Мир современной музыки. Хрестоматия для чтения на английском языке. Учебно-методические материалы для студентов музыкальных вузов и факультетов
.pdfpurged of diffuse beautification, a mercantile craving for success, and long-established symbolism.
Gielen, who has also become known as a composer, treats modern works in the same way. He says that it is not just the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Bruckner, and Mahler that must be read anew; the music of the twentieth century must be reviewed without harming a work's substance. Gielen has frequently presented "Musique engagee". He was the first conductor to confront Beethoven's Ninth with Schoenberg's "A Survivor from Warsaw". In 1978 he even went so far as to follow Beethoven's В major Adagio тоlto e cantabile with Schoenberg's invocatory "Report from the ghetto" replacing the Ode to Joy. After the interval Beethoven's Ninth was performed complete.
Bernd Alois Zimmermann's highly political Requiem for a Young Poet (1969) was regularly included in programmes when Gielen headed the South-West German Symphony Orchestra. Compared with that the North American tradition has remained relatively alien. Only hesitantly and incidentally has Gielen conducted works by such Americans as John Cage or Morton Feldman. Composers like Philip Glass are anathema: "In my view a phenomenon like Philip Glass involves filling in all the crevasses, all the abysses, which have constituted an essential part of art. This kind of music is a lie. Glass deceives himself and other people, as if by putting them in a trance - with arpeggios in some key or other rising and falling throughout an entire opera - something were being said about life today, about conflicts and difficulties. But art must be concerned with such matters".
Michael Gielen defies superficial impacts and facades. His personality resists reconciliation, including social reconciliation, which in his opinion has receded into an unattainable distance. Gielen: "I stand in the tradition of Arnold Schoenberg, Rudolf Kolisch, and Theodor W. Adorno". For him the avantgarde, that great initiative on behalf of creative composition and performance, is a touchstone rather than something to be suppressed and pushed aside as happens today. The fact that productions and performances which drop anchor in the shallow waters of postmodernism predominate today seems more than dubious to this man born in Argentine.
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Gielen's music-making is founded - more than with most other conductors - on personal contact with crucial aspects of music history and on the criteria of historical cognition. As early as the age of eleven he attempted to decipher Schoenberg's op. 19 piano pieces. He as-it- were imbibed the Schoenberg School with his mother's milk. His uncle was no less a person than pianist Eduard Steuermann, a pupil of Schoenberg. His mother, an actress, performed the Sprechstimme part of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire in Dresden. The New Viennese School was an established part of the Gielen family's life, even after it had emigrated (before the Nazis) by way of Vienna to Buenos Aires. So it is not surprising that Gielen's ideas about conducting are permeated by Schoenberg's ethos of music.
He only started conducting when he was twenty five. He received no assistance from the state -just private lessons. Gielen tells how he learned the craft of conducting by watching rather than in formal instruction. At nineteen he worked as repetiteur at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires where he experienced the best models: Fritz Busch, Erich Kleiber, Toscanini. The arrival after the war of many great German conductors was also instructive: Furtwängler, Böhm, and Karajan. But he admired Erich Kleiber most of all.
Gielen's first concert included one of his own works (Musica 1954 for Strings, Piano, Timpani, Baritone, and Trombone), Charles Ives' Two Pieces for Chamber Orchestra, Bartok's Three Village Scenes, and two pieces by Stravinsky: the Concertino for 12 Instruments and Ragtime. His first appearances for the WDR led to him being spoken of as one of the most promising mediators of New Music. Gielen devoted himself to almost the entire avantgarde of that time. Performances of Nono, Boulez, Henze, Maderna, Stockhausen, Berio, Messiaen, work with the Kontarsky brothers, Yvonne Loriod, and Severino Gazzeloni, and collaborations with ensembles specializing in New Music (which sprung up everywhere at that time) were part of his sphere of activity.
Gielen very much helped shape the various phases of these new departures and also experienced their crises. Sometimes there was tumult and indignation on the part of both performers and audiences. The 1965 premiere of Stockhausen's Gruppen für drei
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Orchester1 under Gielen, Maderna, and the composer was greeted with a chorus of boos and cat-calls.
The years when Gielen was at the Frankfurt Opera between 1977 and 1987 were exceptionally fruitful. In conjunction with Ruth Berghaus, Luigi Nono, Hans Zender, Heinz Holligcr, and others, Gielen presented exemplary music-theatre. Spectacular stagings of Wagner (Parsifal and The Ring) by Ruth Berghaus and Axel Manthey rounded off a provocative repertoire.
