It is often said that putting together a library or a music collection reflects the deepest essence of a person, their most intimate desires, curiosities and sometimes hopes. Gathering hundreds of books or recordings requires a diverse education to begin with, possibly growing out of a passion rooted at a young age, cultivated as we grow older and perhaps "transmitted by contagion" from family members, friends and acquaintances. Our reading and music preferences represent immersion in a world we would like to live in, a sanctuary of the mind and often the body, as listening to music or a pleasant book can release healing and happiness-inducing endorphins.

Invitation to beauty

Thus, when we were allowed to enter Emilio and Stefania Bortoluzzi's large house in Velate (Italy), we could immediately grasp the essence of their characters through its large bookcases and shelves full of CDs and DVDs. An invitation to beauty and proof that science and humanism are perfectly compatible and can support each other, as both spouses were doctors but were continuously searching for their deepest purpose, inspired by extensive reading and music enjoyment. When Emilio drew new energy for his poetic writing from the books, retreating to his study to find rhymes and express feelings and memories, Stefania would put on a Deutsche Grammophon LP in the large, frescoed living room and follow the stages of her life in her armchair with music as her constant companion. She had already inhaled art music in the air of the Milan house where she was born, with her mother Alice Claius, a singer from Leipzig, an excellent song interpreter and pianist, in the house music evenings she experienced there, which later also became a custom in Velate, with the inestimable pleasure of having the dearest friends around her. 

Passion for legendary recordings

Let's try to get closer to Stefania Longoni Bortoluzzi by "investigating" her music collection. This points to some of the cornerstones of the personality of the doctor, who worked for 34 years as an anaesthetist at the Circolo Hospital in Varese, where her husband was head of the intensive care unit: legendary recordings with possibly not "historically informed" performers, as those who perform early music are called today, but who instead displayed exceptional charisma and artistic rigor.

There is Karl Richter with the Bach Passions, all of the cantor's keyboard music, interpreted by Angela Hewitt, whom we will talk about later, the Beethoven of the symphonies and concertos, the Mozart for piano and opera, Karajan's most famous recordings. Above all, however, we find a large collection of songs - Stefania's deepest passion. She had a perfect command of German, knew the texts of songs by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wolf and Strauss by heart and enjoyed the works of Richard Wagner in the original language. The Romantics, exactly, and we also add Chopin, of course played by Rubinstein, although Maurizio Pollini also appeared as an interpreter on some recordings, or Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, or the great Dino Ciani, who died far too early.

This particular preference might seem like a contradiction, because Stefania Longoni was a pragmatic person, without much frippery, very direct, and yet her taste in music suggests something quite different, namely a deeply romantic spirit. Perhaps this is the result of her years in Milan, where the young woman studied piano with her mother and discovered treasures in the poems of German poets such as Uhland, Klopstock, Müller, Brentano and, of course, Goethe. Her secret remained in the titles of the records, each of which she remembered, whose interpreters she could name and pass judgment on their performance. But she always preferred to listen to very specific authors, reciting them inwardly as veritable "mantras" before putting the records on.

With the sensitivity of a musician

As a child, Stefania heard her mother sing her mother's song repertoire, and she played the piano until she was eight years old, but did not feel ready to embark on a concert career. Music was always in her, however, and she kept it alive by listening to and getting to know great performers, whom she followed to concert halls all over Europe. The doctor, who put thirty thousand patients to sleep while holding their hands during anesthesia, compiled her music collection with the utmost care and expertise and remembered the many live concerts she had attended: Benedetti Michelangeli at La Scala, Herbert von Karajan in Salzburg, Bernhard Haitink at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and then Bernstein, Pollini, Sokolov, Fischer-Dieskau, Harnoncourt, Herreweghe - all the names stood on the shelves like friends she could "call" when there was an urgent acoustic need.

As a child, she was lucky enough to meet Victor De Sabata, who was once a guest at her parents' house. She played something for him on the piano and received compliments, then she heard him at La Scala Tristan and Isolde and it was an unforgettable experience. But her idol among conductors was Karajan, about whom she read articles and biographies and from whom she collected entire boxes of Beethoven and Brahms recordings, but also of operas that shaped an era, such as the legendary Bohemian with Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti in their vocal prime. She loved watching the great video recording of Beethoven's Ninth with the Berliner Philharmoniker over and over again, repeating that no one else would be able to play it like that. She listened with the ear and sensitivity of a musician, not an amateur, grasping every nuance of the score and enjoying comparing different interpretations of the same piece.

The way inwards

Her passion for music was contagious, so much so that she also got her husband Emilio, who loved listening to jazz, to become enthusiastic about classical music and attend concerts with her. At the piano competition dedicated to Dino Ciani, Stefania Longoni had one of her most important encounters in the world of music - with the Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt, then unknown and very young, who later became like a daughter to her. Angela came to Casa Bortoluzzi to practice in the piano room, especially in the spring and fall when she was on tour in Italy. Stefania accompanied her every year to the festival on Lake Trasimeno, which the artist organized, and never missed an edition until 2018. Her music collection included the complete collection of Angela Hewitt's recordings, which played a key role in renewing the doctor's passion for Johann Sebastian Bach, as the Canadian artist is one of his most important living interpreters. Stefania Longoni loved to travel, and not a trip went by without her taking the opportunity to hear a live concert, whether in Stresa, Amsterdam, Salzburg or Berlin, at La Scala in Milan or at the Metropolitan in New York. As she grew older, she became more selective and approached more introspective composers and works: Bach, the late Beethoven, Brahms, the late Schubert sonatas, some songs by Schumann, but also operas that she had perhaps heard less often when she was younger.

The music patron

Stefania and Emilio Bortoluzzi were patrons of music and supported the municipal music season in Varese from the very beginning, which was directed by Fabio Sartorelli, musicologist and lecturer at the "Giuseppe Verdi" Conservatory in Milan. Among other things, Stefania donated a lighting system for the concerts, bought various subscriptions every year, which she then gave to the people she cared about, and invited various musicians to the large house in Velate to rehearse, including Leonidas Kavakos and the pianist Enrico Pace, the violinist Vilde Frang and the young Beatrice Rana, who was still unknown on the international stage at the time.

Now the music collection that Stefania Longoni has lovingly compiled over many years is part of the library of the Fondazione Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana, to be of use to those who deal with music every day. And when you look at the list of titles, the soul of the woman who left her mark on this collection is emphatically revealed, as in the large hall of the villa in Velate, where science always gave way to an intimate and personal conversation with infinity.

 

Mario Chiodetti is a journalist, actor and writer. He lives in Varese (I).

 

The landscape is perfectly flat around the hamlet of Nohant-Vic in the province of Berry in the heart of France. The proud manor house of the Dupin family stands there. Marie-Aurore de Saxe, grandmother of George Sand alias Aurore Dudevant, once bought it together with its farm, stables, small church and five-hectare park.1

Behind the house is a small wood with winding paths and an enchanted pond, a spacious garden with flower beds and a family cemetery. George Sand spent most of her life here. And some of the most important cultural figures of the time came and went here. Far from the hustle and bustle and dirt of the capital, they worked in peace and in inspiring company on groundbreaking plays, novels, compositions and paintings.

At the beginning of 1838, the poet Honoré de Balzac was inspired by this atmosphere. The rural life, which the bustling George Sand preferred, inspired creativity. But Nohant can also become boring in the long run, so music is needed. The lady of the house loves piano music. She plays the instrument herself, but there are no professionals in the house - preferably stars like Franz Liszt. "Quand Franz joue du piano, je suis soulagé [sic]. Toutes mes peines se poétisent, tous mes instincts s'exaltent. Il fait surtout vibrer la corde généreuse" (When Franz plays the piano, I am relieved. All my agonies are transfigured, all my instincts go into raptures. Above all, he makes the generous string vibrate).she wrote in her Journal intime on June 3, 1837, when Liszt and his lover Marie d'Agoult were visiting Nohant for months.

However, the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and his intimate friend Wojciech Grzymała - who had long known Sand from the Parisian salons - did not yet respond to her urgent invitations. Meanwhile, Sand is visited by one past, one present and one future lover; they too are artists: Charles Didier, a Swiss journalist and writer, Bocage (Pierre-Martinien Tousez), a French actor, and Félicien Mallefille, a French writer born in Mauritius.2

Chopin's musical fragments over the garden

It was not until two years later that Chopin was able to enjoy a summer retreat in Nohant. After Sand, who was divorced and had been a single mother for years, invited him on a rainy winter trip to Mallorca, which had become famous, and his health had deteriorated dangerously, the little group (Sand's children and maid were with them) arrived at the country estate in June 1839. Chopin soon becomes bored. He missed his extravagant life in Paris, his friends and wandering through the salons late into the night. He implores Grzymała to visit him. Sand is also pleased to see him. She has long been on first-name terms with this co-founder of the Polish Parisian literary society and calls him "mon époux" - while she and Chopin always correspond with the formal "you".

