Music and Emigration
Transcription
Music and Emigration
print_090715_SikMAG3_ENGLISCH_k1:Layout 1 Kopie 17.07.09 12:18 Seite 1 03/09 SIKORSKI MUSIC PUBLISHERS • WWW.SIKORSKI.DE • [email protected] magazine Music and Emigration ”Two times two is four in every country” Emigrant, Cosmopolitan or Victim of Persecution? Twelve Questions on the Subject of “Emigration” 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 1. What were the most important reasons why you left your homeland? 3. Are there direct references to the subject of emigration in your music? 4. Did the music help you come to terms with your personal fate? 5. What connections to your former homeland have you been able to maintain, emotionally and outwardly? 6. Is music at all capable of translating political, societal and personal problems into the language of music? 7. What means are best suited to do this? 8. Do you feel like a kind of ambassador for the country of your birth? 9. Of the composers who have remained in your homeland, with which ones do you maintain contact? 10. How was your emigration evaluated by these composers at the time of your emigration? 11. In which of your works, in your opinion, have you most vehemently expressed a longing for your original homeland? 12. What influences since your emigration most strongly influenced your further development? CONTENTS 2. What effect did emigration have on your work in general? 03 Music and Emigration - Feature 04 Franghiz Ali-Zadeh 06 Lera Auerbach 08 Xiaoyong Chen 10 Elena Firsova 12 Sofia Gubaidulina 13 Giya Kancheli 15 Milko Kelemen 16 Krzysztof Meyer 17 Slava Ulanovski 18 Lin Yang 20 Benjamin Yusupov IMPRESSUM Quartalsmagazin der SIKORSKI MUSIKVERLAGE erscheint mind. 4x im Jahr - kostenfrei VERLAG Internationale Musikverlage Hans Sikorski Briefanschrift: 20139 Hamburg, Paketanschrift: Johnsallee 23, 20148 Hamburg, Tel: 040 / 41 41 00-0, Telefax: 040 / 44 94 68, www.sikorski.de, [email protected] Fotonachweis: Cover: peepo, Yuri Arcurs, David Franklin, Jay Spoone / istock / Sofia Gubaidulina: Archiv Sikorski / Benjamin Yusupov: Archiv Sikorski / Lera Auerbach: Christian Steiner / Ali Sade: Archiv Sikorski / Gija Kantscheli: Priska Ketterer / Xiaoyong Chen: Archiv Sikorski / Jelena Firssowa: J. Morgener / Milko Kelemen: Nenad Turklj / Krzysztof Meyer: Medienzentrum Düsseldorf / Christine Langensiepen / Slava Ulanowski: Archiv Sikorski / Lin Yang: Xin Xien / Benjamin Yusupov: Archiv Sikorski Hinweis: Wo möglich haben wir die Inhaber aller Urheberrechte der Illustrationen ausfindig gemacht. Sollte dies im Einzelfall nicht ausreichend gelungen oder es zu Fehlern gekommen sein, bitten wir die Urheber, sich bei uns zu melden, damit wir berechtigten Forderungen umgehend nachkommen können. REDAKTION Helmut Peters ARTWORK zajaczek.com editorial FEATURE Music and Emigration Dear readers, The concept of “homeland” has been frequently discussed during recent times at many levels, including the political one. By no means should anything ideological be understood by this, but rather, at best, the perception “Two times two is four in every country”Emigrant, Cosmopolitan or Victim of Persecution? of the environment and one’s own roots. Many people have left their homeland, either by their own free will or by force. This step has especially left deep traces in the works of those composers who have emigrated. In our catalogues you will find composers from Russia, countries bordering the Orient such as Azerbaijan and Georgia, as well as China and many other countries. Many of them have exciting and moving stories to tell Emigration has many faces. Not only as regards the persons who have ever dared this step, but especially in view of the reasons which drove them to leave their homelands for the long term. here have always been migration movements throughout human history, either for reasons of existential threats or out of hope for better living conditions in another country. In the twentieth century the political relations shifted so radically that individuals, some living and suffering under dictatorships, were forced to escape the pressure. It was none other than Arnold Schönberg who, questioned about his emigration, made the following statements: T about their emigration. We have asked them about their feelings and experiences, and their responses have enabled “Nothing comes out of a person that is not already inside him. And two times two is four – in every country.“ us to make interesting connections to their music. Read about the individual fates, life stories and backgrounds of the creation of their works, many of which have meanwhile been frequently performed. Dagmar Sikorski Dr. Axel Sikorski Besides Germany during the period of National Socialism, other countries were especially strongly affected by the emigration of intellectuals, artists and scientists. After the 1917 October Revolution, numerous composers fled from Russia and that country’s music history was split into two currents – one taking part within the Soviet Union and the other outside of it. Stalin put a heavy damper on the euphoria of Russian art in the 1920s. At the same time, Russian music established itself abroad, represented by names such as Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky. Serge Prokofiev revealed himself to be a key figure in the period between 1930 and 1950; he returned to the Soviet Union and unified musical cultures of both the East and the West within himself. Alongside emigrants of earlier times, such as Serge Prokofiev, Arnold Schönberg and Igor Stravinsky, there are a large number of living composers represented in our catalogues who decided to leave their homelands for the widest variety of reasons. Some of them do not necessarily regard themselves as emigrants, and even categorically reject the term because they regard themselves as cosmopolitans, but also because they are convinced that they have left their country physically but not internally. We have asked these composers a series of questions pertaining to the subject of emigration. You can read theirs answers on the following pages and become acquainted with the given biographical context. At the end of each contribution, we have introduced those compositions which the composers themselves most closely associate with the subject of emigration. We have slightly shortened the composers’ answers for the printed edition of Sikorski Magazine. The complete text can be found on our website under www.sikorski.de. You can also register for our Newsletter there. SIKORSKI magazine|3 FRANGHIZ ALI-ZADEH Franghiz Ali-Zadeh was born in 1947 in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, and studied piano and composition at the Conservatory there. Already during her first year of study, she consciously bridged the East with the West by playing Paul Hindemith’s piano work “Ludus tonalis” at a piano examination. Ali-Zadeh enjoyed early success in the West as an interpreter of contemporary piano works. She laid the cornerstone for her international career in 1976 at the Pesaro Music Festival with her “Piano Sonata in Memory of Alban Berg.” After occupying herself intensively with the works of the Second Viennese School and serial techniques, she turned to the sounds of her homeland, following the example of the Mugam art cultivated in Islamic cultures for centuries. Ali-Zadeh achieved her international breakthrough in 1979 with the composition “Habil-sajahy” for violoncello and prepared piano. She was Secretary of the Azerbaijani Composers’ Guild from 1979, with brief interruptions. Although she was a respected artist and teacher in her own country, she decided to leave Azerbaijan in 1992, moving to Mersin, Turkey. Ali-Zadeh was strongly committed to the founding of the Conservatory in Mersin, where she later taught piano and composition. However, the exile situation and the feeling of being cut off in a variety of ways from cultural events burdened Ali-Zadeh more and more, which is why she returned to Baku, which was still plagued by crisis, in 1998. But it was precisely in this that she recognised a new calling, namely building up a new Azerbaijani musical scene, for which her presidency of the association “Women in Music” created a number of possibilities. Already a year later, she decided once again to leave Azerbaijan and moved to Berlin, where she received a year’s stipend form the German Academic Exchange Service. It was from here that her collaboration with the cellist Yo-Yo Ma began, who was to perform Ali-Zadeh’s works on several tours during the course of his “Silk Road Project.” Since then, the composer has lived primarily in Germany. 