditions of Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi or Joseph Haydn. In the eyes of most composers, the individual, subjectively saturated "opus perfectum et absolutum" is nothing more than a romantic invention. They are right.
Bálint András Varga, Three questions to 73 composers, translated from the English by Barbara Eckle, 416 p., € 29.90, ConBrio Verlagsgesellschaft, Regensburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-940768-42-1