She ordered a Pleyel grand piano for her "malade" so that he could work and play undisturbed. The doors to his study, padded for soundproofing, are still in place today. In Paris, Chopin's main occupation was teaching. mój młynhis "mill", as he somewhat cynically called it. For seven summers (1839, 1841-1846), Chopin was able to compose in peace in Nohant for months on end, and at a reasonable price - he himself could hardly afford such a feudal and extensive summer retreat, including good food.

He perfectionistically polishes his new works. "Il s'enfermait dans sa chambre des journées entières, pleurant, marchant, brisant ses plumes, répétant et changeant cent fois une mesure [...] avec une persévérance minutieuse et désespérée. He spent six semaines on one page to return to it as he had done with the first jet." (He locked himself in his room for days, crying, walking around, repeating and changing a bar a hundred times [...] with a painstaking, desperate persistence. He worked on a page for six weeks before finally returning to it as he had written it down in the first draft).3

Sands "hôte" (as she calls him in Histoire de ma vie) composes during the day, she writes at night and sleeps half the day. This "compagnonnage"4 The two of them get along well, but still go for walks together while riding a donkey.

Chopin remained in contact with his beloved friends in Paris by letter. He sent his trusted intimate Julian Fontana, for example, publishing commissions and more: "Écris-moi continuellement, trois fois par jour si tu le veux [...] Que mon chapeau soit prêt dans quelques jours. Commande immédiatement mes pantalons, ma petite Juliette [sic]." (Write to me all the time, three times a day, if you want [...] Whether my hat will be ready in a few days. Order my trousers at once, my little Juliette [sic]. 3.10.1839)

Chopin's family in Warsaw also received mail from Nohant. And also his old love in Poland, the musical farmer Tytus: "Woyciechowski vient de me conseiller d'écrire un Oratorio." (Woyciechowski recommended that I write an oratorio. 8.8.1839) Chopin never puts an oratorio on paper, as he immediately makes clear to his Tytus. During these summers, however, he completed one piano masterpiece after another: the eerie finale of the B flat minor Sonata, the B minor Sonata, the Ballade in F minor, the "heroic" A flat major Polonaise, the light and airy E major Scherzo with its yearning middle section and many more.

While Chopin composes, Sands teaches his daughter Solange and fills the entire house with his playing in the evenings, the "lady of the house" (as he calls her) constantly invites other cultural figures from her large family of artists to the Berry. For example, the painter Eugène Delacroix. He was also very close to Chopin and wrote: "Il arrive de la fenêtre ouverte sur le jardin des bouffées de la musique de Chopin qui travaille de son côté: cela se mêle au chant du rossignol et à l'odeur des roses." (Scraps of music by Chopin, who is also at work, waft from the window open to the garden: they mingle with the song of the nightingale and the scent of roses. 7.6.1842)

This eternal bachelor teaches Maurice, Sands' talented son. A studio is also set up for him, he is allowed to sleep in his grandmother's beautiful room on the first floor and spends a lot of time together with Chopin. "Jʼai des tête-à-tête à perte de vue avec Chopin, que jʼaime beaucoup, et qui est un homme dʼune distinction rare; cʼest le plus vrai artiste que jʼaie rencontré." (I spend an infinite amount of time together with Chopin, whom I like very much. He is a man of rare nobility and the truest artist I have ever met. 22.6.1842)

 After the soundscape comes the theater

The generous George Sand, who liked to wear men's clothes and smoke cigars, was an avant-garde author for her time as far as her themes were concerned. Gender identity can be fluid (Gabrieldedicated to Grzymała), and her heroines are self-determined (Lélia). In her private life, the novelist is attracted to both women and men; she is bisexual.5

The singer and composer Pauline Viardot is a permanent guest in Nohant, sometimes with her family. Sand had maternal feelings for her, as well as for Chopin, contrary to popular opinion and as she herself always emphasized: "mon fils". Passion plays no role in this partnership of convenience over the years.6 "Ma fille" Viardot makes music and improvises with him - musical magic moments at the Berry.

Selected friends of Chopin come to visit, such as the poet Stefan Witwicki and Grzymała a second time. At times, rooms became scarce because of all the guests, servants and domestic staff. "Le domestique de Chopin [...] est un polonais grave et stupide [...] On pourra le mettre à côté de la sellerie." (Chopin's servant [...], a Pole, is serious and stupid. We could put him next to the tack room. 8.4.1843)

At the end of 1846, George Sand decided to stay in Nohant for the winter as well and - without informing Chopin - gave notice to leave her apartment in Paris. After a disagreement, she and Chopin parted ways for good, and things suddenly became very quiet in the magnificent country house. Sand tries to make music herself, but this is no substitute for the former soundscape. "Je suis forcée de me faire de la musique à moi-même, ce qui n'est pas gai du tout [...] cela donne me à moi, les seules jouissances musicales que je puisse avoir ici". (I'm forced to make music for myself, which is no fun at all [...] that gives me the only musical pleasures I can have here. 5.3.1849)

The engraver and author Alexandre Manceau, Sand's passionate love, who lived with her in Nohant for fifteen years from 1849,7 unfortunately does not bring music into the house. But the performing arts do: he directs the new, in-house small stage, sets up an additional puppet theater for Maurice, and the performances become events for the "Berrichons" from the surrounding area.

Moritz Weber is a pianist and music journalist and has been with SRF Kultur since 2012. His research, "Chopin's Men", attracted worldwide media attention in 2020.

 

Notes

1 Anne Muratori-Philip, La Maison de George Sand à Nohant, Paris: Éditions du patrimoine, Centre des monuments nationaux, 2012, p. 4

2 George Sand, Correspondance (Éd. Lubin), vol. IV, Paris: Classiques Garnier 1968 (reprint 2013), p. 5

3 George Sand, Histoire de ma vieTome XIII, Chapitre 7, Paris: [publisher not ascertainable], 1855, pp. 130f.

4 Martine Reid, George Sand, Paris: Gallimard, 2013, p. 158

5 Martine Reid, George Sand, Paris: Gallimard, 2013, p. 101f.

6 Armin Strohmeyer, George Sand - A biographyLeipzig: Reclam, 2004, p. 105

7 Armin Strohmeyer, George Sand - A biographyLeipzig: Reclam, 2004, pp. 165, 197

Table of contents

Focus

You can plan everything except the weather
Interview with Lena Fischer about the Gurtenfestival

A little poetry in the city
Pianos stray into Geneva's public spaces in early summer

Summer freshness with George Sand
Chopin with the cultural elite of the 19th century as guests in Nohant
Link to the original German text by Moritz Weber

Hits for the swimming trunks
Hit songs that only succeed when heat, alcohol and libido trump good taste

(italics = summary in German of the original French article)

Critiques

Reviews of recordings, books, sheet music

Echo

On theWay-with handover of baton
The Munich Biennale for New Music Theater with two Swiss co-productions

Cardew's "TheGreat Learning" in Basel
300 performers create a walk-in concert

Résidence Voix 2024
Golfam Khayam et Barbara Hannigan au Festival d'Aix-en-Provence

Base

Articles and news from the music associations

Swiss Federal Orchestra Association (EOV) / Société Fédérale des Orchestres (SFO)

Konferenz Musikhochschulen Schweiz (KMHS) / Conférence des Hautes Ecoles de Musique Suisse (CHEMS)

Kalaidos University of Music / Kalaidos Haute École de Musique

Swiss Music Council (SMR) / Conseil Suisse de la Musique (CSM)

CHorama

Swiss Society for Music Medicine (SMM) / Association suisse de Médecine de la Musique (SMM)

Swiss Musicological Society (SMG) / Société Suisse de Musicologie (SSM)

Swiss Musicians' Association (SMV) / Union Suisse des Artistes Musiciens (USDAM)

Schweizerischer Musikpädagogischer Verband (SMPV) / Société Suisse de Pédagogie Musicale (SSPM)

SONART - Musicians Switzerland

Swiss Youth Music Competition Foundation (SJMW)

Arosa Culture

SUISA - Cooperative Society of Authors and Publishers of Music

Swiss Association of Music Schools (VMS) / Association Suisse des Écoles de Musique (ASEM)

 

Desired destination
Puzzle by Michael Kube

________________________________________

Order issue for CHF 8.- (+ CHF 2.- shipping costs)

 

It was Marianne Schuppe's great wish, The Great Learning by the English avant-gardist Cornelius Cardew before leaving the Basel section of the International Society for New Music. This meant an unusual amount of work and about a year and a half of preparation. The piece from 1969, which lasts around seven hours, consists of seven paragraphs. They correspond to the Confucius text of the same name. In addition to the completely graphically notated Treatise (1967) as Cardew's magnum opus.