Gielen once summed up his philosophy of conducting as follows: "I attempt to realize what I see in the score, making use of modern possibilities. What does 'authentic' involve? An interpretation rests on what is in the score - but filtered through a human brain for people today. It must respond to the problems represented in a work and to contemporary human needs. The music must be represented in such a way that this involves human beings' fundamental fear. It must not act as if there are no problems".
The way he puts programmes together is masterly. Gielen is the best programmer in the world. His ideal: "Bringing two pieces together so that the first throws light on the second and vice-versa so that both works seem new".That approach has given rise to celebrated constellations. Mention should be made of the conjunction of Wagner's Germanic mythology and the end of time with Nono's highly inventive hopes and Utopias. Or after the changeover of 1989 old Shostakovich suddenly appeared for the first time: Soviet music that Gielen had never previously conducted, had avoided - and on top of that the 12th Symphony, The Year 1917.
Scarcely any other living conductor is as political as Michael Gielen: "In the course of regression of the World-Spirit it is not only (real existing) Socialism that has given up the ghost. We are undergoing a process where all the achievements of civilization and humanity are being thrown overboard in a Hobbesian war of all against all. Homo homini lupus (Man becoming a wolf) emerges after two thousand years of Christianity. Much more than Socialism has failed. Democratic governments are playthings of market forces. Christianity and the Enlightenment are one and the same illusion".
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1 Gruppen für drei Orchester
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Asked in 1996 about his artistic plans - in Berlin's Konzerthaus where he is today the chief guest conductor - Gielen answered: "After East Germany was simply appropriated, even annexed, by the West, my impulse was to establish new directions here in and for the East. So I am now carrying my suitcase to Berlin".
Stefan Amzoll/Freilag, Berlin
Melbourne Backs Markus Stenz
At long last it is spring and Melbourne feels like summer. It is just a few metres from the concert hall to the riverside cafe, but this takes almost a quarter of an hour. Time and again friendly older ladies block the way and congratulate the conductor on his success. The previous evening Markus Stenz had opened the Melbourne Festival brilliantly successfully with guest-star Maxim Vengerov making his Australian debut. He too can hardly take a step here without being spoken to by absolute strangers. However Vengerov is an internationally acclaimed star, but who is Markus Stenz?
No-one asks that in Australia any more. Here he is the extolled chief conductor of the celebrated Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Two years ago the former ABC Radio Orchestra was transformed into an economically independent body for which a competent arid promising chief was sought. At that time Markus Stenz was considering whether to prolong his successful association with the London Sinfonietta as its principal conductor or to devote himself to something new. The musicians of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra already knew him as a guest conductor and needed little persuading to attract him to Australia. They left him sufficient freedom to continue working with other orchestras all over the world since they know that Stenz takes seriously his work in Melbourne and will fulfill their high expectations.
In rehearsals one experiences a hard-working craftsman who hones performances with great efficiency and attention to detail, and tolerates no negligence. His nose is deep in the score and his hands and arms wave above his head, but suddenly he looks up - the horns are slightly out. Stenz allows the orchestra to continue. Eye contact was enough. The horn-players heard for themselves and will do better
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next time. The rehearsal ends punctually at four. Musicians’ union regulations are just as strict in Australia as in Great Britain and the USA. But there is as yet nothing to stop musicians coming to the conductor afterwards, asking questions and also offering tips. Stenz listens particularly intently to the older and more experienced members of the orchestra. In the rehearsals with Vengerov things go so far that the soloist gradually takes over, does not act through the conductor any longer, and negotiates directly with the players about details. Here too Stenz demonstrates his interest. He can and wants to learn. There are no class differences or disputes over competences.
There he is suddenly once again a student, but at other times too he often switches between his new role as acclaimed maestro and that of young conductor. He can point to many successes: in Germany where he is particularly appreciated as a conductor of Henze, in the USA where he conducts the great Italian operas, and at the Montepulciano Festival which he directed for six years. Nevertheless he occasionally seems somewhat uncertain, values whoever he is talking to, tries to find out whether he must armour himself against unpleasant questions or can behave informally, which he much prefers. Soon the wrinkled brow relaxes; he does not need to dissemble and can at last talk about music. Above all about contemporary music which has always interested him. He went along with conventional musical training but was more inspired by jazz musicians, modern composers, and above all by a man who embodied both: with his TV lectures Leonard Bernstein laid the foundation for Stenz's later decision to become a conductor. The summer spent at Tanglewood eleven years ago was thus among his decisive experiences. The young scholarship-holder was able to work with his idol for nine weeks, and says he learned more there than in his years of study at Cologne.
