Erhard Grosskopf, "Quintett uber den Herbstanfang"

-- Liner Notes --

Up to now, Erhard Grosskopf has had a fundamentally different career as compared to many of his contemporaries. He has never taken on a firm position, e. g. as a teacher of composition, in order to earn his living. Instead, he has held minor positions in several areas, allowing himself a maximum amount of time for composition.

Erhard Grosskopf was born in 1934 in Berlin, where his father was a physician. In the turmoil of the war the family was driven to Hannover, where the boy took his "Abitur" diploma in 1954. He did not turn to music immediately, instead studying medicine and philosophy. From 1957-9 he received instruction at the Berlin Church Music School in Spandau. Immediately thereafter, he enrolled in the composition programme at the Berlin Musikhochschule, where he studied with Ernst Pepping, Boris Blacher, Heinz-Friedrich Harting and Josef Rufer. In 1964 he began a two-year term as lecturer in theory and musicianship at the City Conservatory in Berlin. During this period, he was awarded the Rome Prize and made his first long visit to Italy. Here he composed, among other works, a violin concerto ("Sonata concertante 2.) which was premiered in 1969 by Christiane Edinger and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bruno Maderna. In 1970 he was one of several composers invited to present a work, his "Dialectics" for tape and instruments, in the spherical auditorium of the German pavillion at the World Fair in Osaka. In the same year he received a commission from the Berlin Festival; the resulting work, "Hormusik" (Listening Music), was given its premiere the following year by the cellist Eberhard Finke and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Michael Gielen. This led to engagements for several months in the Electronic Music Studio at the University of Utrecht. There he wrote "Prozess der Veranderung" (Process of Change), which in 1972 received a second prize in the "Prix Itallia".

"Change" was also a hallmark of this juncture in Grosskopf's life. As early as 1971 he co-founded the "Musik-Projekte Berlin" with other composers and music devotees. This has enabled him since 1978 to present full concert series in conjunction with other institutions and organisations under the name "Insel-Musik" (Island Music). The founding of this group was the result of Grosskopfs withdrawal from the "Gruppe Neue Musik Berlin" with which he had been associated from its inception in 1965 and where he had first come to public notice. Further changes emerged in his style of composition as he suddenly and unexpectedly turned, with his friend Cornelius Cardew, to Chinese music of the revolutionary sort, hoping thereby to find an escape from the ivory tower of the avant-garde and its social irrelevance. This experiment was doomed to failure. Grosskopf spent the next few years delivering broadcasts, lectures and courses on how to use the synthesizer. This period lasted until 1977 when, for a second time, he was awarded a fellowship at the Villa Massimo in Rome and in several senses found his footing once again. Since 1978, in his concert series "Insel-Musik", he has attracted attention beyond the confines of Berlin by frequently presenting works which thwart the commercial music establishment.

Grosskopf was again in Italy for several months in 1982, this time at the invitation of the Berlin Academy of Arts; he also taught at the International New Music Courses in Darmstadt where, among other things, he explained his orchestral pieces "Quintett uber den Herbstanfang" which had just been given its first performance as part of the Berlin concert series "Musik der Gegenwart" organized jointly by Sender Freies Berlin and the Westdeutscher Rundfunk.

Quintett uber den Herbstanfang (Quintet for the Beginning of Autumn)
Erhard Grosskopf's works fall into several distinct periods. Until the late 60s he took his forms largely from outdated models such as the sonata form; then he turned to electronic devices and spatial sound. Later, after trying process-like music, he developed his own technique, "looping technique", which in recent years he has expanded to a new level of complexity. As far as his harmony is concerned, he began accordingly with an atonal 12-note technique with modal centres, at times extended to include auarter-tones. Electronic devices enabled him to expand his range still further, and latterly his looping technique has led to extended tona-atonal tensions, conflicting tona1,ities and overtone fields.

The somewhat unusual title of his "Quintett uber den Herbstanfang" for orchestra refers to the period of its composition (autumn 1981 of January 1982) and to the five layers on which its structure is based. These layers are not fully discernible to the listener: instead, the piece takes the form of a "Klangkomposition" involving the elaboration, clearly perceptible modification and finally the replacement of individual sounds. Even the form, with its three-part structure, is disguised, the two final sections merging just at the point where, "compressed like a scream", the composition reaches its climax. Ultimately, the piece takes on a large-scale ABA form.

In working out this piece, Grosskopf made use of his looping technique. He defines this technique as follows: "The term 'loop' implies the repetition of musical phrases of various lengths, where 'musical phrase' is to be understood in a very broad sense, in an extreme case consisting of a single sound. When different loops of various lengths are superimposed the result is a constant alternation of durations and sound combinations. In principle, this technique is related to the canonic games devised by the Netherlands polyphonists, but it is also characterized by more vivid elements of periodic repetition. A great many principles akin to simple looping technique can be found in American Minimal Music as well as its forerunners in Africa and Asia and its offshoots in Europe and Japan. The range of variation extends from phase displacement of identical material as used by Steve Reich and single pitches as found in Morton Feldman up to any density of event desired, depending on the number of loops involved and their harmonic and rhythmic structure."

Grosskopf has never applied this technique in unadulterated form. For example, he began to extend the points of coincidence in the periodic structure, i. e. those points where the various durations reach a common multiple. In "Quintett" this is apparent in the very first section, where one lengthy passage is divided by abrupt chords, automatically but unintentionally recalling Japanese music. Likewise unintentionally, these echoes of Far-Eastern music are matched by a sort of Oriental sense of time as expressed above all in the working out of individual sound passages and in the insistent impact of extreme, isolated sound events.

This piece is based on five compositional levels which serve as vehicles for the harmonies, proportions and dynamics. None of these levels is assigned exclusively to a single group of instruments; instead, their sound unfolds in a process of continual change. Among these levels are five tri-partite series of proportions based on the numbers 3, 4 and 5. These proportions, which are extended on a small scale by means of additions, generate the temporal structure of the entire composition. This structure is linked to changes in harmony and volume which make the proportions audible in the individual layers. Moreover, the instrumental groupings change at the "paints of coincidence", thus drawing timbre into the compositional process. Here the individual chords are not composed in their own right but result from the looping technique.

As Grosskopf remarked: "Looking at the temporal structure alone in the work we might get the impression that the music is constructed. However, the series of proportions are the result of a study of the underlying emotional idea of the piece. In a manner of speaking, they function as the building material for the temporal edifice in which this emotional idea can come to fruition. In order for it to do so, the composer must not view the structure he discovers or invents as an automatic recipe; instead, with alertness and sensitivity, he should follow the course of the compositional process he has set in motion, directing events with his own decisions and, wherever feasible, by his spontaneous intervention. It is my belief that a continuous, vital confrontation between emotionality and constructivity is a prerequisite (though not of course a guarantee) for the success of a piece of music. I dedicated 'Quintett iiber den Herbstanfang' to the memory of Cornelius Cardew: the news of his sudden death in London reached me while I was completing the work. Towards the end the three percussionists play a passage marked 'with unflinching tenderness'; at first they are inaudible until, gradually, the rest of the orchestra becomes so quiet that only tenderness remains, strong and forthright." -- Peter Bockelmann (Translation: J. Bradford Robinson)