From avant-gardist to activist

Cornelius Cardew, born in 1936, studied cello, piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London in the mid-fifties (he later became a professor there) and electronic music at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. There he became a close collaborator of Karlheinz Stockhausen. He also worked with John Cage, among others. From 1965, as a member of the AMM ensemble, he cultivated radical improvisation techniques inspired by Cage's aleatoric principle.

Around 1969 The Great Learning he founded his legendary Scratch Orchestra, which included both professional and amateur musicians as well as visual artists and actors. The orchestra later broke up due to his increasing political radicalization, as he wanted to put it at the service of his subversive ideas. Within a few years, he developed from a musical avant-gardist to a radical Maoist. In his book Stockhausen serves imperialism he settled accounts with his former teachers and even distanced himself from his own major works Treatise and The Great Learningwhich were created under their influence. Cardew died at the age of 44 in a traffic accident.

Professionals and amateurs

Confucian philosophy is based on the claim of the moral perfection of society, to which the individual must subordinate himself and fulfill his assigned tasks. The score of The Great Learning is based on Ezra Pound's translation of the seven paragraphs and, as an "action score", manages with relatively few notes. Cardew organizes the short texts, inserts graphics and gives precise performance instructions in which the respective ensemble leadership plays a decisive role. The author makes a clear distinction between professionals and "untrained voices". The performance on May 26 at St. Paul's Church also featured a mixed cast of artists. Choirs and ensembles from the Basel region were heard under their own direction.

Individual and collective

Anyone expecting only aching and screaming dissonances was in for a surprise. A kind of education project atmosphere was created and the audience was treated to a contemplative setting and repetitive feel-good harmonies for long stretches. Nine individual formations came together, each performing one of the seven sections of different lengths. Only in section 5 were three groups involved. In addition to the professional vocal ensemble Larynx, sounding down from the galleries, the Impronext ensemble from the Basel music school and classes 2A and 2B from the Kirschgarten grammar school had the opportunity to sing, play and create sounds on the playing area around the church.

While the complex organization of this section alone takes up 12 of the 23 pages of the score, the purely vocal section 7, which lasts much longer, manages with half a page. Only the text parts and the entries of the performers are notated here. The "instructions for use" can be found in the small print. Clear tasks are assigned to the individuals: When and at what pitch they are to enter, how long they are to sing in order to achieve a homogeneous overall sound. "If the root be in confusion, nothing will be well governed" was the core message. It was presented by pourChœur in a concentrated and non-stop manner for 75 minutes. The spatial sound of the church was incorporated in an impressive way.

The choir from Gymnasium Münchenstein provided an effective opening in section 1 with whistle and organ sounds as well as chants. This was followed by a disciplined performance by the Contrapunkt Choir from Muttenz (section 2). In paragraph 3, the Ensemble Liberté, all in white and moving in clear forms, proclaimed the connection between strong roots and healthy branches. Paragraph 6 is the only one without any voices at all. Christoph Schiller and his instrumentalists dabbed subtle soundscapes into the space. And finally, in paragraph 4, the Basler Beizenchor not only sang, but also played rhythm instruments.

The Confucian principle of the interaction between the individual and the collective is skillfully reflected in Cardew's score. For him, too, the freedom of the individual is always at the service of the greater whole.

Radio SRF 2 Kultur reports on this production on June 26, 2024 from 8 p.m. in the broadcasts Music of our time and New music in concert. 

Since 2016, the curators Daniel Ott and Manos Tsangaris the Munich Biennale through an explicitly articulated openness. Until this year's last edition, both focused on the world's largest premiere festival for music theater, founded by Hans Werner Henze in 1988, as a "forum for young talent". They shortened the duration of the cycles, but increased the number of premieres and the density of performances. This meant regular surprises in terms of locations, subjects and a constantly changing emphasis on artistic means. However, only a few of the co-productions created with theaters and local cultural institutions were staged a second time. The Biennale's yield of experiments without specific objectives, on the other hand, proved to be gigantic and still ensures the festival's international standing. Katrin Beck and Manuela Kerer will be the new management team for the Biennale years from 2026.

When asked about the most successful projects for her personally, Tsangaris named Bernhard Ganders Songs of expulsion and never return based on a libretto by the Ukrainian Serhij Zhadan (2022), Ott the monodrama A portrait of the artist as a dead man by Franco Bridarolli and Davide Carnevali (2018). Both therefore favored work results with political themes. The Biennale mottos therefore always referred to the expanse of present-day topographies and visions of the future: After OmU - Original with subtitles (2016), Privatsache / Private Matter (2018), Point of NEW Return (2020/21) and Good Friends (2022) was held from May 31 to June 10 with On the Way mental, virtual, historical and physical mobility.

The Swiss Ott, founder of the Rümlingen festivalsand Tsangaris, the new president of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, are therefore concluding their era not with a retrospective, but with a utopia. The anthology is resplendent in cold white Snow of tomorrow with "Statements on the music theater of the future". Eloain Lovis Hübner's accumulation of "isms" and "iv"-es is particularly succinct and provides an incommensurable template, which this farewell biennial was obviously happy to take up.

Pessimism, the search for happiness and vegetable soup

Two contributions with Swiss participation showed exemplary poles of contemporary music theater among eleven productions. The triad The new lines belonged Turn Turtle Turn of the Finnish music theater ensemble Oblivia with the Swiss Ensemble ö! under the musical direction of Armando Merino at the Munich City Library. The composition by Chinese composer Yiran Zhao evoked pessimistic associations. To the sonorous groaning from loudspeakers that Turn Turtle Turn InstallationOblivia moved into the center hall with the ö! ensemble for the pieces "Deep Time", "Dark Time" and "And All the Other Times". Yiran Zhao combines Mahlerian melodicism with a brittleness reminiscent of Sondheim. In the end, there is hope for new meaningfulness for human movements through space and time. The audience celebrated this empathy project with warmth.

How's it going, how are things by Andreas Eduardo Frank and Patrick Frank, a co-production with Theater Basel, definitely breaks away from the separation between performance and audience. In fact, for four hours, the audience in the Fat Cat, the former cultural center at the Gasteig, became the main protagonists of a performance somewhere between a cruise and a petting zoo. Judging by the number of visitors, this "happening" has a great future as an event model with a search for happiness and a lot of temporary well-being.

Games such as Mikado and Mensch-ärgere-dich-nicht were laid out on tables. You could browse through books on how to be happy. Lounging bags and mattresses invited you to linger and almost all of the performers - Angela Braun, Emily Dilewski, Kyu Choi, Lukas Tauber, Manfred Wildgruber and the via-nova choir Munich - were also part of the service team. Music was provided from time to time by the (chamber)Ensemble Lemniscate under the baton of conductor Daniel Moreira. Melodic verses and fragments rang out - sometimes instrumental, sometimes vocal, sometimes both with soloists wandering around the room. Emcee and star performer Malte Scholz played a worm in flesh-colored latex overalls and a floppy pointed hat. Frank & Frank don't specify whether they actually consider the abundant offers of fun to be a real option for happiness. The subtle jabs at their own event remain barely perceptible in the atmospheric feel-good fog.

Hearty vegetable soup, plenty of cheese and bread at a long table with beer benches are included in the admission price. The guests actually get talking to each other. The end was announced, otherwise you wouldn't have noticed it. With unusual means How's it going, how are things a manifesto against sensory overload and exaggerated expectations. In November 2024, the overlong happening will move to Theater Basel. The last day of the Biennale was once again a balance sheet with all the intermediate stages of complaisance, boredom, exaggerated self-reference and disturbance.

In its press release dated June 6, the FemaleClassics network writes that the music sector, which receives the highest amounts of state subsidies year after year, is ignoring the equality enshrined in the Federal Constitution. It will send a letter to the Federal Parliament on June 14 with the demand "that state funding be linked to compliance with equality enshrined in law".

On June 14 in Zurich, the network will perform the protest song The March of the Women by the English composer and women's rights activist Ethel Smyth (1858-1944).

Further information: https://www.femaleclassics.com/news

 

 

Music is not elitist, it is not rich, it is not academic, it is not old, it is not young. The Bernese Oberland Classical Music Festival Network (KFBO) is convinced that music is free and for everyone. But how do you reach "everyone"? To find out, KFBO is looking for ideas for new and innovative projects in the field of music education. Projects that should ensure a greater diversity of audiences at the classical music festivals in the Bernese Oberland.

