Manfred Trojahn, "Architectura caelestis"
Architectura caelestis
When Manfred Trojahn referred to his "Kammerkonzert" (Chamber Concerto) of 1973 as an "attempt to break away from rigidly constructivist, fully documentable and explainable musical phenomena in favour of an intuitive, emotional, living piece of music - albeit not at the expense of a restorative aesthetic", he made a crucial statement not only about his own work as a whole but about the aims of the composers of his generation. It is tempting to think of composers such as Trojahn, Miiller-Siemens, Schweinitz, Stranz, Bose, Dadelsen and perhaps Hamel and Rihm as a "group" since they have so many prominent features in common. Yet it looks as though the progress of the musical avant-garde so strongly encouraged parallel approaches of this sort that composers had no need to form a group (the opposite was often the case in previous decades). Indeed, all of the above-named composers have set out on independent paths, each of them with a well-honoured intellect and an urge toward expression.
Trojahn commented on this development as follows: "Most past, by what we might call an 'undisguised' link to his new aesthetic approaches are marked by a window on the tory and by specific criticisms of the avant-garde machinery of the 1960s. Any premature attempt to attach labels to superficial similarities for the purpose of condemning, praising or marketing this movement wholesale will only cause wonder and puzzlement in a young composer who, imagining himself to be an individualist, suddenly finds he is a member of a school whose features are known to everyone but himself. . . The push to 'new pastures' which led in ,the 1950s to the notion of total organisation, and seemed to guarantee a pristine musical universe, has failed, and this has made me wary, even towards myself. As a result, composition is a protest against my own doubts, an act of almost irrational hope."
Manfred Trojahn was born in 1949 in Cremlingen near Brunswick. He studied orchestral music at the Lower Saxony Music School in Brunswick, specializing in flute and obtaining his degree in 1970. Later, at the Hamburg Musikhochschule. he studied flute with Schochow and Zoller and composition with de la Motte. Since 1974 he has won numerous prizes in Stuttgart, Boswil, Hamburg, Hitzacker, and from UNESCO. He has been a fellow of the "Studienstiftun" des Deutschen Volkes" and of the Villa Massimo in Rome, where he remained for over a year.
Trojahn's chamber music is set for various, even bizarre combinations in which his own instrument, the flute, has a leading role. He has also written a string quartet and several orchestral pieces. His First Symphony premiered in Hannover in 1976, was followed by "Architectura caelestis" for eight female singers (solo or chorus) and full orchestra. This piece was written from 1974-6 and first performed in Royan during the 1976 "Festival International d'Art Contemporain", conducted by Friedrich Cerha; in 1979 it was produced again and broadcast by the Norddeutscher Rundfunkt, Peter Keuschnig conducting.
Mention may again be made of the "Kammerkonzert" which receded this orchestral piece. Both works seek, in a manner of speaking, a creative rejection of the old avant garde without denying its existence. The music combines and contrasts searing dissonances in ultra-high registers and as sound layers with swirling, explosive passages, tremolo transitions and slowly decaying: chords reminiscent of sounds emitted when an'organ'mgtor is shut down. The end of "Kammerlronzert" fades away in slow contemplation, as though Wagner's "Tristan" had just preceded it and was lying prostrate in its final twitches.
The impulse to write "Architectura caelestis" came from the painter Ernst Fuchs, namely from his "sacred, ornamental picture of Christ called 'Architectura caelestis' and from his book of the same title. Today," the composer continues, "I find it difficult to interpret the connections between his book and painting and my music. More importantly, I see in my work a point of discontinuity within my own development, a discontinuity which made possible my next work, the string quartet, and in which my serious confrontation with the music of the past took shape. The beginnings of this confrontation were at least announced in 'Architectura caelestis' - particularlv at the end. where a texture of dense micropolyphonal clusters relaxes into broad chordal sonorities, but also in the middle section with its re~ressed cantabile. In this work I wrote a farewell to micropolyphony, to the cluster, to Klangfarben speculation, and most of all a farewell to what today we still call avant-garde."
