Rediscovering the familiar
Eight essays present the composer Heinz Holliger - in all his breadth.
"I discover an infinite number of new sounds every day, completely without electricity. It's also unecological to use so much electricity." You can tell a lot in just a few words. Heinz Holliger has a wit that - these sentences are from the year 2022 - is not lost on him, even at an advanced age and in our dystopian times. The daily discovery of new sounds in turn points to Holliger's unbridled inspiration, which is based on a broad educational horizon and was also made possible by a somewhat "peculiar" way of thinking, which generally suits artists well.
The anthology Heinz Holliger does not bring up much that is new. But it does surprise with a broad view of the composer: choral works are analyzed by Heidy Zimmermann, who is in charge of the Holliger archive at the Paul Sacher Foundation. Tobias Eduard Schick approaches the string quartets, Jörn Peter Hiekel the opera just as sensitively LuneaThomas Meyer's unbiased and refreshing approach to Swiss folk music and dialect. Across genres, it is clear that Holliger is a child of his time in that he deals intensively with musical duration and density, as well as with traces of serialism and questions of indeterminate notation. Ultimately, however, it is not the "what" but the "how" that is decisive for him - or in the words of Helmut Lachenmann, quoted by Hiekel: Holliger is always concerned with the possibilities of "rediscovering even the familiar".
Perhaps some readers will miss information about the oboist, who was also an accomplished pianist and conductor. Nevertheless, the 182 pages about the "musical universalist" (according to the editor Ulrich Tadday) are definitely worth reading - especially as they provide many illuminating insights into Swiss music history en passant. Incidentally, Holliger also had some surprising words to say about his home country: "At the same time, Switzerland has something crazy about it - I often say that the greatest Swiss have lived in a madhouse." Well then, he too is a great Swiss. Fortunately, he's doing well. Physically and apparently also mentally.
Heinz Holliger, edited by Ulrich Tadday, Musik-Konzepte issue 196/197, 197 p., € 38.00, Edition Text+Kritik, Munich 2022, ISBN 978-3-96707-600-4