4|SIKORSKI magazine FRANGHIZ ALI-ZADEH replies: 01. There were several reasons for my emigration from Azerbaijan in June 1992. First of all, I had received an official commission to compose a ballet from the Turkish Ministry of Culture. On opera and ballet theatre was to be opened there in the city of Mersin, the fourth theatre of this kind after those in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. The then Minister of Culture, Fikri Saǧlar, from Mersin, wanted to open the theatre with a new work especially composed for this occasion. The choice fell upon me, and I went to Mersin – a beautiful city on the Mediterranean, together with my family. Secondly, the summer of 1992 was the climax of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Karabach Mountain. The economical situation after the breakdown of the Soviet Union was also very difficult. Thirdly, I sensed that my possibilities as a composer and pianist were not needed in Azerbaijan at that time. My works were performed in Germany, Switzerland and America, but in Baku they were hardly ever played or recorded. For this reason, the invitation to Turkey was a great stroke of luck for me, if only from the economical perspective. Moreover, I had absolutely no intention of emigrating from Azerbaijan or staying abroad for many years. It was a great joy for me to come to Berlin in 1999 by invitation of the Academy of the Arts and with the support of DAAD. For the first time in my life, I could devote my entire time to composition. For this reason, my “German period” was my most fruitful period, at least qualitatively. 02. My work as a composer became more intensive after leaving Baku. In 1992 in Turkey I composed the ballet “Boş beşik“ (The Empty Cradle). Then I received a commission from the USA from the Kronos Quartet and composed the piece “Muǧam Sayaǧi“ Since I was already 45 when I moved to Turkey (I had to begin at zero in the musical life of Mersin), it is most likely that the move had no influence on my style at all. 03. Concretely, I have hardly allowed the subject of emigration to flow into my music, because I have not felt like an emigrant. I have never broken off my onnections with Baku, because all my relatives have stayed there. I have often returned to my home city and even continued to teach my music theory students at the Conservatory there. 04. Of course composing has had an enormous influence on my life. And it was always the main reason for all of my decisions having to do with work, moving, the course of the day, my family life. This notwithstanding, I did not spend my most important younger years with creative activity, but with pedagogical work at the Conservatory because this was my only source of income. 05. Azerbaijan was never a “former homeland” for me. My musical language was formed precisely there, where the good old Soviet musical education on the one hand and the national traditional music on the other hand – the Mugam, the art of the Aschugen and the folksong – were connected with each other in an interesting way. Hindrances in attaining great successes were: a) the lack of time for composition (I had to be pedagogically active); b) the lack of outstanding soloists and ensembles in Azerbaijan who can interpret contemporary music. 06. When a composer emigrates in his/her younger years, the musical language is already formed in the new environment and experiences great changes. At present, for example, one can observe a great onrush of Asian composers in Germany and sometimes it is difficult to determine from which country this or that composer comes from. This is the case because a unified “Central European musical language” has crystallised. If a composer carries a strong “genetic” memory of his homeland within, as does Tan Dun for example, then the movement in geographical space does not principally change his musical language. The subjects of his pieces, the literary sources can change, but the melodic and rhythmic structures of his pieces do not depend on where the composer lives. 07. In my family there was a Mugam cult; my father played the tar passably well. At the music school we got to know and play a great deal of classical music, from Bach to Shostakovich. During my student years in the 1960s and early 1970s, which coincided with the political thaw under Khrushchev, more and more information seeped into the Soviet Union (through radio broadcasts, recordings, the Warsaw Autumn Festival). One could observe a regular dodecaphonic boom of Arnold Schönberg. Of course I had always been enthusiastic about this music; I performed it and composed the dodecaphonic Sonata No. 1 in memory of Alban Berg. 08. It is a great honour to represent one’s homeland to the listeners of other countries. Especially the fact that I was recognised as the Cultural Ambassador of Azerbaijan was the reason that I was invited to be Composer in Residence at the Lucerne Music Festival in 1999 and was conferred the title “Artist for Peace” by UNESCO in Paris in April 2008. 09. I have always maintained contact with my colleagues from the Azerbaijani Composers’ Guild – Tofik Kuliyev, Gassan Adigjosalsade, Ramis Sochrabov and others. They are all excellent musicians and are masters of their craft in a truly profes sional way. 10. The Chairman of the Azerbaijani Composers’ Guild, Tofik Kuliyev, treated me very warmly and even came to Mersin for the premiere of my ballet “Boş beşik“ Basically all friendly contacts to my colleagues have remained intact to the present day, despite my many moves. 11. The cycle “From Japanese Poetry” on poems of Isikava Takuboku contains passages which directly express my homesickness. 12. The greatest influence on my music has been Mugam – the traditional music of Azerbaijan which crystallised in the 15th century – a courtly music handed down orally. SIKORSKI magazine|5 FRANGHIZ ALI-ZADEH LERA AUERBACH ABOUT THE WORKS: MUGAM-SAJAHY (1993) for String Quartet (with percussion and synthesizer) The basis of numerous compositions of Franghiz Ali-Zadeh is the work with tonal spaces, the Makamat or Mugam, as these Arabic improvisation patterns are called in her homeland of Azerbaijan. This is an ancient Oriental musical tradition from the 16th century in which, originally, feeling and depicted which were considered taboo in Islam. All improvisations in it are always based on a given fundamental tone, as also found in Ali-Zadeh’s composition “Mugam-sajahy,” which, significantly, translates as “Mugam style.” Unlike traditional Mugam pieces, however, Ali-Zadeh composes every single note. It is her concern to combine the musical philosophy of her homeland with the European musical tradition. The piece “Mugam-sajahy” of 1993 begins soloistically as a static meditation, then builds up to a kind of explosion when the other instruments join in. The passion, at first hidden, breaks out in virtuoso cadenzas and a wild dance, the melody of which is determined by the violin and the rhythm by the percussion. After this expressive outburst, the cello is alone again at the end and intones a kind of sunset prayer. FROM JAPANESE POETRY (1990) Vocal Cycle for Soprano, Flute, Piano/Celesta/Vibraphone to Texts of Ishikawa Takuboku Sometimes sighing in lyrical legato, then softly pausing, accompanied by the tender bell sounds of the celesta, finally breaking out wildly in the high register – in short, hardly to be exceeded in terms of expressiveness, the soprano voice moves through Franghiz Ali-Zadeh’s vocal cycle “From Japanese Poetry.” The three-part work for soprano, flute, piano, celesta and vibraphone was written in 1990 and quotes three five-line poems by the Japanese poet Isikava Takuboku which are about homesickness: “My head is so strange! It thinks and thinks all the time, about that which nowadays remains a distant dream” – this is the nostalgic ending of the English translation. Bound together by flowing transitions, the music lends expression to the moods changes of the poetic lines which tell of silent worry, bitter desperation and resigned alienation from the world. Franghiz Ali-Zadeh dedicated her vocal cycle to the Tatar composer Sofia Gubaidulina. Both composers, who met in Baku, Moscow, Heidelberg and Hamburg, share the feeling of the loss of homeland. They have often talked about this together. During the course of the downfall of the Soviet Union, both emigrated to the West in order to be able to transport their musical messages freely and without censor from state institutions. “From Japanese Poetry” was composed immediately before the breakdown of the Soviet Union. 