Musik & Ästhetik, 2001, Jg. 5, Ausgabe 20

Picture and expression. How and to what can music and painting be compared?

Comparing musical compositions with paintings could be the ideal method for interpretive musicology a discipline that works on the assumption that music not only consists of analyzable structure but also has meaning. Meaning should not be understood here as a secret intention of the composer. The music itself has meaning and we express this meaning through comparisons. Should on the other hand the parallel nature of the arts be placecd solely in their technical features then it requires an art-philosophical reflection to see how a space based art can be compared with a time-based art. The comparison between abstraction and atonality presents itself here particularly well as being an ideology of a particular type of modernity.

Mathias Spahlinger's »gegen unendlich«

In his work gegen unendlich Spahlinger brings out the idea that infinity is a characteristic of the material used in new music because ever since tonal syntax disappeared an infinite number of pitches and an infinite number of time units are imaginable. In the first half of this work Spahlinger creates a context in which one should be able to hear that in the smallest intervalic space infinitely many pitches can occur. The players' uncontrollable minimal deviations and the unreliability of human perception suggest that there can never be such a thing as identical pitches. A continuous I:I pulse prevails in the second half of the composition. Here too the listener's attention is directed toward the fact that the acceptance of this rhythm rests on misrepresentations in which minimal deviations indicate that - seen objectively - infinitely many durations are possible. In addition to these ideas various degrees of compositional freedom(s) play a role. Whereas the fine texture of the first half does not usually adhere to any constructive regularity the pitches of the second half are defined by various mechanical processes as it were. In the work akt eine treppe herabsteigend for bass clarinet trombone and orchestra (1998) it is possible to observe a further development of several techniques from gegen unendlich.

Quasi una fantasia. Mozart's Serenade in c minor KV 388

Mozart's Serenade KV 388 for eight wind instruments was the last of his serenades for wind instruments and is a borderline case within this series of works both regarding its contents and its formal aspects. Above all the first movement with its dramatic changes in feeling is steeped in a »romantic« spirit that hardly seems consistent with the conventional and intentionally light and entertaining tone of much serenade music of the 18th century. On the basis of this movement the author attempts to approach the multi-facetted splendor of Mozart's compositions. The multi-layeredness of the work which reaches beyond its time cannot be limited to contemporary terminology concerning form which is shaped primarily by a »punctuational-rhythmic« understanding of form. In addition aspects of the motivic substance and most importantly the relationship of inner-rhythmical structures to outer form processes are therefore discussed. In doing so the close dependence between formal structure principles and intended expression is made clear.

In the realm of music. Heinrich Sutermeister and Carl Orff between 1935 and 1945

The correspondence between Heinrich Sutermeister and his mentor Carl Orff offers revealing insights into the behavior of two composers during the period of National Socialism. Sutermeister considered himself closely connected to »German music« - and especially to Orff's notion of music. As a »neutral« Swiss composer he had his first sweeping success in Germany with his opera Romeo and Julia (in 1940 in Dresden under Karl Böhm). Characteristic of that time his reception of new music was - without being under direct political pressure - only very selective concerning its theatrical »effectiveness«. This can be seen clearly in his judgements of Hindemith and Berg but also in his sporadic comments on the political situation. He successfully maintained his aesthetic and compositional positions after 1945. In view of Sutermeister's influential posts in Germany and in Switzerland it is understandable that there has been little critical discussion of his thinking and compositions up to now.

Nomadism or places spaces and houses - for the fine arts? Only connoisseurs and aficionados are in a crisis!

A reflection on the attempt to locate the current position of the fine arts is based on museums and adequate indoor and outdoor spaces which have fulfilled that function until today. The description of the locations of art is carried out historically etymologically geographically and cursorily. The modern (self-)complaints about the possible deprivation of space is ignored and attention is given to the art spaces that have been given little notice in the past. This seems to make a gain of further space possible. On the basis of the reflections revolving around a complex of questions concerning prescribed places existing today the concrete perspectives on previously unseen or new and developing spaces are to be thrown into the stream of thought of old and new place descriptions - new in the sense that they correspond to the part of the present that tends toward the future.