Мир современной музыки. Хрестоматия для чтения на английском языке. Учебно-методические материалы для студентов музыкальных вузов и факультетов

doesn't know whether he can get by without that - he says ambiguously. And playfully suggests this is of course also a question of his age. But he is someone "who likes to become more settled. I am not a humming-bird". One believes him too.

Julia Spinola / Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Daniel Barenboim: The Power of Music

The cruelty of memory manifests itself in remembering what is dispelled in forgetfulness (Naguib Mahfouz)

For me that sentence by Naguib Mahfouz expresses something of great importance for German-Jewish relations. Both sides have the problem of the past with regard to the other, and there are certain things which demand generosity of forgetting and others the honesty of not forgetting. In my view that is the issue facing the post-war generation of Germans. I personally have not experienced any xenophobia in Germany, or any anti-semitism.

I see a well-known German politician's reference to "Barenboim the Jew" in a context in no way involving Jewry as a sign of misunderstanding about what is involved in being a Jew. That is not so simple either. It entails a bit of religion and tradition, a bit of nation and a bit of people. It is difficult to deal with that, both for Jews themselves and for all others, and especially for a country like Germany which shares so much terrible history with the Jews. I feel uneasy about increasingly having the impression that this aspect of German history has not been properly assimilated. That can lead to philo-semitism which is just as wrong as anti-semitism, or to renewed anti-semitism. I do not believe in collective guilt, and certainly not after several generations. That is why I have no difficulty in living and working in Germany. But at the same time I expect of every German that he or she should not forget that aspect of history, and should treat it with particular sensitivity. However a German can only do that if he or she understands him - or herself correctly, since suppression of an important aspect of the self leads to lack of freedom in dealings with others.

For me that at the same time touches on the question of German identity, and the question of the elements involved in identity.

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Does there really exist only one identity for both an individual and a people? Jewish tradition demonstrates two clear-cut tendencies: one more concerned with fundamentals as seen by the great philosophers and writers who have devoted themselves exclusively to Jewish issues and ideologies, and another, linked with such outstanding figures as Spinoza, Einstein, and to a certain extent also Heine, who were connected with Germany and also applied the tradition of Jewish thought to other cultures and problems. There thus developed a dual identity. In my opinion at the start of the 21st century you cannot believe that it is absolutely necessary to limit oneself to one identity. However our time's problem is that people increasingly restrict themselves to the smallest of units and therefore lose feeling and understanding for the whole and how things are connected. The moment you are only concerned with detail, you lose an eye for the whole and existing connections. I am convinced that you cannot understand anything as being merely independent and autonomous. Every thing, every idea, and every human being is as they are and also related to everything else with which they come into contact. Germans have given the world so much culture - Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Heine, Goethe, just to mention a few examples. But for a German in the year 2001 it is perhaps difficult - as a result of the terrible experiences of the Nazi period and the time immediately afterwards - to come to terms with the country's overall history. There are certain things which are an aspect of Germany, and other things which are universal. Both influence cultural life in Germany. You must not be anxious about these things. I see that as a musician conditioned by my personal history. I was born in Argentine; my grandparents were Jews from Russia; I grew up in Israel; and I have spent my entire life in Europe. I think in the language I am speaking at the moment, and I feel myself German when conducting Beethoven and Italian when conducting Verdi. And I do not feel that I am thereby being unfaithful to myself. Quite the contrary.

Music particularly exemplifies the fact that performing various styles can bring new experiences, which can be very enriching when returning to what is already known. Anyone who has learnt a "pianissimo" in Debussy knows all the better after returning to a Beethoven "pianissimo" that this must be played very differently and belongs to another world of sound. With Debussy the "pianissimo"

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must be bodiless, and with Beethoven it must have a nucleus of expression and weight. That is why I find digressions into other cultures so enriching. Of course German culture is something special. One must not be falsely modest. If you take Beethoven as an example of someone who was both German and universal, it becomes apparent that the Germans have devoted more attention to the past than many other peoples - for instance with regard to Greek mythology, Greek literature, and Greek philosophy. Beethoven's entire oeuvre, just to take one example from the classics, is based on the Greek principle of catharsis. It is typically German not to be afraid of immersing oneself in darkness so as to re-emerge in the light. Knowing that everything is relative is typically German. That specifically German characteristic is particularly clearly documented in Beethoven.

I found the address by Federal President Johannes Rau on November 9 last year particularly striking when he talked about the distinction between nationalism and patriotism. That is very important. I believe that in the second part of the twentieth century the Germans lost their patriotism for fear of nationalism. I think that is a pity. This all took place during a period when there was a high level of immigration with very many more foreigners wanting, and having, to come to Germany than ever before. Germany opened its gates without simultaneously having or developing the image of being an immigration country like Argentine or the United States.