6|SIKORSKI magazine Lera Auerbach was born on 21 October 1973 in Tscheljabinsk (Ural) on the edge of Siberia. She began playing the piano early on and made her firstpublic appearance at the age of six. At the age of eight she played together with an orchestra for the first time. At the age of twelve she composed her first opera, which was immediately produced and presented in many parts of the Soviet Union. As the winner of several piano competitions, Lera Auerbach was invited to tour the USA in 1990. She spontaneously decided to stay in the USA, and is thus one of the last artists to leave the former Soviet Union. On 1 May 2002 she made her debut in Carnegie Hall, where she played her own Suite for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra, Op. 60 with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica. Lera Auerbach graduated from the New York Juilliard School in the subjects of piano and composition. At the same time, she studied comparative literature at Columbia University. In 2002 she took final concert examinations at the Music Academy in Hanover. LERA AUERBACH replies: 01. I left Russia at the age of 17. It was the summer of 1991, six months before the Soviet union collapsed. I was invited to travel to the USA with concerts as a pianist. While in New York, I spontaneously decided not to return to the Soviet Union. At that time I felt it was an opportunity which may not be there again. 02. As a young musician, living in New York, I had the opportunity to develop freely as an artist, to attend performances by the world’s best musicians, to visit great museums, to have the vast resources of the Juilliard School library, to study together with the most talented young performers. Being completely on my own at an early age, in unfamiliar surroundings, was essential to the development of my character. These experiences allowed me to grow as a person and as an artist, to experiment artistically without constraints, to discover who I am and, most importantly, learn to be free. 03. Direct? Probably not. Very few things can be direct references in music. But without this experience my works would be very different. 04. 05. Music is my personal fate. One of my most recent compositions, “A Russian Requiem” for large orchestra, mixed chorus, boys´ choir, As only a few emigrant artists from the former Soviet Union have been able to do, Auerbach rapidly became accustomed to the special conditions and circumstances of not only musical life in the West but the American scene in particular. She intensively looks for contact to interpreters and audience, provides information about her works and method of working in discussion, interviews and public appearances. In her multi-functional role at pianist, composer and poet, she has adapted many influences and processed them in very different ways in her works. Her spontaneous decision to use the visit to America in 1991 for emigration can be evaluated as a completely personal motive for emigration. The desire to widen her circle of contact and work without restrictions were the driving forces. Political pressure or repression in her homeland did not really drive Lera Auerbach to take this step. mezzo-soprano, bass and boy soprano, is a 90-minute work, which includes Russian Orthodox liturgical texts, prayers for the dead and prayers for the imprisoned, as well as secular Russian poetry. It includes texts from Pushkin, Derzhavin, Lermontov to Pasternak, Mandelshtam, Blok, Gippius, Akhmatova - to poets of our time, including Brodsky and Ratushinskaya, all sharing the common thread of repression under intolerant regimes during different times throughout Russian history. This work is a quintessentially Russian work. My intention was to capture the Russian spirit and to build a monument to Russia and its history. Also, my Second Symphony uses text by Marina Tsvetaeva and is very much a Russian work and rooted in its tradition. I am currently writing an opera based on an imaginary life of Russia’s most paradoxical writer, Nicolai Gogol. In addition I continuously write poetry and prose in the Russian language. ABOUT THE WORK: “RUSSIAN REQUIEM” for Large Orchestra, Bass, Mezzo Soprano, Boy Soprano, mixed Choir and Boys’ Choir Lera Auerbach’ s artistic activity is not limited to the area of music. In 1996, at the age of just 23, she was named “Poet of the Year” by the International Pushkin Society. Her love of Russian literature is reflected in her 06. work “Russian Requiem” in a special Music is capable of translating any emotion or concept. More importantly - it is capable of transcending it. Music is the most abstract form of art and not limited by words. This is its mysterious power and its beauty. way. Here she quotes the great masters of worldly poetry such as Alexander Pushkin, Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova. Thus Auerbach connects the generations and points out the eternal problem of repression 08. I don't view my work in such terms. Any creation is a private act and should remain so. However, the world outside of Russia certainly sees my compositions, poems and performances as an act of a cultural ambassador. After all, artists are capable of bridging cultural gaps more effectively than diplomats. Recently Yefim Bronfman asked me which country has been the best and worst for my music. The answer was rather simple. Germany has been the best, Russia has been the most indifferent. This is a source of sadness for me. and injustice in her country. Her “Requiem” tells of the suffering of the people under Stalin’s rule, which is why the composer decided to dedicate it to the victims of the communist regime of the former Soviet Union. Introduced by loud bell tolls, the orchestra begins in a dark timbre. With this timbre, Auerbach at times reminds the listener of the musical language of Shostakovich. Auerbach’s Requiem received its world premiere in 2007 in Bremen and was commissioned by the festival 09. None. The only Russian composer, and a well known one, whom I met at the Lockenhaus Festival, came to me after a concert and told me that I must (!) stop writing music for my own good. I politely thanked him for his advice. in that city, the Bremen Symphony Orchestra and the Semana de Musica Religiosa de Cuenca in Spain. All the bells of the city rang at the beginning of the world premiere. In addition, Russian bells were recorded. 11. So that the cruel part of Russian My collection of poems “Hannover Notebook”, my novel “The Mirror” and “A Russian Requiem“. history does not repeat itself, the 12. history and always Discovering the world. composer believes that the living must continue remind us of this commemorate the victims. SIKORSKI magazine|7 XIAOYONG CHEN The Chinese composer Xiaoyong Chen discovered Germany already during his student years. Saddled with two heavy suitcases and following a one-week trip by Siberian railway, the then 30-year-old came to Hamburg in 1985 in order to study with György Ligeti at the Academy of Music and Theatre. Chen’s musical origins, however, lie in this city of his birth, Beijing, where he had previously studied violin and composition between 1980 and 1985. In his youth Chen experienced the so-called “cultural revolution” in China at first hand. His parents were forced to work as farmers during the course of the re-education campaign. Before that, Chen’s father had been active as a theatre author and producer, which is how Chen came into contact with Western literature early on. Although the Chinese state only tolerated eight musical works with Western instruments, Chen was fascinated by these sounds, for his father possessed a record collection including Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Chen later played the violin and viola in the Beijing Orchestra, where he got to know more Western works. But it was only as a student at the Central Music Academy in Beijing that he found out about twelve-tone and serial music. Of fundamental importance for Chen was the encounter with the music of Ligeti, with which he also first became acquainted as a student. The gap between Ligeti’s “Atmosphères” and simple Chinese peasant music seemed unbridgeable to Chen. At that point he had no idea that he himself would become an important connection between Far Eastern musical tradition and Western contemporary music. Today Chen, who settled in Hamburg, belongs to a small established circle of Chinese composers and conductors who have found international recognition. He has worked with renowned orchestras such as the SWR and NDR Symphony Orchestras, the London Sinfonietta and the Silk Road Ensemble in New York. Chen’s compositions are orientated on the subtle melodic language and the fine pitch sense of Chinese language and music. In terms of form, as he vividly describes the procedure, he pursues the idea of a “spiral circulation.” What has been written observes itself and develops further out of itself, with the result that his works have an open and surprising effect. XIAOYONG CHEN replies: 01. In the early 1980s, China had just opened itself up to the world politically. The country had a great need for current information, innovative impulses, especially in intellectual areas. My plan was to stay in Europe for two or three years. 