Austrian Composer Research Articles

At the Knot of Presence: Weaving with the embodied knowledge of my artistic palette in Liza Lim's One and the Other (Speculative Polskas for Karin)

This artistic research exposition unfolds the shared work between Australian composer Liza Lim and Swedish violinist Karin Hellqvist, from the viewpoint of Hellqvist as performer and co-creator. Together, the artists have created the violin solo work One and the Other (Speculative Polskas for Karin) (2021–22). The Swedish folk music tradition that Hellqvist has carried with her since her childhood, and especially the polska dance, serves as their point of departure. This tradition resides in Hellqvist’s body and performance practice as embodied knowledge – a term introduced by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962), and it becomes their main path of research. A central concept in the reflections is the ‘artistic palette’ – a concept created by Hellqvist to conceptualise the skills and abilities used in creative work. Hellqvist’s embodied knowledge connected to the tradition is woven into the work through explorations of elements as the specific pulse of the polska and its ornamentation. Furthermore, those embodied skills are explored as decoupled in the third movement, capturing indeterminate aspects. The main question addressed is how the embodied knowledge of Hellqvist’s artistic palette serves as resource and inspiration in the shared process and how it affects the ontology of One and the Other (Speculative Polskas for Karin). Topics of distributed creativity, shared work as mycelial structure, instrument-building, ownership, and temporal ecology are being unpacked in the light of the artistic palette. The artistic research exposition unfolds a compositional process whereby the performer is participating actively, thus problematising the view of where creativity may be located in compositional work. It comprises written reflections, audio examples, pictures, and video material from the creative process as well as a video of the whole work. The research context comprises historical and aesthetic perspectives, as well as recent research on performer creativity and embodiment. <style> /* rules to make button only show up in META */ .download-accessible { display:none; } .meta-right-col .download-accessible { display: inline-block; padding: 9px; margin-bottom:25px; border: 1px solid black; background-color:white; } </style> <a class="download-accessible" href="/profile/download-media?work=2936353&file=2959705" title="This accessible PDF is a derivative of the original which it is meant to support and not replace.">Download Accessible PDF</a>

From ‘musique concrète’ and Acousmatic Art to the ‘New Music Theater’. The Austrian Composer Dieter Kaufmann

This article follows the way the Austrian composer Dieter Kaufmann has gone with his conceptions taken from musical and extra-musical domains, as literature, visual arts, religion and politics, describing some of his theatrical works. For him the function of music is to improve the society and therefore his works are a critic to politics or to religion. Having studied in Paris by Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Schaeffer, François Bayle and René Leibowitz, he contributed to the development of the electronic music in Austria with his creation and his teaching of electroacoustic composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. He went further than the Parisian ‘musique concrète’, which worked with sound objects, and consciously selected and worked with objects of sound ambient in order to manage the sound environment, to musically shape it. The acousmatic art deals with sound objects, which are recorded and projected in another space, the theatre scene being an ideal space of it. A large part of his works are included in the genre of New Music Theater of the 20th and 21st century, where sound (tone and word) and movement come together, each of them having the same weight. Keywords: musique concrète, sound object, acousmatic art, multimedia, electroacoustic composition

‘I AM A TEXTURAL COMPOSER’: JANE STANLEY ON THE CREATIVE PROCESS, IMMERSIVE TEXTURES, GLOW AND A NEW SONG CYCLE

AbstractThis is the transcript of an interview with Glasgow-based Australian composer Dr Jane Stanley. The interviewer is Dr Judith Bishop, an Australian poet and lyricist whose words appear in two of the works discussed: ‘14 Weeks’ (from Interval (UQP, 2018) and ‘The Indifferent’ (from Event (Salt Publishing UK, 2007)). The interview was recorded at the University of Glasgow on 29 May 2023 and edited for clarity, length and concision. It was recorded a day after the world premiere of Jane Stanley's 14 Weeks at the Glasgow School of Art Choir Composeher concert in City Halls, Glasgow. In response to a recent survey which revealed huge gender inequalities in the granting of music commissions, Composeher had commissioned seven female composers to write choral works of around ten minutes, of which 14 Weeks was one. The interview ranges widely, from the composer's textural style to her creative process, and touches on her forthcoming composer portrait album, to be released by Delphian Records in 2024.

