Musik & Ästhetik, 1998, Jg. 2, Ausgabe 5

Omission repression and the »Nazimoderne«: Arnold Schönberg´s Berliner Schule

It seems that no one has taken issue with the judgement that Schönberg did not really take his teaching duties in Berlin seriously and that he did not reach pedagogical heights comparable to his activity in Vienna. The post-war reception over-evaluates Schönberg´s complaints about having to teach and moreover conveys a one-sided picture of this composer who was ostracized because of his radical compositional style. In fact Schönberg was at the height of his European renown as he took over the most illustrious composition master class of the Weimar Republic and was thus able to attract students to Berlin from around the world. Schönberg´s teaching at the Berlin Academy of the Arts must be seen today as one of the most fruitful phases of his pedagogical activity. The »Berliner Schule« was forgotten because its traces were lost in the turmoil of the war and also because no one showed great interest in the dodecaphonic avant-garde after the war. The scientific topos that it was possible to simply pick up in 1945 where one left off in 1933 proves to be a myth if one looks at the facts more closely: the new beginning which started immediately in 1945 was also a continuation of a »Nazimoderne« that was able to develop further under the dictatorship without beeing hindered. The fact that the 1950s in Germany did not lead to a discovery of the Berliner Schule is due primarily to a process of repression which is difficult to understand and one which pertains to all the music composed in Germany during the dictatorship. The research regarding »Music in the Third Reich« has been one of political and biographical musicological research up to now. In many cases the biographies of the Berliner Schule composers are not apt to protect their work from attack. It will only be possible to lead the research dealing with »Music in the Third Reich« out of the dead-end where it is headed if there is a turn toward the music-immanent discussion and analysis of the works. In this way the re-discovery of the Berliner Schule might be able to make an important contribution to the research surrounding the music history of the 1930s and 1940s.

Imitatio affectus humani. On the structure and aesthetics of Gesualdo´s late work

These investigations discuss the formal and structural aspects in the compositional technique of Carlo Gesualdo´s sacred works. They show a great compositional density and complexity on various parameters which draws attention away from the fascination with the biography of the double-murderer and to the importance of the composer Gesualdo. As a late work the responsories represent Gesualdo´s last will and testament so to speak which brings the innovative achievements of the seconda prattica of the madrigals to the highest level of complexity in a sacred work. The synthesis of expressive will textual interpretation compositional density and chromatic innovations in a sacred work stands there as a unique project in its time the success of which should not be made dependent on protypical music-historical import. On the contrary such a conception in its persistent uniqueness allows analogies to new music – in compositional details as well as in its aesthetics – to be recognized.

Speculating on Death. Richard Barrett´s »Vanity«

Vanity a recent 27-minute orchestral work by one of the most significant younger exponents of late modernism is a form of ›speculation‹ on the 17th century vanitas genre of painting and its implicit issues of wealth and mortality. Its three linked sections subtitled Sensorium Memento and Residua are abrasive contemplations of the senses the Totentanz and various aspects of the word ›remains‹. The article which draws on an interview with the composer and his unpublished paper on the work examines both the technical and aesthetic strategies underlying its composition showing how a metaphysical conception can not only determine a formal process but also lead to the radical reconception of a seemingly exhausted stereotypical medium i. e. the orchestra.

Music as autopoiesis. The relationship between musical temporality and the consciousness as seen through the theories of Luhmann and Hegel

The text examines several aspects of the relationship between the temporal structure of the consciousness and the temporality of music. Hegel related the two to each other in his lectures on aesthetics. Part One of this paper starts with Hegel´s proposal that the temporal ego – which is constantly threatened by changes – is only able to maintain its subjective unity by structuring the »abstract continuity« of time. The so-called »discretion« (Hegel) into temporal unities corresponds to temporality in music especially to its organization into measures which supports the ego in its task to constantly re-work the structuring of its synthesis. Parts Two and Three endeavor to define more precisely the correlation which Hegel established between the temporality of the consciousness and the temporality of music by way of the autopoesis concept of Luhmann´s system theory. According to his theory a piece of music appears as a self-referentially closed system which has »temporalised complexity« and whose components refer back only to the system itself. On the basis of this concept parallels are drawn between the form of the self-observation of the consciousness and the self-referencing of melodies measures and phrases within a piece of music. Similarly this paper should also elaborate upon the extent to which music through its special self-referential dynamics mirrors and thus supports the proceeding (Prozedierung) of the consciousness. The concluding Part Four draws some consequences for composing from the autopoiesis concept as applied to music. Aspects of Luhmann´s concept of art are also discussed.

The aging of criticism

The number of voices is increasing which claims the age of criticism is at an end that society culture the dynamic of advancement can be no further criticized because these things can be changed just as little as a natural phenomenon can. We apparently live in an age where the market-formed socialization is no longer at our disposal. That has repercussions on the criticism. It cannot continue in its previous vein. But it does not have a reason to stop. One comprehends nothing by classifying the present society as postmodern without naming the powerful presence of the »old« modern market dynamics in it. Certainly it is new and highly complex but what is new is the newest form of the capitalistic economy. And it still represents what is concisely simple in all the complexity of this society and this is what one can and must get to the heart of.

Music conservatories 2000 – and after that? On the need to reform their structures

In times of increasingly tight financial means the education sector is hit particularly hard by the state-ordered savings measures. This is why the universities and other institutes of higher learning in the Federal Republic of Germany have seen considerable cuts to their budget allocations. The German music conservatories where students are trained to become music teachers orchestra musicians opera singers etc. have had to reduce their personnel costs as a result of the savings measures and thus reduce the number of available teaching positions. When this happens those who are dismissed are nearly always the young faculty members who are at the beginning of their careers. Long-term growth structures are destroyed in this way because the natural succession of generations is interrupted. In order to prevent a break in the tradition of the German musical landscape it is absolutely necessary to support the young people especially in the artistic and scientific fields and to provide full-time positions for them within the music conservatories. This is the only way possible to secure the high level of musical training in Germany in the long run.

On rediscovering »Fidelio« as »Leonore«

– The difficult reception of »Fidelio« in Germany makes it appear surprising that this particular piece is currently having a boom in opera houses and in the recording studios. The large-scale attempt at a revision of the 19th and 20th centuries at the end of the millennium has also brought out Beethoven´s early version of »Fidelio« the »Leonore« from 1805/1806 once again. At a symposium in Bonn in September 1997 Helga Lühning rehabilitated the version from 1806 as the ultimate version of »Leonore« and thus touched off a new evaluation of the genesis of »Fidelio.« At the same time John Eliot Gardiner produced a recording of his arrangement of the partially hypothetical original version of »Leonore« from 1805. The comparison of the two versions can contribute to more lively reflection on the work.