This is because the audiences of many classical concerts - not only in the Bernese Oberland - often belong to a certain social class: the not-so-young, classically educated middle classes. Other social groups such as people with different language or educational backgrounds, young people, specific professional groups or people with disabilities are often underrepresented at classical concerts or do not feel welcome. There would also be more room in the audience for international tourists in the Oberland.

We are therefore looking for projects that break down inhibitions. People who have never attended a classical music festival should be encouraged and motivated to give classical music a chance. The key question here is: what can be done to invite previously excluded groups to participate in culture and, if necessary, connect them with a regular audience?

Until am September 15, 2024 project ideas can be submitted. The project description should be one to a maximum of two A4 pages including the budget. The winning project is awarded prize money of 2000 francs and can ideally be realized at all 14 festivals. Delivery address: Office of the KFBO, Christine Lüthi, info@klassikfestivals-berneroberland.ch

Link to the festivals

 

 What kind of T-shirt are you wearing?
Jörg SchellerKvelertak, Black 'n' Roll, Norwegian black metal band that combines black metal with rock influences and thus has something rather life-affirming and enthusiastic about it. Entombed were the pioneers of Black 'n' Roll.

Wonderful, while we're on the subject of definitions. What is power metal?
More like heroic tenor, bold chords, pathos, Tolkien-reader milieu. More like the couch potato/insider corner (smiles).

Aren't they all?
Metal variants associated with core and punk tend to be a bit more street.

What is grindcore?
Rather activist, strongly associated with punk, very avant-garde in that it is about the dissolution of form. The form in metal is actually always very stable. Unlike in radically experimental genres, metal actually always maintains a certain form of stability. A safe machine. You have dissolution of boundaries, ecstasy and intensity, but always on a secure industrial basis.

Sludge metal?
That's where I personally slowly drop out, with these endlessly stretched hyper-blues variations. It's almost too much art for me. It becomes experimental and anti-pop. What I always liked about metal was that it's actually pop after all, even if the metalheads don't admit it, and at the same time it's pop against pop. I found that an interesting tension. Judas Priest. They were always totally affirmative with regard to the pop industry, marketing, image, branding, and at the same time they always had something transgressive about them.

Your book ("Metalmorphoses - The improbable transformations of heavy metal", Franz-Steiner-Verlag, 2020) I gather that you are a big Judas Priest fan. In retrospect, it seems amazing that it took so long to find out that the singer and band leader was gay.
It's a wonderful story with Rob Halford, the "Metal God". He even had the title trademarked! The leather god par excellence has been parading around in front of fans in a leather fetish gay costume for decades, for all to see. There were rumors, but there were rarely any problems. In the 90s, when he came out, it was easy. METAL IS STILL ABOUT MUSIC AND NOT JUST ABOUT IDENTITY.

Apocalypse - it's kind of a "glass half full, glass half empty" phenomenon. The end of the world. On the other hand, it's only really starting now, now we're in God's kingdom, the hardship is gone. How do you see that?
I'm actually quite a convinced apocalyptic, because you realize that if you don't have end-time pressure, you won't get anything done. It starts with a very banal deadline. The apocalypse is actually just one of those big deadlines. Nothing works without deadlines. An anecdote from the town I come from, a small Pietist town in the Bible Belt of Baden-Württemberg, where the Pietcong, the hard Pietists, live: this small town was founded in 1819 as an ideal Pietist town. They had somehow calculated that the apocalypse would begin in 1836. The town was chronically in debt - now, of course, you can't face the Messiah in debt. In other words, everything had to be right with their municipal finances by 1836. As a result of this esoteric, metaphysical event, they made a huge effort in the world and actually managed to get their finances in order in time. Unfortunately, the Messiah did not come, but the city was now functioning.

Great, and the city is still standing! But they must have fallen into a terrible emotional hole when the world didn't end after all.
I don't know how to deal with that either. But that's the nice thing, you can always say: God's ways are inscrutable - and that's that. Responsibility? The Lord just does what he wants. The apocalypse is delayed.

Setting the apocalypse as a deadline for a specific goal: could this also be interpreted as an attempt to gain a foothold in a world in which we somehow feel lost?
Yes, I think it's a form of resistance to reality. The apocalypse doesn't just mean the end of the world, it's the promise of a much better future. According to the Bible, the city of Jerusalem descends, a city of transparent gold. It's not a bad place to live. God himself will also move in. Everything will actually be pretty good - for those who are allowed to live there. And if you're living in a time when things aren't going so well, then you at least need a utopian pretense of something else to cling to. That may seem totally esoteric and irrational, but you can't do without it. I think that's what religion used to provide: an image that you can cling to. And there's nothing wrong with that at first, it was just an instrument of power to keep people down in earthly life. While the guys in the castles had a good time.

Which leads us straight to the classic situation of every teenager. As a teenager, you're always insecure. So a rock god like the singer of Judas Priest comes in handy.
Yes, yes. And above all, metal gives you a kind of stability aesthetically alone. It's a transgressive form of pop music, one that breaks with previous conventions, but at the same time still promises stability. And that's different to grindcore, where all structures are completely destroyed, or sludge or drone, where there's actually no form left. Metal still offers orientation and stability, and at the same time it is a rebellion. That can be interpreted as a lazy compromise, but maybe I've been living in Switzerland too long - I don't actually think there's anything wrong with a compromise.

Can you remember the moment when you heard a metal record for the first time?
I bought my first one as a teenager in Gerlingen in a shopping center when the family did their weekly shopping. There were still CDs to buy. We walked past all the colorful covers - and there was a black one in the middle. It was one of those five million Motörhead compilations, From the Vaults. Somehow, I don't know why, I really wanted to have it. I was totally blown away by it when I got home. The priest's son had a record player and metal records, Guns 'N' Roses, Appetite for Destruction and Helloween, Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1 and Part 2, I think, and I was completely blown away. You could tell that something new was about to begin. You'll never get away from the poison that was dripped into your ear.

A pastor's son, that was of course also a sign - Lemmy (note: Motörhead leader) was that too ...
Yes, a sign, yes, it was wanted from the very top.

At 14, you had the right outfit and started your first metal band. What was it like with the pietists around you, did they cut you off from then on?
We cut each other off. We lived in two worlds next to each other. That's why there weren't actually that many encounters.

Was there no techno faction?
Yes, there were. We had them at school. They were the ones who were always hanging around the bank in the morning with sleepy eyes. They were really into partying. Then there were the punks, I didn't like them back then, they were so broadcast-conscious, always knew what was right and wrong, always knew where the enemy was. Knew what to do. There was already the Middle East issue back then, just like today, solidarity with the Palestinians and so on. Not much has changed. They reminded me more of the religious, the dogmatists. The metalheads, on the other hand, were more introverted. Not so much the loud, forward-pushing, super self-confident ones, but as a metalhead you really listened to music, spent hours memorizing lyrics, tried to understand the lyrics where the lyrics weren't shown, tried to understand what this and that sub-genre was all about - all activities that you did alone, at home for yourself. Or you struggled with the technical challenges in the rehearsal room.

There have been - and still are - efforts to create a fusion of metal and classical music. Deep Purple, for example, tried to do that. Various Wagnerian works, where I always had the feeling that they were also motivated by a kind of feeling of inferiority. They wanted to be taken seriously by the "serious" musicians, to show that they could be just as virtuosic as concert violinists. Did that ever attract you?
That's an interesting question, because we had a falling out in the band after a year or a year and a half. I wanted to stay primitive, I just wanted to shout around, I didn't want to do any vocal training and I didn't want to improve. The others went more down the classic rock virtuosity route, took excessive lessons, developed themselves tremendously and were then technically very strong. The band actually broke up as a result. In this respect, I can answer the question with a no. I didn't feel the temptation. We then had another similar story with a Krautrock band called longjumpmin, we called it "upscale middle-class experimental rock with a strong technoid edge" and had a super-anarchic phase at the beginning. After a few years, there were ambitions within the band to become more technical, more virtuosic, but it didn't work out so well, it became a bit more boring. But I also practise, I play bass, mainly. And to play metal, you need a certain level of expertise to generate the speed and the heaviness.

In the book, you describe heavy metal as a free space in which the delights of adolescent fascination need not be suppressed. Metal gave the daydreams of those times, which were never completely overcome, a resonating space. Do you still experience it that way now?
Yes, yes. I think it's actually quite important that you don't bury certain experiences or feelings you had during puberty at some point. Because those are the ghosts that will haunt you later. In metal, you can keep the dreams, energies and utopias from this time of awakening alive somewhere. And that's probably what makes metal a bit embarrassing. Where people say: For God's sake, there's a 50-year-old in a leather suit on stage singing about some mythical dragon. But I think this embarrassment also has something innocent about it. Something that once flashed you as a 12-, 13-year-old. And that's what Lemmy once said: he plays what he played because it affected him so much as a teenager, triggered such a feeling that he wanted to keep it. He doesn't want to get away from it.