Thérèse Radic’s A Whip Round for Percy Grainger (1982) and the Archive on Stage

Thérèse Radic’s play A Whip Round for Percy Grainger: A Serious Comedy in Two Acts was premiered in Melbourne in 1982, as part of the celebrations for the centenary of the birth of Australian composer and pianist Percy Grainger (1882–1961). This article explores this play in the context of Grainger’s autobiographical projects—including his extensive autobiographical writings and the autobiographical museum he built at the University of Melbourne—as well as within the dynamics of Australian theatre in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This article argues that Radic’s presentation of Grainger, his life, and music, was mobilized at a particular moment of cultural introspection in late twentieth-century Australia to aid in the exploration and critique of contemporary national and cultural currents. Radic’s work is situated first within presentations of ‘documentary theatre’ and historical biography on stage, and then in contemporary Australian theatre’s response to the ‘new nationalist’ movement, while also considering how her representation of Grainger is informed by his own construction of an autobiographical narrative.

SNOW, REPETITION AND OBLIVION: ECOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS IN BEAT FURRER'S RECENT WORK

AbstractThe natural world is a frequent touchstone for the Swiss-born Austrian composer Beat Furrer. In the operatic work Violetter Schnee (2019), for instance, images of snow and coldness take on a central role. Other works, such as Wüstenbuch (2009) and the Spazio Immergente triptych (2015), refer more indirectly to notions of barren landscapes and ecological excess. At the basis of all these works are sentiments of slippage and loss, of far-reaching melancholia and an unrepairable detachment from reality. The composer's multi-layered use of repetition further underlines these sentiments and aids in the creation of constantly shifting sonic landscapes. This article argues that the recurrent use of nature imagery in Furrer's work signposts a latent ecological dimension in his oeuvre. In doing so, the article focuses on the slipperiness of musical repetition, and more particularly on the heavily destabilising power of the loop. Taking Violetter Schnee as the starting point for inquiry, and using Timothy Morton's philosophical project of ‘dark ecology’ as a heuristic framework, the article reads Furrer's recent work against the background of ecological critique.

Emily Wilbourne. Lesbian/Opera: Elena Kats-Chernin’s Iphis and Matricide: The Musical (Review)

Book Review. Wilbourne does not only apply queer theory to an analysis of Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin’s early operas; she queers our very understanding of opera, pushing forward a strong theoretical concept demonstrated through discussion of Kats-Chernin’s works.

STYLISTIC FEATURES OF SOUND PRODUCTION IN PIANOFORTE MUSIC OF WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

The article deals with the basic stylistic features of the sound production technique in the interpretation of piano opuses of the brilliant Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Its specific features are outlined in the context of the basic stylistic features of the artist’s piano heritage and typical performance tradition. The main features of sound production technique are related to the following basic stylistic elements of Mozart’s piano works: the laconicism of expressive means, the accuracy of all records of performance instructions, the transparency of the substance and at the same time the super-rich sense, the extraordinary expressiveness of the melody line in its slightest pitches; balance of emotions and logic and inexhaustible variability of images; logic of the chosen tempo-character of the work, accuracy of articulation, adequacy of the dynamics, quality and tonal beauty; clavier polytimbral. The character of sound production technique is also revealed on the basis of an analysis of Mozart’s performance style, which was characterized by perfect technical competence, accuracy of detailed nuances, exemplary highly artistic performance in the absence of any exaggerations, transparency of “grainy” sound, cantilenity and extent of the dynamics of the piano of the XVIII century. The sound production work in the play of Mozart’s works is determined by the specific tasks caused by specific musical and artistic content of each particular work. In general, the nature of pianistic techniques is associated with at excellent, brilliant finger technique, which excludes the excessive use of large arm levers, its excessive weighting. Under common kind of articulation, the finger rises from the key just before pressing the next one. The article provides exercises for the formation of this basic key touch, which is necessary for the gentle sound of “demilegato” play, the production of grainy sounds; emphasizes the need for rational organization of movements of the sensitive fingers for a detailed performance nuance, delicate “messa di voce” of the dynamics of the volume due to the recitative-declamatory nature of vocal plastic art in Mozart’s piano works. The development of Mozartianism will motivate researchers to analyze the wealthy palette of music styles of Austrian genius. At the same time, a deep understanding and, above all, mastering the art of interpreting a musical piece should also take into account the nature of a deliberate and appropriate pianistic embodiment of the performer’s artistic intentions.