Whether or not a new "avant-garde" will arise from the old, Manfred Trojahn has taken an individual path which will figure in the music of tomorrow. -- Wolf-Eberhard von Lewlinski (Translation: J. Bradford Robinson)
When Manfred Trojahn referred to his "Kammerkonzert" (Chamber Concerto) of 1973 as an "attempt to break away from rigidly constructivist, fully documentable and explainable musical phenomena in favour of an intuitive, emotional, living piece of music - albeit not at the expense of a restorative aesthetic", he made a crucial statement not only about his own work as a whole but about the aims of the composers of his generation. It is tempting to think of composers such as Trojahn, Miiller-Siemens, Schweinitz, Stranz, Bose, Dadelsen and perhaps Hamel and Rihm as a "group" since they have so many prominent features in common. Yet it looks as though the progress of the musical avant-garde so strongly encouraged parallel approaches of this sort that composers had no need to form a group (the opposite was often the case in previous decades). Indeed, all of the above-named composers have set out on independent paths, each of them with a well-honoured intellect and an urge toward expression.
Trojahn commented on this development as follows: "Most past, by what we might call an 'undisguised' link to his new aesthetic approaches are marked by a window on the tory and by specific criticisms of the avant-garde machinery of the 1960s. Any premature attempt to attach labels to superficial similarities for the purpose of condemning, praising or marketing this movement wholesale will only cause wonder and puzzlement in a young composer who, imagining himself to be an individualist, suddenly finds he is a member of a school whose features are known to everyone but himself. . . The push to 'new pastures' which led in ,the 1950s to the notion of total organisation, and seemed to guarantee a pristine musical universe, has failed, and this has made me wary, even towards myself. As a result, composition is a protest against my own doubts, an act of almost irrational hope."
Manfred Trojahn was born in 1949 in Cremlingen near Brunswick. He studied orchestral music at the Lower Saxony Music School in Brunswick, specializing in flute and obtaining his degree in 1970. Later, at the Hamburg Musikhochschule. he studied flute with Schochow and Zoller and composition with de la Motte. Since 1974 he has won numerous prizes in Stuttgart, Boswil, Hamburg, Hitzacker, and from UNESCO. He has been a fellow of the "Studienstiftun" des Deutschen Volkes" and of the Villa Massimo in Rome, where he remained for over a year.
Trojahn's chamber music is set for various, even bizarre combinations in which his own instrument, the flute, has a leading role. He has also written a string quartet and several orchestral pieces. His First Symphony premiered in Hannover in 1976, was followed by "Architectura caelestis" for eight female singers (solo or chorus) and full orchestra. This piece was written from 1974-6 and first performed in Royan during the 1976 "Festival International d'Art Contemporain", conducted by Friedrich Cerha; in 1979 it was produced again and broadcast by the Norddeutscher Rundfunkt, Peter Keuschnig conducting.
Mention may again be made of the "Kammerkonzert" which receded this orchestral piece. Both works seek, in a manner of speaking, a creative rejection of the old avant garde without denying its existence. The music combines and contrasts searing dissonances in ultra-high registers and as sound layers with swirling, explosive passages, tremolo transitions and slowly decaying: chords reminiscent of sounds emitted when an'organ'mgtor is shut down. The end of "Kammerlronzert" fades away in slow contemplation, as though Wagner's "Tristan" had just preceded it and was lying prostrate in its final twitches.
The impulse to write "Architectura caelestis" came from the painter Ernst Fuchs, namely from his "sacred, ornamental picture of Christ called 'Architectura caelestis' and from his book of the same title. Today," the composer continues, "I find it difficult to interpret the connections between his book and painting and my music. More importantly, I see in my work a point of discontinuity within my own development, a discontinuity which made possible my next work, the string quartet, and in which my serious confrontation with the music of the past took shape. The beginnings of this confrontation were at least announced in 'Architectura caelestis' - particularlv at the end. where a texture of dense micropolyphonal clusters relaxes into broad chordal sonorities, but also in the middle section with its re~ressed cantabile. In this work I wrote a farewell to micropolyphony, to the cluster, to Klangfarben speculation, and most of all a farewell to what today we still call avant-garde."
Whether or not a new "avant-garde" will arise from the old, Manfred Trojahn has taken an individual path which will figure in the music of tomorrow. -- Wolf-Eberhard von Lewlinski (Translation: J. Bradford Robinson)
Labels: Avant Garde Project, jodru, Manfred Trojahn
posted by jodru at 22:25
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home