In other words, total freedom from the compulsion to be cool. On the other hand, you have a quasi-sectarian adherence to certain rules, especially in these different metal genres. A paradox?
That bites. But I always compare it to Switzerland. There's a confederation called Heavy Metal, but in this confederation there are federal states, some of which couldn't be more different. That clashes, of course. And they all have their own tax laws, health insurance costs different amounts everywhere, it actually clashes all the time, and yet at the same time you somehow belong together. You realize that when you read a metal magazine - Rock Hard, Metal Hammer -Everything is brought together. Grindcore, power metal, death metal, black metal, everything side by side. The media alone creates a sense of togetherness. In this respect, it perhaps reflects a liberal-pluralistic-democratic spirit, where people fight because there really are differences, but ultimately it's not entirely sectarian.

People have already killed themselves, haven't they?
Haha, yes, but then rather rarely. At least it's not part of the daily routine.

Apparently, in Norway at the time (note: the Norwegian death metal scene burned down churches, which had to be guarded around the clock; there were also ideologically motivated murders among the musicians), it was all about defending a certain understanding of freedom. In the eyes of this scene, organized religion and its churches stood for the opposite of freedom. Did I understand that correctly?
And they became religious themselves. Because they basically did nothing different from the early Christians who destroyed the temples of the pagans. I think this furor of the Scandinavian extreme metallers is actually atypical of metal. Because they became really activist. They really wanted the church out of the country. Classic heavy metal tends to operate in a symbolic space. Metallica, Megadeth or Judas Priest, Slayer, there's no politically active movement associated with them. It was different with the black metallers. People who are convinced that they have found what is good, true and right often tend towards violence. Because you want to enforce it when you have the holy grail in your hands, so to speak.

There is the theory that the apocalyptic provides stability in a society that is almost too well off. You also write that from Mexico to Moscow and South America, heavy metal, folk metal, medieval metal and all these types that have the apocalyptic in them are on the rise. Is the world losing itself in the swamp of prosperity?
You would have to have prophetic skills. What this new, widespread distribution perhaps indicates: We are living in a time of upheaval, everything is open at the moment, we don't really know in which direction it will tip. Whether everything will become more authoritarian, whether democracy will return, how the climate will develop. There are a lot of variables at play, there are a lot of risks at the moment. Metal is a music that can express this. Where all these issues, even dark ones, have always been dealt with very openly. Maybe that's why heavy metal is growing globally, because it's simply a medium for the apocalyptic, which is currently relevant again. I found that very interesting during the coronavirus pandemic. People often said: We never expected this. I say: You just haven't heard enough metal! There's always talk of pandemics, epidemics, crises, death, corruption, rot. If anyone was prepared, it was the metalheads. In this respect, perhaps the spread of metal is an aesthetic resistance training for these hardships of life that are now imminent, and an attunement to the apocalypse in the sense of a downfall and a new beginning.

The whole aesthetic - on the one hand the black album by Motörhead and Spinal Tap, let's not forget, and on the other hand these post-Rodin-post-medieval epic-biblical-snake-fighting swordsmen - you could say it's like fantasy literature. But from the point of view you just described, it could also be seen as an analysis of the present on a symbolic level.
Basically the same as it was with the Bible. The last book of the New Testament, the Revelation of John, is actually pure fantasy literature. With spectacle, horror, everything you could wish for. But of course there are also symbols and metaphors for the present day. Metal is very similar. You're perhaps not describing the situation as directly as in hip-hop, where it's more about: Hey, this is happening on the street, this is what's going on in the neighborhood. Metal wraps the present in apocalyptic metaphors. Maybe that's why it also seems like - how should we put it? - like religion. Why has the Revelation of John spread so globally? These are simply images that work well in Africa, Asia, Europe, everywhere. Images that trigger strong emotions. And since metal also operates with such images, it has also become a trans-national genre. I think these are ciphers for the present. You see the present through the ciphers of the mythological, the fantastic. And so metal is actually already pretty well prepared for times of censorship. With censorship, you can't express yourself directly, you always have to take detours, conceal the meaning of what you're saying by means of certain codes and symbols. Metal has been doing this for a very long time.

Where does the often self-parodic vocabulary, the names, the album titles come from? Great, the creative energy that flows into these bizarre word and name creations!
That's the funny thing about metal. On the one hand, it's often meant very seriously, the grand gesture, the monumental. On the other hand, you can often sense a form of self-irony. You can't parody a name like Megadeth - even without the "a"! Or Metal Church. The self-irony shows that we already know what we're doing, so over the top and exaggerated that it becomes grotesque. The aesthetic is taken to its limits, where it subverts itself. That happens in metal. But there's also stupid metal, where people do it with holy seriousness. Metal is actually always too much. There are also counter-movements. Metallica were a counter-movement to hair metal, they wore jeans, T-shirts, sneakers and leather jackets. They wanted to get away from the baroque gestures. Metal is probably just so pluralistic that, like in the church, there are all the different denominations wrestling and arguing with each other. Sometimes it goes into the parodistic, embarrassing, sometimes into the purist, protestant.

Are there any metal bands that are influenced by John Cage?
There are a few cover versions of 4'33'' of metal bands on YouTube. They just stand there in a metal look. Other than that, I can't think of anything. Maybe in the Mr. Bungle corner, they at least have knowledge of Fluxus and stuff.

In another book (Bill Peel, "Tonight it's a World We Bury - Black Metal, Red Politics, Repeater Books, 2023) shows how all these sub-styles of metal are extremely important for the socialization of teenagers. And at the same time, how bands that become so important to this socialization that they enjoy success beyond the boundaries of the genre lose their credibility in the process. On the one hand, it takes hard work to be accepted by a genre group as belonging to it. On the other hand, every such grouping needs young blood in order not to fossilize. Another paradox...
Yes, yes. That brings us back to a bit of anarchism. I've always been interested in bands that try to keep their own economic reins in their hands and "practice what you preach". Not like Rage Against the Machine, who somehow have a communist program in their lyrics and then sign to a major label. I always liked people like Henry Rollins, who are on the road with their own record company, with their own publishing house. That's more in line with the anarchist DIY ideal.

It was similar in punk. Someone who was successful was automatically considered suspicious. I assume Metallica, for example, also grew up against this background. It must be a strange feeling to suddenly be traveling the world as a super-rich giant!
That, in turn, is a very symbolic situation for today's society. It's often the business punk that makes it to the top, not so much the well-behaved ones who conform to the laws of the group, but rather the somewhat offbeat, more original, but not quite so radical ones. Metallica fit in perfectly. Metal-radicalized, but at the same time smart business people and in this respect "the best of both worlds". Transgression - faster, harder - and at the same time very business-minded. It's an old game in metal: someone makes it to the top, and immediately there are accusations of sell-outs. Just like in hip-hop.

This is also a kind of apocalypse.
The hellish fall of the damned! I can understand why people are critical of Metallica. It's a huge business with incredible management all around, jumping on every trend and selling all kinds of products. At the same time, this kind of thing brings metal to the furthest corners of the world, at least brings people into contact with it. Then they might also come into contact with more extreme sub-genres and develop further.

The incredible variety of sub-genres is evidence of a constantly renewing environment. The scene is ultimately very open.
That is often overlooked in metal. You have this image, which comes strongly from the media, of a closed brotherhood. That metal is conservative, that nothing changes. That's simply empirically wrong. All these sub-genres are evidence of the fact that people are constantly setting themselves apart and creating something new. As soon as death metal has established itself, melodic death metal comes along and says: We want to put a different emphasis here. As soon as this is accepted, another variant is established that criticizes it.

What I also found exciting in your book is the comparison between blues and metal. "Not genres for winners".
In terms of music history, they say that metal is breaking away from the blues. That's true, musically. The blues form is being abandoned. The form becomes open, the music becomes riff-based, these classic blues patterns are more or less history. But at the same time, I think metal is succeeding the blues in sociological terms, so to speak. Blues is aimed at those who are perhaps not doing so well. It's the same in heavy metal. It's not the happy-go-lucky pop type, let's celebrate and dance, but the apocalypse is always in the mind. When you celebrate in metal, you do so in the knowledge that it could be over, that the next plague is coming soon, that the next war is imminent. Not: Let's forget everything.

Or you meet the devil at the crossroads.
Exactly. Just like in the blues. The devil is always somewhere around the corner. That's why metal can be compared to the medieval memento mori. He warns, keeps the awareness alive that there is death, illness, plagues, lamentations, suffering on earth. And that this cannot simply be suppressed and repressed. Blues had a similar function. At least before it became a thoroughly academized and normalized genre.