«Tri ozhidaniya»: psihosocial'nyj analiz sozdaniya i vospriyatiya oratorii Franca Gajdna «Genezis»

The article examines the phenomenon of expectation in musical creativity from the point of view of social psychology on the example of the oratorio “Genesis” of the Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn.

The musical-poetic world of Gustav Mahler’s early chamber-vocal cycles

he relevance of the paper is in the target setting of the early vocal creative work of Gustav Mahler, an outstanding Austrian composer – the Cycle of Songs to Josephine Poisl, Fourteen Songs and Romances from Youth, Songs of a Wayfarer. This study is focused on exploring the early chamber-vocal cycles of G. Mahler in terms of style and musical theme features. The said topic has not yet been an object of a separate study. It was partly covered by such musicologists as I. Barsova, I. Leopa, D. Mitchell, Z. Roman, who studied the genesis and interaction issues of the word and music in the above-mentioned chambervocal cycles by G. Mahler. The research methodology is based on biographical, historical-cultural, system-analytical and comparative methods.

In search of synchresis: an examination of compositional approaches in new audiovisual works for solo electric guitar and visual projections

ABSTRACT This paper examines the interaction of sound and vision in audiovisual works for solo electric guitar, providing an overview of existing compositions before exploring in depth the approaches utilised in two new works commissioned by the author. Multimedia works which combine sound and vision represent a minority of the contemporary western art music repertoire, and are rarer still in works involving the electric guitar. The use of visuals in the small literature of audiovisual works for solo electric guitar varies widely, ranging from pre-recorded videos which simply play back over the course of a performance with no temporal alignment between sound and vision, to complex lighting mechanisms which respond to the music in real-time with clear parameter mapping. The bulk of the repertoire, however, demonstrates limited gestural synchronisation between the two media, with composers creating audiovisual cohesion through extra-temporal means. The works commissioned by the author – Svart-Hvít Ský á Himni by Icelandic composer Gulli Björnsson, and especially Akrasia by Australian composer Victor Arul – run counter to this trend, situating them as outliers which push the boundaries of parametric mapping in the repertoire for solo electric guitar and visuals.

Talking about the analysis of the singing of "Great Soul and Noble Heart"

"The Great Soul Noble Heart" is a concert aria composed by Austrian composer Mozart, composed in 1789. In the long history of European the author will start from the composition background and content overview of "The Great and Noble Heart of the Soul", and analyze its musical style, singing techniques and several other aspects. Through the study and analysis, the reader will be able to better grasp the emotions of the characters when singing this concert aria.

‘Take Her Out and Air Her’: Irish Dances as Arranged by Stanford and Grainger

Irish-born composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924) has received both acclaim and criticism for his integration of Irish folk melodies in his compositions and for his role in publishing collections of Irish folk melodies. Throughout his career, the music of Ireland provided the inspiration for a number of compositions including orchestral works, songs, opera and chamber music. This article critically examines his Irish Dances op. 89, later published and referred to as Four Irish Dances, the source material for the work and versions created for piano by both Stanford and the Australian composer Percy Grainger (1882–1961). The article also addresses gaps in scholarship related to the performance and reception of the work(s). It also highlights inaccuracies in contemporary commentary, and returns the authorship of the works to Stanford. This examination parallels other studies and enhances an understanding not only of Stanford’s compositional practice but the social, cultural and economic contexts of music at the turn of the twentieth century and their reception amongst audiences and critics.