02. When one personally lives in a different culture for a longer period of time, real confrontations take place. These, then, have a strong influence on the person and change that person, creating a “new person.” The work is a reflection of my personality in musical form. Put simply, it is a mixture… and precisely put, it is an “unknown being,” a “new being.” 03. One can find traces everywhere in the music of my culture, of European culture and of other cultures. I have used titles such as “Fusion” four times and the title “Invisible Landscapes” has just as much to do with this subject. 8|SIKORSKI magazine 04. Yes, one finds traces of many differences in it and sees the developmental processes of a person and his thinking and statements. 05. My roots are deep in the earth of my homeland. My most recent European experiences grow from this. There are some factors that can be sensed, such as formal thinking, musical vocabulary, at times direct applications of the instrumental ensemble. None of this takes place intentionally, so that the music sounds “Chinese,” but is a natural statement in musical form. 06. If music could “deceive” people, then yes. In my opinion, it is of greater significance if music helps people to liberate themselves from the personal desires and disappointments of everyday life and to lift themselves up to a higher level, so that they could recognise another kind of contentedness and happiness. 07. 08. 09. The words. Yes. Many, in the same generation and the younger generation. I travel to China several times a year. 10. It was accepted and even appreciated due to its openness to the world, also in favour of the musical development of the country. It has never had any problem. 11. Invisible Landscapes (1998), Speechlessness, Clearness and Ease (2004). 12. György Ligeti, Giacinto Scelsi, Johann Sebastian Bach. ELENA FIRSOVA ABOUT THE WORKS: „INVISIBLE LANDSCAPES“ for Zheng, Piano, Percussion and Ensemble (1998) With the 1998 composition “Invisible Landscapes,” Xiaoyong Chen refers to his homeland in several respects. On the one hand, he uses a traditional Chinese instrument, the zheng. The zheng is a Chinese zither with 21 strings which specially tuned for “Invisible Landscapes.” In addition, there are two Chinese drums among the percussion instruments. The piano and small ensemble, on the other hand, are oriented on Western instruments. The work bears the title “Invisible Landscapes” because Xiaoyong Chen was inspired by remote memories of his childhood. On the other hand, the composer also processes mental images having to do with a particular place. “This music is a mediator between my feelings and the listener – it is intended to lead him into the invisible world of listening beyond what is concrete, visible and clearly definable.” „SPEECHLESSNESS, CLEARNESS AND EASE“ for Ensemble [Di (Bamboo Flute), Sheng, (Mouth Organ), Pipa (Lute), Ruan (Lute), Yangqin (Hackbrett), Erhu (Knee Violin), Zheng (Zither or Chinese Harp) and several Percussion Instruments] (2004) In this work, too, Chen combines the tone colours of traditional Chinese instruments with modern compositional techniques and playing methods. In the 2004 ensemble version of the work, ( a chamber ensemble version was made in 2006), the composer allows the bamboo flute di and the sheng, a Chinese mouth organ, to sound prominently, with the knee-violin called erhu playing glissandi. Alongside several meditative moments, the piece sizzles and scrapes quite a bit, and two Chinese lutes called the pipa and ruan, the trapezoid-shaped Hackbrett called yangqin, a zheng and several instruments are used. The title “Speechlessness, Clearness and Ease” refers to three individual Chinese written characters. The words have several meanings, however, and can thus conjure up different associations. The different characters and imaginings are thus linked together or juxtaposed next to each other. Several brief quotations from the book of the legendary Chinese philosopher Lao Tse are integrated into the ensemble as sounds and sonically distorted. The music vacillates between illusion and reality, between sounds and noises, between real and artificial sound worlds. “Composers – of course not all of them – have much in common with priests and gardeners,” says the Russian composer Elena Firsova. This is a surprisingly non-political statement, to which Firsova adds that composing for her means self-deepening, touching beauty and being connected to the immaterial world. This explains why her works, usually short and always highly conscious of form, always have an intimate and thoroughly lyrical character. Placing the beauty of art at the centre, also in times of political crises and adverse living circumstances, speaks in favour of Firsova’s great artistic selfconfidence. Born in Leningrad in 1950, both her parents physicists, she began composing already at the age of twelve and received her first instruction in composition four years later. In 1970 Firsova became a pupil of Alexander Pirumov at the Moscow Conservatory. She came into contact with contemporary music through her private teacher, Edison Denissov. Through him and Philipp Herschkowitz, a pupil of Alban Berg and Anton Webern, she assimilated the musical-aesthetical thinking of the Second Viennese School which has more or less marked her own oeuvre up to the present day. But the influences of French composers such as Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez are also found in Firsova’s musical language. In 1972 Elena Firsova married the composer Dmitri Smirnov. With him and Denissov, she founded the Association of Contemporary Composers ASM, which performed Russian works abroad with their own ensemble. In 1979, works of Firsova were performed for the first time in Cologne, Venice and Paris with great success. During the same year the composer experienced a bitter setback in her Russian homeland: the Composers’ Union attacked her works as “not worthy of the Soviet Union.” In 1990 Firsova participated in the new founding of the Russian Society for New Music. But the fear of a political putsch and of not being able to feed her two children led to the decision of the couple to emigrate to England. From 1997 until 2001 Firsova taught in Manchester. She has so far composed well over one hundred works. In her vocal works she often uses texts by the Russian poet Ossip Mandelstam, who was arrested by the Russian regime in 1937 and died one year later on the way to a labour camp. Her instrumental works are also almost always connected with Mandelstam’s poetry, with his relationship to art and to death. SIKORSKI magazine|9 K_print_090730_SikMAG3_ENGLISCH_k1:Layout 1 Kopie 30.07.09 10:44 Seite 10 ELENA FIRSOVA replies: ABOUT THE WORKS: 01. It was for many different reasons. The first one is connected with our family history - the parents of my father tried to emigrate to Germany just after the revolution of 1917, but died on the train from typhus on the way to Caucasus (Novorossijsk), from where they had intended to go to Turkey first and then to Germany (my grandmother was half German). To move to the west – it had been my dream from my very early age, because my parents (especially my father) explained to me when I was still a child that Russia was not a very good country to be born and to live in, and I was convinced of this more and more during my own life experience. April 1991 was a time when we (me, my husband and my children) finally had the opportunity to emigrate. Also, the political situation was very dangerous at that moment and music life very poor in Moscow. My father said to us: do it before it will be too late (as it had been too late for his parents). We went to England because at that time we had very important commissions there (among them my ”Augury” for the ”Proms” festival and a big cantata ”Songs of Liberty” by my husband, Dmitri Smirnov, for a concert in Leeds) and many forthcoming performances of our music. We both were invited for the performances of our music during the Southbank festival in London and it was for the first time we were allowed to take our children with us. We had a friend, Gerard McBurney, who organised a kind of research grant for us in Cambridge for 3 months from January 1992 and promised to help with accommodation before that. So we decided to try (at that time you could easily go back to Russia) and this try was very successful – we have been happily in England for 18 years already. 02. I began to write more music per year. In the beginning – because it was many commissions, then, when it was already not so many commissions, just because it became normal for me. I think also because I have more time for composing because my life became much more isolated. This is both sad and good. 03. Maybe it partly was in four of my compositions - ”Seven Haiku” for soprano and lyre op. 47, ”Far Away” for saxophone 10|SIKORSKI magazine quartet op.48, ”Distance” op.53 for voice, clarinet and string quartet and ”Cassandra” for orchestra op. 60. 