That is why many Germans have problems with foreigners today. I believe that hostility to foreigners here is linked with the fact that the last two or three generations of Germans have not learned what immigration signifies. Fear of too many foreigners in one's own country is based on non-comprehension of the possibility that you can have several identities simultaneously, and on not having learned to accept that people from foreign lands with unfamiliar customs and culture can come to your country without you having to renounce patriotism. The best example of that specifically German problem is the current situation regarding Berlin and Germans' fear of an excessively large capital, certainly deriving from a. not completely processed past. Berlin was the only divided city in Germany. Both parts enjoyed special conditions, and both the Federal Republic and the GDR viewed Berlin as having special status. In my opinion, Berlin

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should not lose its special status because of reunification. Quite the parallel existence of East and West creates unique potential which should be utilized. Instead of lamenting a historically conditioned division, people should make positive use of this both for Berlin itself and in its relations with the world outside.

If you want to understand the world, if you want to understand nature, the human being, or the relationship with a God or some other superhuman figure, there is no better way than music. Among other things music is so important and interesting for me because it is simultaneously all and nothing. If you want to learn how you can and should live in a democratic society, then playing in an orchestra is the best example. Anyone who plays in an orchestra knows when to lead and when to accompany. He or she leaves room for others, but is not shy about taking the lead. Nevertheless, or perhaps for that very reason, music is also the best way - at least in my experience - of escaping the problems of human existence. In my view questions about music are really questions about human existence. For me there is only one clear-cut and precise definition of music, which comes from Ferruccio Busoni : Music is resonating air. Everything else said about music relates to diverse human reactions. One person experiences it as something poetic, another something sensual, a third something emotional, and so on. Music is simultaneously everything and nothing, and that is why it can of course also be abused as it was under the Nazis. However, the experience of the West-East Diwan Workshop at Weimar with young musicians from Israel and the Arab countries shows that music can result in otherwise inconceivable rapprochements and friendships. All the same, music will not solve the problems of the Middle East. Music is the best school for learning about life, and at the same time the most effective way of fleeing life.

Daniel Barenboim/"Die Zeit"

Post-reading activities

Give a short talk or write a composition on the topic:

“Whom among modern conductors do you appreciate and why?”

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Music From Israel

Schleswig-Holstein-Festival

"Each people bring along its own music and after a while everyone believes that's original Israeli music". At the Klezmer picnic held against the idyllic backdrop of Schloss Salzau in SchleswigHolstein, Israel's most prominent woman singer, Chava Alberstein, immediately deployed her fiery dark voice to back up her thesis, founded on experience, with a raw Georgian song, which one would have sworn had been born in the Negev desert. Chava Alberstein's remark sums up musical developments in Israel ever since enforced migration of the pioneer generation in the thirties. The founderfathers, above all Paul Ben-Haim (Frankenburger) born in Munich, did not only bring along their Romantic and Impressionistic Central European legacy; they also attempted to capture the synagogal and folkloristic heritage of the Middle East. This "Mediterranean style" propagated by Max Brod, as a writer who also composed, became set as an isolating doctrine.

Relations with Europe and America have led since the early sixties to an enriching link-up with the Western avantgarde, but also to doubt about one's own cultural identity. The resultant disputes and rifts may have been covered up by the extensive East-West contacts of the eighties and nineties, but they have not vanished. Oded Assaf, the Israeli composer and music critic, ' sees a great question there: "What is really 'characteristic' (of Israeli musical culture)? Is today's music in Israel 'contemporary' (and if so, in terms of whose calendar)? Can contemporary music in Israel be 'Western' in the full sense of the word?" Who raises these questions? At any rate there is no doubt that "Israeli music must be redefined. The issue is no longer national identity but rather individuality with a claim to universality" (Hanoch Ron).

The focus on Israel at this year's Schleswig-Holstein music festival - with nineteen programmes in twenty nine concerts - provided a fairly representative survey even though the emphasis was on traditional European rather than present-day Israeli music. Attention thus inevitably shifted from compositions to interpretations - but nevertheless with five orchestras alongside

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numerous ensembles and soloists (including many up-and-coming musicians). However seven premieres - each a work performed in Germany, in Europe, for the first time - provided insight into the pluralism of musical style particularly prevalent in this small country with inhabitants from almost a hundred nations of origin. In addition, quite a few Israelis receive training or live outside the country where they were born, and are therefore extensively influenced by the West in an oriental-occidental sphere of tension.