Joseph Haydn and Ignaz Pleyel: The Teacher and His Student

The article is devoted to the history of the mutual relations of two eminent Austrian composers — Joseph Haydn and his student Ignaz Pleyel. And although presently Pleyel is much less known than his instructor, his contemporaries perceived him as one of the most significant composers of his time. Moreover, he achieved his fame as an outstanding musical activist, the founder of the music publishing house Chez Pleyel, as well as a piano manufacturing company, which exists up to the present day. Examining the various stages of Haydn’s and Pleyel’s artistic biographies, the author exerts special attention to the moments of their conflux after the period of study. One such interconnection may be considered by the indications in the editions of Pleyel’s compositions on his pedagogical relations with Haydn. These margin notes served as a means of expression of acknowledgement to the teacher, as well as advertisement, which was conducive to the growth of interest towards the master’s pupil. The occasion for the composers’ interaction was also served by a legal argument around Haydn’s Trio opus 40 (Hob. XV: 3–5) which began in 1785 and extended for a few years. The article shows how the evaluations of this situation by research have changed up to the present time. An important landmark in the composers’ mutual relations was expressed in their engagements in London in 1792. Through the efforts of the impresarios who invited them, Johann Peter Salomon and Wilhelm Kramer, both Haydn and Pleyel turned out to be drawn into an artistic competition against their wills. The picture of their famous contest is recreated with a reliance on the utterances of the witnesses of their events (primarily, Haydn, as well as the reporters of the London press), as well as relevant musicological research works. In the conclusion to the article the author aims to show that the composers were able to preserve excellent relations with each other, despite everything, and showed support for each other.

Cryptozoologica: Developing the Child as Performer

Music, movement, and imaginative play are essential for young children to explore and understand the world around them. It is important for educators of early primary students to consider how they can facilitate meaningful learning experiences that are practical, engaging, and allow children to investigate unfamiliar musical ideas in supportive, fun environments. This article introduces Cryptozoologica, a new work for flute, viola, and cello with Storyteller by Australian composer Jim Coyle, and describes how educators of young children can use music from a range of cultures and genres, including Western art music, to teach students to physically, cognitively, and imaginatively engage with sounds and stories. It includes the full score of Cryptozoologica and five lessons that encourage listening, movement, and play as a means of embodying musical understanding and knowledge.

Music and Austrofascism: Radio, Pan-Germanism and the Reinvention of the Wiener Symphoniker

Abstract‘Austrofascist’ has again become an accepted term to describe the Austrian regime from 1933 to 1938. This article contributes to this re-emergence using the example of the Wiener Symphoniker, and by seeking long-term ‘fascistization’ processes surrounding the orchestra rather than blunt comparisons against developments in neighbouring regimes. The account hinges on the Austrian radio service (RAVAG), through which, during the economic crises of the 1920s, the state exerted alignment pressure on many cultural institutions. As Chancellor Dollfuss declared the ‘depoliticization’ of Austria (the banning of political parties) in 1933, RAVAG used its leverage to break the orchestra’s union alliances and dictate personnel selection according to politics. On this foundation, new radio series like Stunde österreichischer Komponisten der Gegenwart (‘Austrian Composers of the Present’) extolled ‘pan-Germanism’: a nationalist ideology that proclaimed the European supremacy of German Austrians and attempted to forge an Austrofascist community – even as it simultaneously created exploitable overlap with National Socialism.