04. 05. Music is my personal fate. When my parents were alive, I used to visit them almost every year, but I did it only for them. When they died I stoped to go to Russia (since 2004 year). When I went to Russia I always felt myself as a bird who returned to its cage with an opened door, but this, too, could be shut down at any moment. And although I understood that this shut down is almost unrealistic I never could get rid of this feeling. Russia has changed a lot since I emigrated, to the good and to the bad and I don't feel at home there anymore. 06. Music can speak about everything, but music is always pure music too. 07. All means of music are capable of this. 08. No, I don't feel like an ambassador of any kind for any country. Sometimes I think I am a composer from Europe, but usually I don't think about that at all. 09. With Alexander Vustin, Vladimir Tarnopolski, Alexander Knaifel, Victor Ekimovsky and Leonid Bobyliov. But there is only little communication between us. 10. I think they were very happy for us and regarded as absolutely right what we did. 11. ”Distance” op. 53. It mainly expresses my longing for all our friends whom we had associated with in Russia. But this circle of friends does not exist anymore - most of our friends have left Russia, too and live in different countries. My music is about this phenomen. 12. I can't say. Life. Reading Mandelstam, as it had always done before. ”FAR AWAY” for Saxophone Quartet, Op. 48 (1991) A melancholy cantilena played by the soprano saxophone opens the onemovement composition, in order to subject itself to the ensemble in exceptionally interesting colour mixtures. Dazzling, episode-like passages within unstable metric structures are opposed to canonically entering chord layering, whereby the alto saxophone receives another soloistic task shortly before the end as a pendant to the introductory solo. The title “Far away” is meant programmatically and symbolically. “Being remote” or “far away” stands like a poetical motto above the animatedexpressive course of the brief movement which illuminates the sonic variety of the saxophone family to the ultimate degree. Elena Firsova comments: “I wrote the piece `Far away' during the spring of 1991, shortly after my arrival from Moscow, when I felt very far away from my homeland, far from friends and relatives.” “CASSANDRA” for Orchestra, Op. 60 (1994) In the middle of preliminary considerations for a new orchestral work, Elena Firsova received a commission from the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra in autumn 1992. This commission proved an incredibly strong motivation for Firsova’s work as a whole. The composer was able to present the composition in fully sketched form at the end of 1992, just a few months after receiving the commission. “I called it ‘Cassandra’,” Firsova explains, “whereby I was not only thinking of the prophet of Troy, but also about the situation in present-day Russia, where the gloomy future prospects give cause for worry concerning the fate of the world.” In Firsova’s orchestral work, also dedicated to her Russian homeland in an extended sense, the ancient figure of Cassandra is represented by a solo cello, whilst the inescapability of fate finds expression in the bass drum. SOFIA GUBAIDULINA Sofia Gubaidulina was born in 1931 in Tschistopol and often accompanied her father, a Tatar surveying engineer, on his excursions. 01. IN REPLY TO OUR QUESTIONS: 02. Sofia Gubaidulina requested not to have to answer the 03. questions in this issue, since she is intensively at work 04. on her new Bayan Concerto. She emphasised in this 05. connection that she does not fell like an emigrant. 06. 07. 08. 09. 10. 11. 12. It has always been for her to able to retain her Russian passport, since she continues to belong to Russia in her thinking, feelings and actions. At any rate, she is infinitely grateful to Germany for being able to live here, not only that but in a living environment which is almost ideal for her, even like a paradise, and which has been extremely fruitful for her production. Her mother was Russian and worked as an elementary school teacher. Gubaidulina experienced religious influences through her grandfather, a Mufti in Kazan. From 1936 until 1949 Gubaidulina attended the music college in Kazan, where she wrote her first vocal works. Then followed her pianistic training and, from 1954 until 1959, studies in composition at the Moscow Conservatory with Nikolay Peyko, an assistant of Shostakovich. Gubaidulina’s music grows out of deep meditation; composing becomes a kind of sacred act. The music points to something beyond itself. In addition, she often uses quotation and processes symbols of numerology and the cross. In 1975 Gubaidulina founded the improvisation group “Astreya” together with Viktor Suslin and Vyacheslav Artyomov. During this period a state sanctioned performance ban was imposed on her compositions. In the West, however, she became ever better-known, also through the commitment of the violinist Gidon Kremer. He gave the premiere of Gubaidulina’s violin concerto “Offertorium” in Vienna in 1981 and thus achieved an international breakthrough for the composer. After a long struggle with the Soviet music bureaucracy, Gubaidulina was finally allowed to travel to the West in 1986 as a result of perestroika. In 1989 she received a one-year stipend from the Lower Saxon provincial government and lived at the Barkenhoff for a summer, where Rilke had also stayed. In 1991 the Paul Sacher Foundation bought her manuscripts, upon which the composer decided to settle in Germany. Since then, the 2002 Polar Music Prize winner has lived in Appen near Hamburg. Concerning her life decision, the composer once said: “Time and again, the motto ‘We are one people!’ resounds in the historical life of a people. But each individual person is searching, too. When he/she comes up against limits or goes beyond the limits, he/she looks for leitmotive, principles, his (her own life melody – in short, for anything that can help her/him to survive as a person. In such ‘moments of truth’ arises a soft, inner sound: ‘I am a human being.’” SIKORSKI magazine|11 GIYA KANCHELI GIYA KANCHELI replies: Giya Kancheli is the best -known and most successful Georgian composer of the present day. At the centre of his production are the orchestral works. 01. I left the Soviet Union in 1991 for one year on receiving a DAAD stipend. Due to later negative developments in my homeland I decided to prolong my stay first in Berlin and later in Antwerp, where in 1995 I was nominated a composer–inresidence of the Royal Flanders Symphony Orchestra 02. In general positive, but as I never changed my citizenship, I still feel like I am in some retreat. I usually go to Georgia for long periods of time and work there in peace. So, even if I am physically far away from my homeland, mentally I am still where I spent 56 years of my life. 03. I don’t think there are any direct references in my music. The symphonies, composed between 1967 and 1986 brought him the reputation of an avant-gardist during the communist period. It seems to him that he is working on a single work, begun during his youth and which will end with his death, as Kancheli has said about his work as a composer. Kancheli’s music develops out of silence and is often determined by a tragic-melancholy mood. Through the linking of the polyphonic melos of traditional singing of Georgia with modern components of Western contemporary music, Kancheli creates unique sound worlds which shake up the listener to the quick. Far removed from the currents of serial music, his compositions reflect life experiences dominated by sadness and farewell. Kancheli himself traces his artistic development back to a kind of genetic code “which is given to one at birth.” It is a question of individuality and many different conditions which go way back to childhood, he continues. Giya Kancheli was born in 1935 in Tiflis, the capital of Georgia. His father went to war as a physician and his mother remained with the children. In 1953, upon the death of Stalin and his first compositional attempts, Kancheli’s first criticisms of the system of the Soviet Union became manifest. The problem of not being understood and the certainty that the politic situation in Georgia was hopeless became a part of Kancheli’s thought-world. Still isolated from the influences of Western contemporary music, Kancheli imitated the radio-jazz 12|SIKORSKI magazine of Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller on the piano. His studies in composition began in 1959 at the State Conservatory in Tiflis; he completed his studies in 1963 without ever having heard of the Western avant-garde, e.g. of Paul Hindemith. He earned his living with music for films and theatre, which was not as strictly censored by the aesthetic commissaries. Kancheli became music director of the Rustaveli Theatre in Tiflis in 1971. His collaboration with the producer Robert Sturua, who put on works by Shakespeare and Brecht, amongst others, also made Kancheli’s music known abroad. From 1984 until 1988 Kancheli occupied the office of First Secretary of the Georgian Composers’ Union. The, in 1991, Giya Kancheli received a DAAD Stipend which made it possible for him to travel to Berlin and develop his compositional ideas freely. In 1995 he became composer in residence at the Royal Flemish Philharmonic in Antwerp. Although Kancheli never planned to move to the West, he has since lived in Belgium with his wife and two children. His fame has grown steadily thanks to commissions from renowned institutions such as the Berlin Festival and the International Music Festival in Lucerne. However, he does not regard himself as a musician in exile, for “I was always of the opinion that the problem of individuality in art is much more important and fundamental than the specific characteristics which belong to a given national culture.” 