Their number includes Ari Ben-Shabtai, born at Jerusalem in 1954, taught in Israel by Mark Kopytman and in America by George Crumb, and back in his home country since 1987. The title of his "Sinfonia Chromatica" (1993) refers both to Alexander Scriabin's synaesthesia and also to the chromatic scale as the basic material within three movements named after colours. In the German premiere at Neumünster Zubin Mehta's Israel Philharmonic Orchestra emphasized the dramatic contrasts in this concise music whose individual instrumental colours and brilliant solos make it an orchestral show-piece.

The cosmopolitan Josef Tal, a founder-father of music in Israel who as early as the fifties rebelled against the "Mediterranean style" in favour of international actuality, dedicated to the SchleswigHolstein music festival a somewhat sparsely linear commissioned work for tenor saxophone (the tonally graceful Nizem Ein-Haber) and string trio. Ian Radzunski (b. 1950 at Warsaw), a pupil of Penderecki's who emigrated to Israel in 1969 and now lives in North America, wrote three "Dream Pieces" for the Munich-based Jerusalem pianist Gilead Mishory, and these reflect East-West tensions with exceptional sensitivity - with webs of oriental melismata above a rhythmic bass pulse in the nightmare-like "Nocturne", multiply fragmented nostalgia for the dance in "Une Valse Lunaire", and chordally disrupted arabesques and echoes of the waltz in "Daybreak". Mishory's own "Paysage choisi en ecoutant le clair de lune", a no less dense homage to Debussy, also dreamily proceeds from a brooding improvisatory start to raging clusters that seem to call belligerently in question the viability of tradition, the piano, and artistic consciousness.

Composers from a Jewish background do not automatically write "Jewish" or Israeli music. In view of all the multi-cultural

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influences at work, it can sometimes seem questionable whether there is any consensus about "Jewishness" in music apart from such individual characteristics as the link with the Bible and cantillation or the Hebrew language as vehicle for music. Even with Klezmer music, the Eastern European Shtetl music that is enjoying a particular revival in the United States and Germany today (often in the wake of the song-makers movement), identity is no longer clear-cut. The originally oral traditional culture of wandering musicians destroyed by the National Socialists, a stylistically and geographically frontierless art, can be integrated in a "classical" context and also be vitalized by elements from Jazz, Soul, or oriental sources.

One example of the "classical" synthesis was offered by Osvaldo Goljov, the young Argentinian trained in Jerusalem, with his "Seven Prayers of the Blind Isaac" for clarinet and string quartet, expressively and intensively premiered on the island of Föhr by the dedicatee Giora Feidman and the Cleveland Quartet. Original or invented Klezmer melodies, celebrated by Feid-man on five types of clarinet, are integrated in changing string textures reminiscent of Minimal Music, serial constructions, and also oriental heterophony with displacement of phrases in the superimposition of identical or varied motifs. In the dialogue with the strings, the prayer-like elements - mainly entrusted to the clarinet, and ranging between sobbing, screaming, faltering, and ecstatic dance - were reminiscent of the synagogal style of presentation with interaction between cantor and congregation.

Feidman, acting as a peace-invoking presenter during the Salzau picnic, also introduced the popular aspect of Klezmer musicmaking. That revealed the big part played by non-Jewish German groups in the Klezmer revival - represented here by the JEM Trio linking the unmistakable Feidman clarinet sound (Helmut Eisel) with Jazz, Folk, Soul, and avantgarde experiments, the musically brilliant Freilechs ("Circle Dances") group with entertainingly rich stories linking the word and music, and the spirited, harder-edged "Aufwind" ("Up current") quintet from Berlin. From the Jewish side a fascinating counterpoint was offered by Chava Alberstein and Jeanette Yehudayan-Rotstein, the Persian singer who lives in Israel, and her

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Shiraz Ensemble with their richly ornamented dance-songs deriving from a Persian-Jewish background.

In the context of the festival programme the presentation of Klezmer music also served as a lead-in to the second main emphasis: "Banned Music". This offered so-to-speak the sound-track for the ignominious 1938 Nazi "Degenerate Music" show, which was reproduced as a warning 50 years later in the Düsseldorf traveling exhibition. At least one of the ostracized composers was included in 36 of the festival's one hundred and forty concerts. Simply the quantity of names involved made oppressively clear how much of the music that is today again familiar - and including works by nonJewish composers ranging from Mendelssohn to Schoenberg's circle in Vienna - was for twelve long years violently excluded. Emigrants such as Dessau, Eisler, Weill, Korngold, Krenek, and Hindemith were represented alongside the victims of concentration camps. In recent years the rediscovery of murdered composers such as Ullmann, Schulhoff, Krasda, Klein, and Haas has drawn attention to previously disregarded blank patches on the musical map.