He was finally discovered by Hans Werner Henze during a performance of the composer's second symphony. It was Henze's sixtieth birthday and the master came in person to the concert given by the Cologne conservatoire orchestra. Henze was so impressed that he invited the young conductor to Berlin. The composer persuaded Gotz Friedrich that Markus Stenz should conduct the premiere of "Das verratene Meer" even though he had never previously been
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involved in a professional opera production. At that time, in 1990, Stenz was just 25. There followed performances of the Henze opera at La Scala and in San Francisco. These appearances suddenly catapulted Stenz from student to newcomer who had made it.
If Stenz talks about that today, it sounds as if it all happened in the distant past. Even though he knows it was not merely good luck which took him to the top, but basically the capacity to make the most of such opportunities for advancing his career through hard work, he would rather be appreciated for what he achieves now and in the future. And in fact that is stupendous.
Within two years Stenz has carried away the hitherto somewhat conservative Melbourne public and can now fill entire evenings with contemporary music without a single person in an audience of over 2,000 leaving the hall.
That cannot be achieved merely through charm and charisma. Stenz learned from Bernstein that in music one factor counts more than anything else: In the moment of performance it must be more than music, it must free itself from the notes and become a medium that directly moves listeners, dissolving their resistance and transforming it into a joy-inducing experienced. It thus happens that in a programme of American music Dvorak's New World symphony is almost experienced as the evening's weakest work, while one is immediately carried away by Bartok's third piano concerto with Australian-born Michael Kieran Harvey as the soloist, makes fresh discoveries, and finally finds out in Duke Ellington's symphonic poem "Harlem" how much jazz could have helped establish modern music.
Even though the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is certainly not among the world's top ten bands, one senses the musicians' trust in their young conductor-in-chief who could perhaps bring them to such heights. Stenz believes the Melbourne Symphony to be the best Australian ensemble, self-critically putting it on the same level as "good radio orchestras in Germany" whereby he is understating a little-Trevor Green, the experienced British orchestral manager, lays down clear-cut objectives. Within the foreseeable future he wants to gain a world-wide reputation for the orchestra and advance Melbourne as Australia's cultural capital. Even more than Stenz himself he believes in the conductor's ability to achieve at least the
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first goal. Preparations are going full steam ahead for the orchestra's first European tour at the start of the year 2000. Stenz has been preparing the way in Berlin and Munich where he conducted the Bavarian State Orchestra.
Helmut Maurd/Suddeusche Zeitung
Farewell to the Cleveland Orchestra
A Conversation with Christoph von Dohnanyi
The previous leave-taking was stormy. When twenty years ago, after ongoing problems with the orchestra and management, Christoph von Dohnanyi announced premature termination of his contract as intendant of the Hamburg State Opera, he was "absolutely disgusted by mounting philistinism in art". He expressed that in an essay. On the other hand his encounter with the Cleveland Orchestra was almost akin to love at first hearing. Everything went very quickly. In 1981 Dohnanyi conducted this top American orchestra for the first time. In 1982 he was appointed its conductor-in-chief. And in 1984 he started work at Cleveland. At that time he should still have stuck out three more years at Hamburg according to his contract. But "everything went incredibly well with the orchestra" - enthuses Dohnanyi today in his Paris flat near the Place de la Bastille. "They wanted exactly what I was, and I wanted exactly what they are". So after his first year in-the city on Lake Erie, "which is truly not the most beautiful city in the world", he agreed to extension of his contract from four to nine years. In the meantime that has become eighteen. And when Dohnanyi leaves Cleveland at the end of this season, his feelings about this are completely different to parting company with Hamburg. "It's a phenomenal orchestra in terms of its receptivity, its dedication, its ensemble playing, its ability to listen, and its chamber-music-like approach" - enthuses a conductor who views perfection as the precondition for, and never the objective of, artistic work. In the same way George Szell, under whose strict leadership the Cleveland Orchestra played its way to world celebrity between 1946 and 1970, coined the notorious sentence: "We start to rehearse where others stop". Apart from the undoubted technical
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brilliance of its instrumentalists there are two things that Dohnanyi particularly appreciates in this orchestra: the "shared readiness of its members to devote the whole person to doing one's best. There are almost no hangers-on in this orchestra"; and a specific form of modesty which the ensemble has not lost despite pride in its achievements: respect towards works. Everything exhibitionistic, pretentious, or affected is alien to Dohnanyi. You feel that in talking to him and in his performances, which often convey the deceptive impression that the conductor's personal style completely vanishes behind pure "realization" of the work. That is deceptive because making music sound so "objective", as if that were the only way of playing it, demands deeply-felt interpretations. How does this come about in such a huge Late Romantic work as "Arabella", which recently seemed so perfectly balanced in all respects at Le Chatelet in Paris? "Firstly, I always read the score before I listen, unlike some colleagues who go straight to their record collection" - answers Dohnanyi. "When I read anew I've forgotten everything I've ever helped prepare for performance or even conducted myself. Then I study the work thoroughly and make comparisons on the basis of the view I've formed for myself. But if something someone else has done pleases me better, then I steal that without further ado. Why not if it accords with the work?"