05. First of all I don’t think that my homeland may be called former. I visit Georgia very often and as a result have maintained all the contacts I had had before. 06. I think in general it is, but not in my case. 07. Every author has his own means and there are as many means as there are authors. 08. Sometimes, when a performance is extremely successful. 09. As I had already noted above I have kept all my contacts. Unfortunately a great number of my colleagues have departed this life, but if we consider the former USSR as my homeland I still have close contacts with Arvo Pärt and Valentin Silvestrov. 10. Positively. I was supposed to leave just for one year. 11. 12. STYX A big range of contacts with numerous superb orchestras and musicians. MILKO KELEMEN ABOUT THE WORK: „STYX” for Viola (Violin), Choir and Orchestra (1999) Styx is the name of an underground river in Greek mythology, travelled by Charon, the ferryman of the underworld, with his boat, in order to bring the souls of the dead into Hades’ realm of darkness. In 1999 Giya Kancheli wrote a concerto for viola, choir and orchestra bearing the gloomy title “Styx.” The occasion for this was the death of his friend Alfred Schnittke in 1998 and the composer’s need to remain in contact with people close to him who were no longer amongst the living. The holy river from Greek mythology is for Kancheli a symbol for the last connection between the living and the dead. Through travelling this flowing river, the contact to the dead is not broken off, but the spiritual bond becomes still closer. Kancheli allows the choir in “Styx” to sing the names of Georgian churches and folksongs, and of spiritual songs and names of deceased friends. Different singing groups thus arise which also resemble and are connected to each other on the phonetic level. Each group of words thus formed embodies eternal values. As the quintessence in the Finale, Kancheli quotes a line from Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale. The composer has meanwhile transcribed the “Styx” for violin as well. Here, too, the dark, almost desperate mood of the composition has been retained. Milko Kelemen was born in Podrawska Slatina, Croatia. In 1945 he studied composition and conducting at the Music Academy in Zagreb. He also taught there until 1965. Following completion of his studies, he received a stipend in 1953 and studied for one year with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory. Already during his student years he was conscious of the fact that, in any kind of music, “that certain something” cannot be analytically grasped. It has thus always been his concern to come to terms with the unconscious in his music. He designates his main concerns as preserving the ageold principle of communicating through music and recognising oneself in the music, as well as preventing new music from leading an existence in the notorious ivory tower. A lasting connection with the new music scene in Germany arose as a result of Kelemen’s student period in Paris: in 1955 he participated for the first time at the Darmstadt Holiday Courses for New Music, where he then became a constant employee during the time thereafter. Between 1958 and 1960 he was a pupil of Wolfgang Fortner at the Academy of Music in Freiburg. In addition, Kelemen worked at the Siemens Studio for Electronic Music in Munich. He nonetheless remained rooted in his homeland, which he strengthened by founding the Biennale for New Music in Zagreb in 1961. As its President, he arranged numerous encounters between the Eastern and Western avant-garde. This was an extremely important activity in terms of cultural politics, for it allowed the Iron Curtain to be ventilated in the area of new music. Over the course of over 20 years, over 3000 works by over 400 composers were premiered, amongst them all the trailblazing representatives of the American music scene. In 1969 Kelemen took on a teaching position at the Robert Schumann Conservatory in Düsseldorf. Four years later he went to Stuttgart, where he still lives today, and took over a composition class at the Academy of Music there until 1989. MILKO KELEMEN replies: “Since I have lived in many different countries during the course of my career, I have become a true cosmopolitan. Any idea of being an emigrant is foreign to me. In 1961 I organised the Zagreb Music Biennale and also became its president. It was the most difficult period of communism – every kind of avantgarde was forbidden. I had to fight very hard. The most important thing for me was to bring German music to the fore – the work of the Hamburg State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and many others. The cosmopolitan tendency with a strong accent on Germany will continue to be a strong characteristic of the music festival.” SIKORSKI magazine|13 01. 02. 03. 04. 05. 06. 07. 08. 09. 10. 11. 12. KRZYSZTOF MEYER Krzysztof Meyer, born in 1943, is, alongside Witold Lutoslawski, Krzysztof Penderecki and Henryk Mikolaj Górecki, one of the most important representatives of present-day Polish music. Today the composer lives in NordrheinWestfalen, where he taught composition at the Music Academy in Cologne for many years. As the most influential pillars of his musical aesthetic, Meyer names the composers Dmitri Shostakovich and Witold Lutoslawski. Meyer’s compositions do not avoid the incorporation of conventional forms and techniques, but they search for a new structural expressive means. The clarity of the musical course of events and careful, consciously introduced change of impulse are typical of Meyer’s approach. The listener should be “led” without his receptivity being overtaxed. The supposed transparency of his works hides a highly differentiated and precisely fixed compositional will to formulate. For example, Meyer speaks of a sound-centralisation, a previously fixed arrangement of sound progressions which he always interposes with surprising effects such as irregular rhythms, metric changes and layering of metrically different material. After completing his studies at the Chopin Music School in Krakow, he studied at the Music Academy there. In 1965 he received his diploma in composition as a pupil of Krzysztof Penderecki and in 1966 his diploma in music theory. In the years 1964, 1966 and 1968 he studied for several months in France with Nadia Boulanger. From 1965 until 1967 he performed as a pianist in the “Ensemble for Contemporary Music MW2” and gave concerts in Poland and in most other European countries. In addition, he was the soloist in performances of his own compositions. From 1966 until 1987 Krzysztof Meyer taught music-theoretical subjects at the State Music Academy in Krakow and then went to Cologne. Meyer gave numerous lectures on new music in Germany and abroad (including the Soviet Union, Austria and Brazil). He was Chairman of the Polish Composers’ Union from 1985 until 1989. KRZYSZTOF MEYER replies: 01. 02. 03. 04. 05. 06. 