Why does heavy metal have to be so loud? Is the apocalypse loud?
Have you heard of the new book by Hartmut Rosa? This is the sociologist who coined the resonance theory. He's a sociologist, more religiously minded and explains in another book why democracy needs religion. And he is a metal fan. He argues that the volume creates a different resonance experience and has a more physical dimension. I can also listen to music at a low volume, but then I have more of a cognitive experience. This cult of volume in metal is not just a cult, it's about the music affecting the whole body and making it vibrate. I actually find that very plausible.

But then the ears break.
Then you just listen with the rest of your body. On the one hand, metal is very cognitive music with lots of complex patterns, solos, everything is fully composed. On the other hand, it's very physical. The "best of both worlds", perhaps.

Back then we had a small rehearsal room with the band, and I stood next to the bass player's amp, always getting the sound all over my ears, and that's still the worse ear today. But I don't have tinnitus.

So Malmzeit is the instinct for self-preservation that has emerged? (Note; Malm time is Scheller's duo that has been around for over twenty years and delivers heavy metal to the house like pizza; the gentlemen are dressed in suits, play sitting down and only drink tea).
Exactly. The bourgeois need for physical safety. But if the customer wants it really loud, we deliver that too. We have our earplugs with us, so we're relatively safe in that sense.

How does that go down with the "real" heavy metal people, such an ironic questioning?
Mixed! Depending on how ironic you are. There are people who take Manowar seriously. And people who take Manowar seriously hate Malmzeit. Naturally. And metal lovers who can recognize irony or the absurd in Manowar, who perhaps have a critical and reflective relationship to metal in general, like us a lot. Because we're not making fun of metal. We thought about it at the time: How can we do it differently, not go into these cliché poses. At some point I couldn't do that anymore: stand on stage and do this (guitar rero pose), always the same poses, leg on the speaker, screaming. That makes you feel silly after a while. So we thought it was a much more radical gesture to sit down, wear suits, sing about the weather and drink tea. That can also be a provocation. It really provokes some people. There's a picture from one of our concerts where a number of listeners are demonstratively sitting with their backs to the stage. But they were still young and very identitarian.

The concept wouldn't work if you weren't so good at playing the guitar, would it?
It could be. You then also show a little that you could if you wanted to...

That's also a point - whatever you do in metal, the most important thing is that it's worked out and felt organically.
That's right. In metal, it is appreciated that you get to grips with the material in depth. Metalworkers appreciate knowledge of materials. People like to talk shop. You don't say: I heard this one song by this one band and I thought it was really good. You have to know from which year, which album, which line-up. If a few guys put on a metal costume and buy a few riffs, it's not taken seriously in the scene. You can do that in retort pop.

You noticed somewhere that women respond less to apocalyptic metal. What do you attribute that to?
If you ask the question polemically, you could ask: Does metal have a problem with women? Or do women have a problem with metal? Or do they both have a problem with each other? I think traditionally metal was a bit of a male alliance, kids who organized themselves in these band collectives as a conspiratorial community. And you tend to keep the others on the outside. And according to traditional gender roles, boys were more likely to be looked down upon if they went through a phase where they blew their horns, got a bit drunk, were a bit more aggressive. It was much more taboo for girls. You let the boys do metal for a few years and then they come to their senses, but with the girls you make sure they don't get into it in the first place. But that also makes it much more interesting for women, because metal is music that is not expected of them. You can break down gender stereotypes much more with metal as a woman or third gender or trans, queer, inter, whatever, precisely because it has such traditionally masculine connotations. Many female metalheads say that's exactly why they got into it.

There are many more today than there were ten or twenty years ago.
Yes, the development is going in an absolutely fantastic direction. What I always like is when diversity isn't orchestrated from above, when someone isn't watching over the equal representation of men and women, but when it develops organically. And in metal, more women are now joining bands, forming bands and are also prominent. Alissa White-Gluz from Arch Enemy, for example, is already a global icon. Something is happening. It takes time, of course, but slow processes like that are also more sustainable than if the Ministry of Culture came along and said that all metal bands must now have at least 50 percent women. That doesn't work. You can't design social groups. That makes me an anarchist again.

My big favorite isn't a metalhead, I don't even know what he prefers musically, but it's Spongebob Squarepants, the cartoon character. Spongebob says: You cannot change a person, but you can be the reason for a person to change. I find that very beautiful. Applied to women in metal: you need role models and people who are willing to feature women and write about them. Above all, you need women who actively do it themselves, who embody it.

I've always known quite a few women who were into metal. For comparison: even thirty years ago, there were far more women at a heavy metal concert than at a King Crimson concert.
Yes! I think they've always been there in metal too, they've always been on the road. But that's often not represented in the media or if it is, then it's just so clichéd, "oh, the power woman, oh, we've got another outstanding single woman, look here". Instead of people naturally looking at the music, looking at the performance, reporting on what they do. That's what Motörhead always did, by the way. I always found them absolutely likeable. They took Girlschool on tour with them, Lemmy did his duets with women. Their hearts were in the right place.

The clichés and excesses were made fun of several decades ago in "This is Spinal Tap". What do heavy metal fans think of this movie?
I don't think younger people know him that well anymore. But he's a cult figure among older people, of course. Which in turn testifies to the scene's capacity for irony. This constantly being broken by the size of your own gesture. That's a bit like the principle of metal. Death and the devil, heaven and hell, life and I don't know what all, these huge themes. And in the end it's also a ghost train, culture industry, spectacle - and simply pop. And I still really like that about metal. There's also something touching about it. Working through these big themes and in the end it's just a song with a skull on the cover.

If an interview got stuck in the 90s and 00s, all you had to do was serve up a quote from Spinal Tap and everything would run smoothly again.
My favorite scene is still the one where they get lost in the catacombs of the stadium. They run off, "rock'n'roll", run and run and when they arrive, the concert is over. Or the scene with the amplifier. These go up to eleven! Something like that never gets old.

What are you listening to now?
There are classics that I like to listen to during training, AC/DC, Guns N' Roses, Metallica. Classics that you know so well that you can forget that they're playing as a backdrop. Other than that, I haven't come across that much in the last few years that I've been blown away by. Probably a symptom of old age. I still think Chthonic from Taiwan are great. It's interesting how they discovered this actually Norwegian-identity metal and then reinterpreted it in their terms and for their background and experiences. "Aha, the Norwegians are standing up for their indigenous traditions, we should actually be doing the same here." The Norwegians have right-wing connotations, but Chthonic are left-wing. You can see how the terms and concepts shift depending on which world and region you come from. Then I still really like listening to Nashville Pussy, that's dirty pig rock, I still find it very enjoyable. Riverside, Polish, pink funky, but better than Pink Floyd. Then there's Necromorph, a German grindcore band, very solidly produced, stable, critical of capitalism, who bang very well. The dialect grindcore of Muggeseggl is really funny - they sing in Alemannic. You don't understand anything, but it's supposed to be Alemannic.

Almost Dadaisitic.
Yes, they also pose in peasant outfits in the vineyard. Then I always have Manowar relapses. It's so blatantly grotesque and embarrassing that it's awesome again. But then I often make excursions into classical music.

It's not that far away.
Exactly, it's often very close.

As a heavy metal fan, how did you end up with Straight Edge? It's much more of a punk story. (Note: A later form of hardcore punk that started in the USA, whose followers don't consume any alcohol or drugs, but instead focus on physical fitness).
Because I got into the metal scene quite early, at 13, I was confronted with this drinking very early on. And it just always disgusted me. I never liked it. As a teenager, you drink a few beers at a concert and I just didn't like the stuff. I didn't like the rituals and I especially didn't like the peer pressure that drugs and music were so directly linked. I felt under pressure. You can involve me in all sorts of things, you can work with me, you can persuade me, you can put forward arguments, and then I'm open to a lot of things. But I don't respond to pressure. And this implicit or explicit pressure, you have to drink now too, another shot after the beer, I couldn't handle that. Straight Edge was a very good way out. You could stay in this countercultural area, this rebellious area, and at the same time you didn't have to take part in the drug rituals. Even back then, I found the paradox of combining a bourgeois-ascetic-abstinent dimension with a rebellious underground dimension interesting: a totally appealing combination. And I've never distanced myself from it internally. I still stand behind it today. Too many crimes are facilitated by drugs. Soldiers are drugged in order to send them to war. Rape and sexualized violence often have to do with alcohol disinhibition. That's why I made that decision, but it had nothing to do with the music. I really like some things in Straight Edge, Strife, the album One Truth about. I love Fugazi dearly. Henry Rollins. The fascination in metal for me was clearly the music.

