Musical border crossers

The title makes you sit up and take notice: What might these "ghostly sounds" be all about? But it has nothing to do with Hamlet, Don Giovanni or Poe. You soon realize, somewhat disillusioned, that this is simply "music beyond genre boundaries" - which do not necessarily have to be otherworldly, but are very present, as the author beautifully explains. Christoph Wagner has already attracted attention with several books in which he explored such intermediate areas. Here he presents mainly US-American musicians: Composers such as Christian Wolff, George Crumb or Morton Subotnik, for example, the vocalist Meredith Monk, David Harrington, the principal violinist of the Kronos Quartet, or the composer and trombonist George Lewis. His concept of "creolization", a world music without Central European blinkers, is more than worthy of consideration - and one of the most important impulses in this book.

Wagner presents this music between avant-garde, (free) jazz, minimalism, electronics, rock, folk, folk music, etc., mainly in interviews and a few summarizing essays: knowledgeable, journalistic, easy to understand, without wanting to get to the bottom of the musical phenomena, but rather along the personalities and their intellectual developments. And along the way, you can follow how electrified and electronic instruments have interfered with the world of sound since the sixties. The other avant-garde, which has always been somewhat neglected, if not ridiculed, in Central European serious music, is thus revealed. The impulse for the string quartet, for example, which came from the Kronos Quartet, is certainly comparable to that of the Arditti Quartet. It is palpable how the styles influenced each other and how they permeate each other. New musical elements penetrated from the margins. Wagner once again takes a loving look at this with this book.

Christoph Wagner: Geistertöne. Conversations about music beyond genre boundaries, 172 p., ill., € 29.95, Schott, Mainz 2021, ISBN 978-3-7957-8699-1