07. Krzysztof Meyer, too, did not directly respond to the questions of this issue on the subject of “Music and Emigration.” Instead he wrote the following: “The question of the ‘emigration of an artist’ is European at the same time. both very exciting and important. It doesn’t matter to me at all if I live in Poland As for myself, I have never felt like an emigrant. or anywhere else. I can live and work in the When I applied in Cologne, I was still President West just as well as in Poland if I can just find of the Polish Composers’ Union. I kept this friends and interpreters of my music. But if I position until 1989, although I was already live in Germany I feel enriched because German teaching at the Cologne Academy in 1987. musical life is so unbelievably extensive and it After that, my contacts to Poland and my col- gives me all kinds of impulses. leagues there were just as close as before my 08. The question of where I am at home is easy to move. For years I organised the Festival ‘Posen answer. I am namely at home wherever my 09. Spring,’ for example, and was uninterruptedly family lives – my wife Danuta, my daughter active in various committees and societies. Maria (in Koblenz) – where I work (I still work at 10. And now I have founded a new festival (for the Academy), where most of my friends are 11. classical chamber music) in Kashubia, Poland. (and that is in Germany) and, to put it banally, By nature and conviction wherever I have a certain security. But I was 12. I am of course a Polish composer, but I am a never an emigrant.” 14|SIKORSKI magazine SLAVA ULANOVSKI SLAVA ULANOVSKI replies: 01. This question is not at all difficult to answer. Imagine several tanks driving back and forth under your window and then they start shooting and running over people. That was how it was at the time when I left Moscow with my family (my daughter was nine years old at the time). 02. I must honestly admit that I compose far less than in Russia. There are several reasons for this. First of all, I need a lot of time in order to teach (I must feed my family, after all). Secondly, several of my compositions in Russia were inspired by interpreters, conductors and producers. My music needs mediators on the way to the listeners, and these mediators are music theatre and orchestra. I came to Germany at the age of 41 and had to form all my contacts and relationships anew. 03. I don’t think there are any direct references, although it seems to me that emigration changed my musical language a little bit. 04. 05. Despite the overwhelming success of a musical in 1987, the Jewish composer Slava Ulanovski did not feel safe in Russia, which is why he emigrated to Germany with his family in 1993; since then he has continued to live there. Ulanovski was born in Moscow in 1951, and his musical education also took place there. He studied clarinet at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory from 1969 until 1973. After that, Ulanovski earned his living as an orchestral musician, also playing in the Moscow Philharmonic. In 1978 he studied composition with Tikhon Khrennikov at the Moscow Conservatory. The music of Shostakovich had a particularly strong influence on him. In 1993 Ulanovski decided to emigrate to Germany; he had meanwhile made a name for himself as a composer a symphonic works, chamber music and music theatrical pieces. Alongside his work as a composer and arranger, Ulanovski is also active as a teacher, at the Music School of the City of Essen, amongst other institutions. In his composi- tions, too, he places special value on work for the up-and-coming generation. In the year 2000 his children’s ballet “Snow White and the Russian Prince” was premiered with great success at the 2nd European Fairytale Festival in Tampere. Ulanovski’s best-known symphonic work is the adaptation of Beethoven’s “Rage over a Lost Penny” for percussion and orchestra, a cleverly orchestrated adaptation of the classic work that is a great pleasure to audiences and orchestral musician far removed from any old clichés. Alongside these entertaining works, Ulanovski has also composed works which commemorate the history of suffering of the Jewish people. “Memories” for violoncello solo, for example, is dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust. No. Since 1993, when I came to Germany, I have been to Moscow thrice and during the last visit I was very sad to see that the city had become completely different. I don’t want to say better or worse, but different. It is not the city of my youth. What could I retain? Musical intonations of the Russian-speaking world, or rather the former Soviet Union, including all republics, e.g. Armenian and Georgian music, which I always liked. And of course – Russian literature. 06. If I understand the question correctly, we could talk about compositions like the Seventh Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich or the Concerto for Orchestra of Béla Bartók. Both works have something to do with resistance against National Socialism. As for myself, I have written the “Memories” for violoncello solo dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust. This is also that kind of work, if one can designate Holocaust as a political, social and personal problem. Only I have not translated this problem but was very strongly impressed and inspired by the atmosphere of the museum during my visit to the Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. SIKORSKI magazine|15 SLAVA ULANOVSKI replies: 07. In my opinion, all means are alright, but the music has to sound very natural afterwards. I mean, when the bass drum drums and the cymbals crash, it doesn’t automatically mean that it’s about a big battle. Music can become ridiculous very fast in this way. 08. 09. Probably not. There aren’t very many. Mikhail Bronner, Alexander Tchaikovsky. 10. We have never talked about it. 11. There isn’t any such direct expression in my works, I don’t think. 12. I was and remain a great fan of Dmitri Shostakovich and, perhaps modern ballet has made my music more meditative in recent years. ABOUT THE WORK: “MEMORIES” for violoncello solo (1990) The impulse for the work “Memories” was an influential experience in Slava Ulanovski’s life: “The year 1990. Jerusalem. The Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem. There was profound darkness in the main hall; only a single candle reflected millions of small lights in the walls, a symbol for the destroyed human lives. Chamber music of unbelievable beauty softly sounded, with a male and a female voice naming the names of the Holocaust victims, the complete naming of which will require several years. “I only found this out later, however; at that time I stood in the middle of the hall in profound shock. This image burned in my memory for a long time. When the Israeli cellist Carmen Schiff one day asked me for a composition dedicated to the Holocaust victims, I had this image before my eyes again, which touched my soul with new power and served as the impulse fort he composition of this piece, the leitmotif of which is the heartbeat of the destroyed lives.” 16|SIKORSKI magazine LIN YANG LIN YANG replies: “To go far away, completely alone into a darkness from which not only you would be excluded, but other shadows as well. Only I alone shall sink into this darkness. That world will belong to me alone.” These poetic lines by Lu Xun, the founder of modern Chinese literature, precede the score of composer Lin Yang’s work “The Shadow Bids Farewell” for flute, violin, violoncello, vibraphone and piano. Written in 2004, this composition is concerned with the effect of the most minimal pitches changes, sensitively lyrical harmonies and richly accented rhythmic sections. Lin Yang confronts the idea of disappearance or departure with the help of these musical means. The work was composed already in 2004, three years before Lin Yang actually left her homeland in order to study in Germany and establish herself there. Lin Yang was born in Beijing in 1982. Following intensive musical furtherance at the Beijing Music Middle School, she studied composition and music analysis from 2001 until 2006 at the conservatory in her home city with Guoping Jia. In was meanwhile possible there to occupy oneself with the major international figures in contemporary music, which strongly motivated Lin Yang. At the centre of her compositional work is the search for the origin and transformability of sound. In this, she is also concerned with the “noise behind the sound, the noise before the sound arises, the transition between the two, the connection between articulation and timbre, a movement towards a tone and away from it.” Lin Yang moved to Germany in 2007 and became a pupil of Cornelius Schwehr at the Music Academy in Freiburg. In the meantime, groups including the Dresden „Ensemble Courage“ and the chamber ensemble Neue Musik Berlin have performed her compositions. In May 2009, moreover, Lin Yang received a furtherance prize of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. 