The Schleswig-Holstein festival had the courage not merely to scatter individual musical rarities throughout gourmet menus but also to compose entire programmes out of what used to be "blank patches" - for instance in a Lieder evening with songs on Jewish themes by Schubert, Brahms, Shostakovich, Milhaud, Ravel, Fanny Hensel, and Richard Rudolf Klein, presented with fascinating sensitivity by Ruth Ziesak (soprano), Johannes Martin Kranzle (baritone), and Ulrich Eisenlohr (piano). In such a revealing context well-known music by Mendelssohn could also appear in a new light, and even Beethoven, the third main emphasis in the festival, abused as hero of the "Third Reich", was freshly illuminated.

In a personal reminiscence included in his speech at the opening Israeli concert, Federal President Roman Herzog told of how his violin-playing father kept quiet about the composer's name so that his son never mentioned Mendelssohn and thereby endangered the family. This Kiel concert with Noam Sheriffs Rishon Lezion Israel Symphony Orchestra offered exemplary presentation of the two themes of "Israel" and "Banned Music". The programme included Ben-Zion Orgad's "Vigil in Jerusalem", an evocative early morning

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scene of disparate but simultaneous sound-levels, Ödön Partos's "Yizkor" (1947), a holocaust lament movingly incorporating Bible cantillations and the Arabic Makame scale, Weill's "Seven Deadly Sins", and Mendelssohn's "Reformation" symphony. The exchange of music and musicians since the early seventies has increasingly been a matter of course and an ever greater asset within Israeli-German relations, and in the ongoing debate about Germany's murderous past music progressively plays a key role - so far as possible without any false emphasis on "reparations". Nevertheless, such a comprehensive, many-sided overview is just what is needed at present (despite the inevitable incompleteness) in view of the persistently crisis-ridden political relations between the two countries and Neo-Nazi activities in Germany. As a sign of cultural peace the two complementary emphases were thus put forward by a better Germany moving along the difficult way from loose connections to solidarity.

Ellen Kohlhaas/Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Spatial Sounds

The Donaueschingen Days of New Music

Sunday morning a quarter to eight. Suddenly someone runs across the misty and silent square on the Karlstraße in

Donaueschingen. Lying in bed one hears his solitary steps going from right to left past the open hotel window. "A splendid sound" one thinks, "Unparalleled". So the aesthetic listening virus with its delightful infiltration of perception has got me. After two days with concerts of the newest music one is conditioned - as the programme declares - to perceive "the sensuousness of matter itself. Not a bad outcome for this institution which as the most important festival of contemporary music has provided an initial forum for an abundance of today's world-famous composers during almost 80 years of existence.

"Donaueschingen" - a little Black Forest town where the

Danube rises and Fürstenberg beer is produced, and where the festival was opened. This event has been celebrating both financial consolidation and 50 years of crucial support by South-West German Radio. Festival director Armin Kohler stressed that without the SWR's 395 commissioned compositions, the musical history of the 20th century would have been different.

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21 compositions and sound-installations were commissioned this year alone, and of course the specialist public in the full hall always asks whether they are hearing a master - piece establishing new compositional or aesthetic criteria. This year's trend was "spatial" music. The public was frequently positioned between orchestral groups with the aim of "new directional hearing" and the "spacefilling atmosphere of being in the sound". The fact that this little town does not possess a classical concert hall was for once not a disadvantage. At any rate the most ambitious of works at Donaueschingen come into existence for orchestra and gymnasium. They are mostly written to take the architecture of the spacious "BaarSporthalle"1 into account.

Vinko Globokar used this for his "Angel of History". Between an orchestra divided into two and sitting far apart he hung a humming barbed wire fence, and above the audience's heads he created musical waves lashing backwards and forwards, linking a great variety of sounds collage-style, inclusive of folk music from former Yugoslavia. This sarcastic deployment of materials was accentuated by way of the sounds of marches plus enthusiastic bravos and applause from one part of the orchestra to the other. In part that was musically outstanding, but unfortunately Globokar demolished his own work through eclectic overloading and the principle of constantly outdoing himself - in fact in accordance with the work's sub-title of "Disintegration".

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1 Sporthalle

Jörg Mainka's "Tutti" for orchestra with eleven trumpets was the most convincing piece in its evocation of the "spatial sound" sought. His orchestral set-up was grouped in five parts around and among the spectators. Often only one of the 93 musicians was playing but their actions amid the huge space followed one another with such virtuosity that elementary particles seemed to be flying here and there, accompanied by opulent orchestral sound with dazzlingly ecstatic wind in octaves disrupted by dissonance from the percussion. The

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