The "New" Radio Drama: Recent Radiophonic Experiments in Germany

Abstract

THE TERM NEUES HORSPIEL, "the new radio play," was coined by Klaus Schoning in 1967, and is broadly defined by him as "an opening up of all possible avenues of radio as a medium." Viewed historically, it represents a total and often violent reaction against the "Golden Age" of the 50s, when writers such as Eich, Weyrauch and Bachmann created for the radio audience an "inner stage" of the imagination, often considered the last stronghold of poetic expression in the traditional sense. The revolutionary quality of the "new" radio play is underlined by the adoption of a new technology: stereophonic, rather than monaural, sound, and the preference of the cut over the traditional fade in connecting scenes. Plot structure gives way to elaborate collage techniques. Composition is no longer strictly literary: "I exchange my desk for a seat at the control board of the sound engineer," says Paul Portner, one of the artists of the new school, "my new syntax is the cut, my texts are recorded via microphones, tape recorders, sound steering and filters, many elements are put together to form the collage which makes up the final play ... chance also plays a part ....” The concept of individual authorship becomes increasingly ambiguous as the part played by the technical team in the studio takes on a major importance.