01. I had the opportunity to become acquainted with European music and culture already at a very young age. Since then my curiosity was awakened and an inner urge moved me to want to experience real life as a musician in Europe. This was a big dream for me. And I believe that when one does not experience another culture “live,” one annot understand one’s own any better. In addition, it would have seemed like imprisonment to me to stay in the same environment. That is why I wanted to get out. dent of political social or personal messages and are not concerned with these. Thus music has its own pure meaning and be a matter of course. It possesses a certain dynamic of its own. 02. Not only, of course. Beyond that, I regard myself far more as an independent, creative individual who wanders between cultures, crossing borders between them. In each of my pieces one can recognise a trace of my life’s path and further development, from my way of thinking to my manner of expression. But I have only been living in Germany for a short period of time, just two years. I don’t feel like an emigrant but identify more with a wanderer, a guest. As a wanderer with a great interest in other cultures, I see Germany as a first station on a long journey which I shall continue to pursue. 03. I can only answer this question with difficulty from the point of view of an emigrant. As a wanderer abroad, however, direct references are obvious. In each new piece, I have incorporated new sounds and techniques which I have learned. Thus references in my pieces are very visible and real. 04. Of course. Music and emotions form an indivisible unity for me. Music constantly accompanies my life. Each life consists of ups and downs and music is a special form of expression which makes it easier to come to terms with what one has experienced. 05. Emotionally I always maintain the connection to my parents and friends. Externally I always remain connected with the good Chinese cuisine. 06. I believe that music as a form of expression can also transmit messages which can translate the problems named above. In addition, there are yet other essences in music which are inherent to it and indepen- 07. There are many different means which are concretely suitable for this. There are many examples of this in music history. A very good one would be the pieces of Hanns Eisler or “A Survivor from Warsaw” of Arnold Schönberg. 08. 09. Jia Guoping, my professor and spiritual mentor at the Beijing Central Music Academy. 10. Jia Guoping was one of the most important supporters of my decision to come to Germany. He was himself a pupil of Helmut Lachenmann at the Music Academy in Stuttgart. In his view, too, it seemed to be the better way to get to know new music. There is an old Chinese proverb concerning this: “Walk a thousand miles, read ten thousand books.” Travelling is a learning process. 11. Due to today’s possibilities of communication and travel, I hardly have the feeling of distance and homesickness. For that reason, I have not yet written a piece that expressed a longing for my homeland. I express a connection to my homeland in a different way. In the piece that I am now writing, for example, I would like to communicate the spirit of the Chinese art of calligraphy. With this I would also like to pay respect to my father, who is himself a calligrapher and whose work I personally like very much. Deriving from that, one could speak of a kind of longing fort he culture of my homeland. 12. First of all, the professional and diligent work organisation of German academics. The radiance and character of several people have influenced me, people who have greatly enriched my life support me both morally-spiritually as well as materially. SIKORSKI magazine|17 BENJAMIN YUSUPOV “I firmly believe that music should move the hearts of people. Benjamin Yusupov’s music has this effect on me. ”That is why I look forward to playing his Cello Concerto as often as possible.” This is the euphoric statement of the Latvian cellist Mischa Maisky referring to the composer Benjamin Yusupov, resident in Israel, who wrote the Cello Concerto especially for him. Yusupov wants not merely to write music, but find an utterly original language for it. In so doing, he brings together all kinds of styles without compromise. from classical to rock – and also connects the most different cultures with each other. East European, African, Central Asian and South American elements are found in Yusupov’s pieces. Thus arise, on the one hand, impressive musical-folkloristic images of a certain culture which the composer, on the other hand, realises through the application of post-modern Western compositional techniques and places in a global context. This concern is also reflected in his instrumentation, since he integrates exotic instruments into the symphonic orchestral sound. His main attention, however, is directed towards the development of a new “Israeli” musical style based on the different musical styles existing in Israel. Benjamin Yusupov was born on 22 November 1962 in Duschanbe, the capital of the Russian colonial state Tadzhikistan. Between 1981 and 1990 he studied piano, composition, music theory and conducting at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. Already in 1989, at the age of 27, Yusupov became Music Director of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Duschanbe. In the position of director, the young musician seized the opportunity to perform compositions of different genres, especially contemporary pieces by composers of the former Soviet Union. His own compositions were frequently performed at music festivals of the Soviet Union, in Moscow and Dushanbe, among other places, and later at the Biennale in Zagreb. In 1990 Yusupov emigrated to Israel. 18|SIKORSKI magazine BENJAMIN YUSUPOV replies: 01. The Moscow Conservatory, where I completed my training as a composer and conductor, is the worldwide centre of musical culture. We had the opportunity to meet with the most important musicians, which is why I did not want to restrict myself to the territory of the Soviet Union after completing my studies, but try my luck in the West. I believe that an artist must have complete freedom in such a choice. 02. world and our fate. The artist of today strives to reproduce this with the utmost precision and authenticity. 05. The world of eastern music – Makam – lives most deeply in my consciousness. I use this musical language frequently in my works. And even if this is not directly connected with the concrete material, I am convinced that it is always present. 06. The subsidy of music in the Soviet Union had the result that music of lesser quality was not eliminated, as it would have been under the conditions of the free market. After I came to the West, I was forced to find my own public and fight for my survival, which made my music more interesting from a professional standpoint. Without question, composing means transforming our world in all its forms of appearance into music by means of tones. Sometimes this is expressed directly, sometimes very indirectly. The inner world does not exist without the outer, constant interaction. 03. In my music, I prefer a non-programmatic and indirect reflection of political and social problems. The emigration made me a part of Israeli culture. Two cultural streams are united in my production: the culture of my “past” and of my “present” life. 04. Music reflects our emotional 07. 08. Absolutely. Feelings which made an impression during childhood have a lifelong influence on us. I am a person who loves his past. I have the responsibility to realise and continue the culture of which I am a child. 09. Professionally speaking, I have far more intensive contacts to interpreters. 10. Many composers and musicians left the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. That was not exactly easy for those who did so. 11. “Nostalgia,” “Tanovor” and, generally, this feeling is more or less present in all of my works. 12. Today I see myself as part of a large world; I unite different musical cultures and stylistics directions in my works. For example, I have five different compositions which bear the same title, “Crossroads.” I use rock, jazz, tango and ethnic music of different peoples. Global communication has made us part of a large world and I try very hard to find a worthy place in it. ABOUT THE WORK: „TANOVOR“ for Flute and Chamber Orchestra (1994) Decisive for the great public acclaim that into dialogue with its song of mourning. “Tanovor” already found at its world Benjamin Yusupov enriches this with premiere was the consistent and transparent modern playing techniques and intensifies application harmonic the sound through rough, abrasive chord language of a mourning character which layers in the strings and brass. The connection permeates the entire work. The title of traditional rules and melodies with the “Tanavor” is of Persian origin and refers to playing techniques of the modern orchestral traditional Makam music. The flute rises up apparatus and contemporary compositional in a melancholy manner, executing whirring, means is an aesthetic concern of Benjamin exulting figures, then singing of suffering Yusupov’s and runs through his oeuvre like in an almost simplistic and thus so authen- a red thread. of an Oriental tically moving melodic line. The first viola frequently accompanies the flute and entering SIKORSKI magazine|19