Is it possible that you've never experienced the apocalypse of a real hangover?
As a teenager, we experimented with getting drunk. But I quickly realized that it wasn't for me. The constructive energy of straight edge hardcore was more convincing to me. And a real apocalypse means the revelation of something new and better. A drunken stupor doesn't change anything at first. You just slowly crawl back to normal. On the other hand: a drunken stupor that makes you realize and decide to let go of the drunken stupor - that has at least minimal apocalyptic qualities.

It must have taken an insane amount of discipline to pull it off in this environment.
Yes, until today. I'm on the board of Metal Storm Concerts, and of course people drink around you. You're always the one who doesn't drink and the one who has to explain himself somehow. If you drink, you never have to explain yourself, that's part of it. When you're straight edge, you only realize how much of society is based on alcohol. On the other hand, I adore Lemmy, and he drank, and how! He was a heavy drinker. I don't believe in prohibition, you have to make the decision yourself. And that suits me just fine.

An apocalyptic last word?
The apocalypse does not actually mean doom, but revelation. That is the original meaning in the religious sense: that the last secrets will be revealed. You often overlook that when you come from those Hollywood movies with the end of the world. In this respect, Metal was a revelation for me. It really opened up a new world. To this day, I feel a certain gratitude towards this genre, even if it's a love-hate relationship, and there's a lot of embarrassing stuff in it, a lot of brashness, a lot of things that bother me. But I'm still grateful for the fact that it opened up a new world for me back then. I don't want to break this connection either. A small revelation.

 

Link to Jörg Scheller's playlist on Spotify

 

Table of contents

Focus

Heavy metal and the big deadline
An interview with musician and art historian Jörg Scheller
Link to the detailed interview 
Link to the playlist

The end of time in music set
Musical settings of Revelation over the centuries

Omnipresent apocalypse
On facets of a much-used term

The apocalypse as an outlet
Two Lausanne metalheads on the scene and their motivations

Listening or preventing musical decline
Is music in crisis?

 (italics = summary in German of the original French article)

Critiques

Reviews of recordings, books, sheet music

Echo

The new Jazzhaus in Zurich
The Zurich Jazz Orchestra has found a home

Radio Francesco
Lili Marleen (excerpts from O Lungo Drominterpreted by the Alban Berg Ensemble Vienna, can be heard in the program "Pavillon suisse" from April 30, 2024, at 1:56:55)

Des racines à la nature
La rythmique Jaques-Dalcroze poursuit son évolution

Chatting about ...
Johannes Rühl and Noémi Büchi: Future music that will be stored in the National Sound Archives for 100 years and only then be played

The classical music industry and its pressing issues
Classical:Next 2024

Mechanisms in the music business
Workshop in St. Gallen

New choir concept
Boys Choir Lucerne with "Bilder (k)einer Ausstellung" in April at Maihof Lucerne

Orpheus multimedia
Picture series and music collage

Peace concert
Parallel to the Ukraine conference on the Bürgenstock

The AHV Philharmonic
Retired professionals give charitable concerts

Base

Articles and news from the music associations

Swiss Federal Orchestra Association (EOV) / Société Fédérale des Orchestres (SFO)

Konferenz Musikhochschulen Schweiz (KMHS) / Conférence des Hautes Ecoles de Musique Suisse (CHEMS)

Kalaidos University of Music / Kalaidos Haute École de Musique

Swiss Music Council (SMR) / Conseil Suisse de la Musique (CSM)

CHorama

Swiss Society for Music Medicine (SMM) / Association suisse de Médecine de la Musique (SMM)

Swiss Musicological Society (SMG) / Société Suisse de Musicologie (SSM)

Swiss Musicians' Association (SMV) / Union Suisse des Artistes Musiciens (USDAM)

Schweizerischer Musikpädagogischer Verband (SMPV) / Société Suisse de Pédagogie Musicale (SSPM)

SONART - Musicians Switzerland

Swiss Youth Music Competition Foundation (SJMW)

Arosa Culture

SUISA - Cooperative Society of Authors and Publishers of Music

Swiss Association of Music Schools (VMS) / Association Suisse des Écoles de Musique (ASEM)

 

Attracted by the water
Riddle by Walter Labhart

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After a successful past in Rotterdam, the detour to Hanover was not particularly successful. In Berlin, the organizers hoped to find a suitable environment with the active support of Berlin's cultural policy. The eleventh edition of Classical:Next was successfully held in the old Colosseum cinema in Prenzlauer Berg and at Holzmarkt in Friedrichshain, complemented by a trade fair at which national cultural organizations, organizers and service providers presented themselves. A wide range of contemporary music was presented in 16 showcase concerts and 21 project pitches, from the wonderful Oorkaan ensemble from the Netherlands to immersive XR music theater and the "dancing" chamber orchestra Geneva Camerata.

The world's largest industry meeting for professionals in the diversified cultural field of "classical music" posed questions that were already relevant in the past in a new and more pronounced way: Who are the partners in our network? Who can share meaningful input on a European level? What can established institutions, universities, theaters or concert halls actually offer young ensembles and their audiences? The numerous young cultural leaders asked questions about the responsible use of digital (user) data, sustainable career planning, other models for competitions or inclusive personnel management, for example when filling new orchestra positions.

The future of the industry

Numerous contributions to the dense conference programme with more than 30 international sessions revolved around topics such as organizational change management, audience development, artificial intelligence and questions of best practices in general. The motto "The future of classical music" is understood as a work assignment, as the industry fortunately does not see itself called into question, be it ensembles, music centers or universities. However, many of the participants expressed caution with regard to the looming shifts in political conditions.

Out of the drawers

The previously expressed need to open up genres was voiced with considerable vehemence. For the Australian musician Xani Kolac and the head of the Nonclassical label Gabriel Prokofiev from London, genre fluidity is already a successful working reality - after years of "unlearning" the specialization still required at universities. The fragmentation of the audience is a fact that is countered in different ways: target group-specific communication (some get their opus number details, others a Tiktok snippet), community projects and still popular: the unusual concert venue. On the one hand, categorization is an obstacle to tapping into new audience segments (and who likes crossover?), on the other hand, it is still necessary to make oneself understood to sponsors. It is probably tacitly hoped that this discrepancy will diminish over time, as the new generation of audiences is changing concert traditions anyway.

Initiating ecological behavior from above

The issue of sustainability in the classical music business is gaining in urgency. Climate ambassador Lea Brückner organizes Green Monday concerts in the regular season program of the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, in which a concrete CO₂-reduction is planned and realized with the house and the audience. The Ludwigshafen Sustainable Impact Model is looking for ways to expand the impact of the annual classical music season and to meaningfully supplement the one-dimensional key figure of "annual capacity utilization". Such a change in attitude is only sustainable and convincing if institutions decide to act from the top - concert tours, where CO₂-emissions are not the main factor. Audience behavior can only be positively influenced if event organizers make a serious and demonstrable effort to reduce their ecological footprint.

Opening up against dwindling support

On the opening evening in the Pierre Boulez Hall, Berlin's Senator for Culture Joe Chialo had words of praise and encouragement - but overall, there were reports of declining support in numerous discussions. Nevertheless, the classical music industry with its various players should make cultural platforms available for discourse, open up the spaces of (urban) society and the performers should see themselves vehemently as creators of a "cultural experience" ecosystem.

Classical:Next Innovation Awards 2024 went to Extensión Usach (a music department belonging to the University of Santiago de Chile that offers numerous free concerts in disadvantaged neighborhoods), the US-based Gateways Music Festival and The Sound Voice Project from England, which deals with the stories of people with voice loss.

The absence of the Swiss music industry was conspicuous; one can only hope that ways (and means) will be found to fill this international platform with high-caliber ambassadors of the local scene again. The next Classical:Next will take place again in Berlin from May 12 to 15, 2025.

At the University of St. Gallen, an association of students called "Amplify" is working to ensure that music also has its place at the business and management school. It was approached by the Music Managers Forum (MMF) Switzerland, the "Swiss Association of Music Managers". Amplify readily accepted the suggestion to organize a workshop on career opportunities in the music industry. Right from the start, the workshop provided a highly interesting insight into the engine room of the industry. The fact that the workshop entitled "Music Business 360°" even fills a gap internationally was demonstrated not least by the fact that numerous interested parties from Germany also traveled to the event to benefit from the crash course and networking.

Start your career

With the help of talents at the beginning of their careers, the participants played through how self-marketing on social media, contacts with management, labels and finally concert organizations have to be organized. The real-life newcomers Qeller, Katy Delusion and Manic Pixxies served as models.