The Afterlife of a Lost Art. On the Work and Legacy of Silent Film Pianist Arthur Kleiner

This article examines the life and work of Arthur Kleiner, an Austrian composer, conductor, and pianist who, although relatively unknown, can be considered one of the most influential practitioners of silent film music during the sound era. Significantly, he was active during a time when the musical accompaniment of silent films could not be taken for granted in film preservation institutions and also before the revival of silent cinema in the 1980s. Kleiner’s contributions to the persistent existence of silent film music can be broken down into three key roles: as historian and researcher, as creator of original and compilation scores, and as performer who not only offered his interpretative frame to hundreds of silent films, but who, through his mediatized, public persona, shaped the idea of what it meant to be a silent film pianist. I argue that Kleiner’s work as well as his “musical persona” (Auslander) were strongly influenced by his Viennese bourgoise background and by his early career as dance and theater musician. Finally, an analysis of a documentary written and narrated by Kleiner in 1972 serves to trace how certain aspects of his musical persona shaped his conception of this lost art.

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States

Zoltán Kodály and Hungarian Dance

Abstract In addition to folk music, Zoltán Kodály was interested in folk dance. This is evidenced not only by his writings dedicated to the subject – some relevant ideas are to be found in his publications mainly focused on other topics. In this article, the author collects both Kodály's writings explicitly related to folk dance as well as the “hidden” ideas, presented partly chronologically, partly in thematic groups. Topics include: Kodály's dance experiences, his practical dance knowledge, his work of exploring data of historical dance music, his role in the emergence of Hungarian ethnochoreology as a scholarly discipline, his critical views on the use of folk dance on stage, etc. In contrast to the earlier literature, this article no longer considers the Hungarian shepherds' horn signals as the inspirational sources for Bécsi harangjátek [Viennese Clock], a movement which imitates a musical clock in Kodály's Singspiel Háry János. The movement entitled Branle de village, part of seventeenth-century Austrian composer Johann Heinrich Schmelzer's Partita ex Vienna, contains some bars that bear a close resemblance to the repeated main motif of Kodály's Viennese Clock. It is safe to assume that Branle de village was Kodály's source of inspiration, given that there is evidence that he studied the DTÖ-collection of Schmelzer's works: he referred to this volume where he found a Styrian version of a Székely dance tune.

Thomas Holcroft and Joseph Haydn: Mapping an Unlikely Friendship

This essay examines the friendship between the British playwright, novelist, translator, and political activist, Thomas Holcroft, and the Austrian composer, Joseph Haydn. This friendship is explored against the backdrop of the politically fraught 1790s, and the discourse surrounding the French Revolution. Activists such as Holcroft were subjected to legal action; he was arrested during the Treason Trials of 1794 for allegedly taking part in a plot to overthrow the King. Eventually released without trial, Holcroft suffered deeply from the after-effects of his judicial experience. Haydn, conversely, is often seen as a composer who, in his music composed in Britain, exhibited an embrace of militarism and patriotism in works such as Symphony 100 and the canzonetta “The Sailor’s Song.” I argue that this assumed difference in political outlook between Haydn and Holcroft did not impede their friendship and collaboration. The essay concludes with a discussion of their collaboration on the second set of Haydn’s Canzonettas (1795) and Holcroft’s poetic tribute to Haydn published in the London newspapers.

КОМПОЗИТОРСКОЕ И УЧЕБНО-МЕТОДИЧЕСКОЕ НАСЛЕДИЕ МАРКО ФРАНКА

Modern viola performing is at its peak, as evidenced by the serious array of solo and chamber ensemble works for this instrument, as well as a developed performing school represented by such outstanding musicians as Lionel Tertis, William Primrose, Vadim Borisovsky, Yuri Bashmet and many others. However, less than a century ago, the situation was not so rosy: the viola (along with the double bass), as an independent musical instrument, was struggling to make its way, being in the shadow of its mighty relatives — the violin and the cello. It was only after the Second World War that the viola began to gain ground on the world music stage, which was facilitated by both the creation of an independent artistic repertoire and the formation of a specially created educational and methodological base. Marco Frank, an Austrian composer and viola player, contributed greatly to this process. The purpose of the article is to attempt to reconstruct his compositional heritage, including repertoire collections of viola playing. The novelty of the research lies in the introduction of information about the now almost forgotten musician into musicology. Objectives of the study: reconstruction of Frank's biography; review of his musical-stage, symphonic, chamber-instrumental and vocal compositions; research of educational and methodological works on teaching viola playing.