Rehearsals can be full of friction because "singers tend to sing beautifully. But they should sing beautifully and correctly". In fact Dohnanyi detests interpreters' inclination "to bring their little private emotions into play". He also sternly assesses his own feelings. Of course - he says - one must take emotions seriously, must even make them the foundation, but "they must be shaped. Everything that doesn't seem indispensable must be excluded so that there is no danger of taking the initial response as being the right one", which can sometimes happen even with great conductors whose approach is not in the score - as with Bernstein's Mahler and Furtwängler's Beethoven. What is important is first to observe the music distance and to control within oneself "those pleasing little things close at hand". He's sensitive about that.
The programme for his last European tour with the Cleveland Orchestra, which got under way in Paris al the beginning of June,
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cannot be said to be commonplace. In their inconspicuous way, which seems to accord with Dohnanyi's highly discrete nature, the concerts were rich in allusions and references. All the works played were concerned with leave-taking, condensed compositionally to the highest degree: Witold Lutoslawski's "Musique funebre", dedicated to the memory of Bela Bartok, was written in reaction to the failure of the Hungarian uprising. When Bartok composed his second violin concerto in 1937/38, he was already faced with the necessity of emigrating. And Brahms foresaw that the premiere of his only superficially joyous second symphony would be "a concert tinged by sadness" where the musicians would be "in mourning" as they played. The choice of works simultaneously marks places which have been of importance in Dohnanyi's life: Hamburg, where Brahms was born, and Hungary, which is of relevance in several respects.
"But no-one" - the grandson and former pupil of the famous Hungarian conductor and composer Ernst von Dohnanyi assures us - "is in mourning during this tour. It's a very beautiful leave-taking because we have achieved a great deal". Among the "lasting" successes for Dohnanyi are renovation of Severance Hall, famous both acoustically and aesthetically, which was reopened two years ago, restoration of its organ, and long-term contracts for 74 of the 106 members of the orchestra. "I'm happy that I at least leave behind in Cleveland a reasonable situation which my successor, Franz Welser-
Möst, can cope with". Dohnanyi maintains a modest silence about the artistic and economic upswing he brought the orchestra. He succeeded in both regularly integrating contemporary music in the programme, and also sold more season tickets and rejuvenated an ageing audience. He says things were easier for him than for his predecessor Lorin Maazel, who was in the shadow of George Szell. The house-style was very accommodating towards his need to make something "relating to today" (as he calls new music). Dohnanyi believes that "this crazy retrogressive orientation, which I also see in younger conductors" is a great danger. "The past only interests me to the extent that it is of value for the present day and the future - but in the style of today, not that of people who conducted sixty years ago. Of course one must know how mordents were performed in Baroque music, but for me
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that's neither here nor there". In the theatre today no-one would put up any longer with a play being staged in the style of the thirties.
Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu believed that art today is only a source of self-presentation, serving the accumulation of "cultural capital". Dohnanyi views the situation differently: "Art is not just adornment. Of course we have terribly many pictures on our walls. But if time and again they are looked at freshly and in a different way, that's fine". So Dohnanyi sees no problem in the co-existence of three opera houses and eight orchestras in Berlin: "If things are alive, you can't have enough of them. Widespread cultural life is splendid". In his opinion, money must never be the yardstick: "After all, the relationship between what one claims to be defending, in other words culture, and other things of lesser value over the longer term is shameful. Probably only a few people know who the Prussian ambassador to Austria was in Beethoven's time. But we know who Beethoven was". Instead of fulfilling its task of protecting minorities, democracy is increasingly moving towards "propping up majorities so as to attract votes". Ideal for the pursuit of music would be a mixture of the American and German systems: more state subsidies in America so as to be able to programme more freely, and more private initiatives here.
Music is an ethically charged affair for Dohnanyi - which is not all that astonishing if you consider that he grew up in a politically highly committed family as nephew to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and son to member of the resistance Hans von Dohnanyi, both of whom were murdered by the Nazis. After his farewell tour Dohnanyi does not want to conduct the Cleveland Orchestra for two years. His successor should be able to shape the orchestra in accordance with his own ideas.
Dohnanyi will continue to work with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London whose "principal conductor" he has been since 1997, and with the Orchestre de Paris which he has served as guest conductor since 1998. In addition a rumour is going the rounds saying that Dohnanyi is being considered as Christoph Eschenbach's successor with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra. Now that he is returning to Hamburg and children, grand-children, and brother, could he imagine taking charge of another orchestra? He
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