The first thing we learned was that a whole new market has emerged with regard to launching a career in the music business. Today, labels and agencies generally get involved when newcomers have built up a solid fan base with the help of online platforms such as Spotify, YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok and already have singles, EPs (extended plays) or entire albums including video material. This has opened up the market for start-ups that are actively involved in building a fan base on social media. Berlin-based Jukebird and London-based Playliveartist, which offer support in building a digital reach, were represented in St. Gallen.

Finding global niches

Statements by Andreas Ryser, CEO of the Swiss indie label Mouthwatering Records with acts such as Black Sea Dahu and Evelinn Trouble, made people prick up their ears. Ryser is also President of the Association of Independent Music Labels in Switzerland. The indies have their strengths in the niches that are of no interest to the big three - Sony, Warner and Universal - due to too much effort in markets that are too small. The very small and also linguistically fragmented market in Switzerland should be such a niche - geographically speaking. However, the internet, streaming and social media have completely redefined and paradoxically globalized the understanding of niches.

If you position yourself in a niche, you may have far too small a community in one country. But if you find the same niche in all countries worldwide, you have a very interesting market. As a result, those active in a niche no longer target a domestic audience, even in Switzerland, but try to operate globally from the outset. Furthermore, globalization, diversity and identity politics have fragmented the market to such an extent that one can say that the niche is the new mainstream: The niche is the new mainstream. Geographical and local identities hardly play a role in the global urban music scene anymore, as Ryser went on to explain.

Making money with "old" songs

The streaming services - Spotify, Apple, Amazon etc. - have also revolutionized the market in other respects. This was explained by Robin Kreimeyer, representing Sony Music GSA (where GSA stands for "Germany, Switzerland and Austria"). Whereas new releases used to generate sales in the initial phase, users are now also (and above all) listening to music from the past, which means that sales of a song can extend over years, even decades. The major labels therefore mainly cash in on the back-up catalog. The copyrights of a musician thus become an investment, comparable to a share that generates a dividend over years or decades. It is therefore not surprising that established top acts such as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Rod Stewart and others can now sell the rights to their songs for hundreds of millions in some cases.

Swiss players on the rise

The St. Gallen crash course ended with a public viewing of the European Song Contest. Nemo's victory underlined the impression in the workshop that Switzerland is on the verge of becoming a major player in the European creative industry or even a trendsetter in the sector.

The dynamic has already spread to all areas of production and management. Service providers such as the Aarau-based production company Solver, which has already organized extensive concert tours on four continents, or Zurich-based NoHook, which now has a say in the rap scene beyond national borders, are also likely to become better known in this country. The scene is becoming increasingly networked internationally. One of the guests in St. Gallen was the legendary English producer and manager Stephen Budd, whose warm-heartedness and empathy in coaching newcomers put the cliché of the cynical and materialistic music industry into perspective in an impressive way.

Innosuisse, the Swiss Agency for Innovation Promotion, supports companies in the growth process. Various coaches provide advice to "accelerate growth in Switzerland and gain a foothold in new markets abroad". (Link to the source). The program lasts 24 months.

Matchspace Music describes itself as an "up-and-coming Swiss edutech startup that makes music lessons accessible to everyone with its innovative platform." (Link to the source )

Since April, the Zurich Jazz Orchestra (ZJO), founded in 1995, has been at home at Heinrichstrasse 69 in Zurich, in the middle of the hip Kreis 5 district. The building, which is located in an inner courtyard and used to be a craftsman's workshop, appears inconspicuous at first glance. Only the solid metal doors and the easily overlooked lettering "Jazzhaus" indicate that it is not a place to live, but a place where music is played.

Bettina Uhlmann took over the management of the ZJO almost 24 years ago. "All I found back then was an empty music box, 16 red music stands and some debt," she remembers - and smiles. But she was fascinated by the task and did a lot to establish the ZJO over the years. "It also took a bit of luck. For example, the relocation of the Moods jazz club to the Schiffbau. This gave our orchestra a suitable concert platform for the first time in 2000."

Few rehearsals, ambitious variety of styles

When Uhlmann joined the ZJO, it was still rehearsing in the parish hall of the Neumünster. "Although we were already giving concerts at that time, the ensemble was still rather informal," she explains. Subsequently, the director at the time, Stefan Schlegel, and she focused more on structures and insisted on punctuality. "That happened step by step and often through learning by doing," admits the Zurich native. And how does she perceive the ZJO today? "What impresses me is its artistic level. More than ever, the orchestra is characterized by its musical flexibility and wide stylistic range." Because the ZJO's resources are limited, this requires not only great commitment from everyone involved, but also a great deal of discipline. "We rehearse two to three times per project, for three to four hours each time. Which is not much." This makes it all the more important that everyone pulls together. "This is the only way we can and will be able to perform at a high level."

Daniel Schenker has been associated with the ZJO for even longer. The lecturer in trumpet and aural training at the Zurich University of the Arts was already familiar with the orchestra in its early days and conducted it several times on an interim basis. He is currently both a musician and co-director. He therefore acts as an intermediary between the 20 musicians and the American band leader Ed Partyka, who sees himself primarily as an arranger.

"One of my tasks is to relieve Bettina Uhlmann and help with the program design," explains Schenker. Thanks to his large network, he is also responsible for finding a replacement in no time if a musician is unable to perform. According to the co-director, the current line-up of the ZJO is ambitious, versatile and capable of playing a wide variety of styles - from Count Basie to Duke Ellington and Gil Evans to avant-garde compositions. "Our current program is called 'The Art of Arranging' and is specifically focused on bandleader Ed Partyka and guests such as trumpeter Thomas Gansch or vocalist and songwriter Ola Onabulé."

Joining forces for the Jazzhaus

Around seven years ago, the ZJO had to move out of its former studio community. As expected, the search for a new rehearsal room proved difficult. "We are a large ensemble, we need space, we are loud," says Bettina Uhlmann. A realization that spurred her on to find a permanent home for the orchestra. Knowing that finding a suitable and affordable property in Zurich would be full of hurdles. "But we were lucky enough to find a partner for our venture, the Stephan à Porta Foundation." Joining forces, they found a suitable property.

Although the project was, as Uhlmann calls it, a "huge gamble", it was agreed to take the risk. The foundation bought the building, but the Zurich Jazz Orchestra had to raise most of the CHF 1.6 million for the six-month renovation itself. They found what they were looking for from foundations and private individuals, and also received support from the city and the canton. However, the ensemble does not reside in the Jazzhaus for free, which is why the ZJO is currently looking for subtenants.

The heart of the new domicile is the 80 square meter rehearsal room, which is more than five meters high and has excellent acoustics. A separate entrance leads to the upper floor, where there is an office space and two smaller rehearsal rooms that exude the smell of newness and spruce wood. Bettina Uhlmann notes that the musicians still have to get used to the surroundings. At the same time, she is convinced that the new neighborhood will also lead to new cultural encounters.

 

www.zjo.ch

The format, created at the suggestion of artistic director Hugo Bollschweiler, fits seamlessly into the long academy tradition of the artists' house a. It is aimed at young string quartets at the beginning of their professional career and supports them in their professional development.

The first edition 2023

Last year, four selected young quartets from Sweden, Germany, Spain and Switzerland came to Boswil with a scholarship to spend a week immersed in the string quartet universe. The Spanish Cuarteto Quiroga, one of the outstanding string quartets of the younger generation, was brought to the academy as ensemble in residence and lecturer quartet.

The quartet introduced itself to the audience and participants with an inspiring kick-off concert at the beginning of the week. In addition to regular ensemble lessons - alternating between all the instructors -, joint classes and intensive rehearsals, the academy included additional modules such as score study, performance coaching, program dramaturgy, career planning and workshops on inner and outer communication with mental coach Evamaria Felder.

The learning process was the main focus of the week: together with the teachers, the students became part of a large learning family that exchanged ideas, encouraged and inspired each other. At the final public concert in the old church in Boswil, the four quartets presented the results of the academy week to an enthusiastic audience and, together with the Cuarteto Quiroga, performed a Bach chorale from all four corners of the darkened old church as a contemplative finale.

Register now for the Academy 2024

The second edition of "The Quartet Experience" will take place from November 17 to 24, 2024. This year, the Finnish quartet META4, founded in 2001, will be traveling to Künstlerhaus Boswil. Registration deadline: September 8, 2024

https://www.kuenstlerhausboswil.ch/kurse/quartet-experience/

 

Around 60 formations from Bulgaria, China, Germany, El Salvador, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan are registered according to the WJMF's list of participants.

The festival is looking for helpers to look after the orchestras, support the major events and much more. Volunteers at the WJMF can gain valuable experience in various areas, writes the WJMF. A total of 450 volunteers are needed.

Further information on the WJMF can be found at https://wjmf.ch/ and registration for cooperation https://wjmf.ch/helfer-gesucht/