October 2005
Sound It Out
Open yourself up to the joys of contemporary music
Artists are required to innovate. This maxim has held true for centuries, especially in the field of music. But how many of us are willing to open ourselves up to these new, contemporary sounds, rather than choosing to listen to something more accessible, such as Mozart or Beethoven? With a number of renowned modern concert series on our doorstep, Munich residents are in a great position to discover the pleasures of “new music.”
But what exactly do we mean by “new” and “old”? Even by medieval times, composers and theoreticians had already gained a sense of historicity, labeling earlier musical works dated, and current efforts fresh and modern. When opera emerged in Italy, around 1600, it was soon known, sometimes disparagingly, as “nuove musiche.” Centuries before, the “ars nova” had been ushered in, labeling music written before 1300 as “ancient.” It was only in the 1920s that the term “new music” was coined in English, translated from the German “Neue Musik,” in an attempt to describe atonality as well as dodecaphonic and serial music. This, too, soon became virtually meaningless and was followed by expressions such as “contemporary music” or, even better, “music of our time” (cognate with “Musik unserer Zeit”).
So where’s a good place to discover these new sounds? We’re lucky in Munich to have a world-renowned concert series right here—musica viva. Founded in 1945 by the composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann while the city was still a field of rubble, it soon gained a reputation for its innovative programs and exciting music-making. The upcoming season honors the 100th anniversary of Hartmann’s birth with two concerts, played by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. On October 28, the program in the Herkulessaal der Residenz includes works by Fredrik Zeller and Wolfgang von Schweinitz, as well as Hartmann’s Fifth Symphony.
Another fine ensemble based in the city is the Münchener Kammerorchester. Directed for some years now by Christoph Poppen, this excellent chamber orchestra has always been one step ahead of the rest. Over the last few years, it has managed to combine well-known Haydn symphonies with first performances of music by modern composers, drawing variously on the output of living composers from a single nation, such as Italy or the United States. The current season’s theme is Greece. A number of commissions and other pieces touching on the Ancient World make for an attractive offering. November 17 sees a première of a work by Nikos Skalkottas in Munich’s Prinzregententheater.
As for the Münchner Philharmoniker, while past concerts have presented more than their fair share of modern works, the future might not be so rosy. A change of management has led to the expectation that contemporary music will be eschewed. To continue in a slightly negative vein, the Münchener Biennale festival of new music theater has long ceased to fulfill its initial promise of delivering solutions to a genre in crisis: namely opera. Recent productions suffer from the “silly hat” school of directing, and composers seem to be scraping the bottom of the post-modern barrel in a desperate attempt to “be new.”
For hard-core new music audiences, it is worth watching out for concerts by both Xsemble and piano possibile, two ensembles that have devoted themselves with vigour and a degree of necessary stubbornness to the music of our times. And now that the Muffathalle seems willing occasionally to open its doors to such activities, audiences are no longer subjected to the grisly environment of the Einsteinzentrum or the equally depressing surroundings (in acoustic terms at least) of Gasteig’s plush Carl-Orff-Saal. The Münchner Gesellschaft für Neue Musik also produces a regular newsletter with these programs and complete listings of the season’s contemporary music events.
Finally, do look out for the laboriously named A•Devantgarde festival (the next one is planned for May/June 2007) as well as the fourth “digitalanalog” festival, to be held this year in the Schrannenhalle on November 11–12. Here, in what might turn out to be a jewel in the crown of Munich’s musical life, contemporary means exactly what it says, with DJs and VJs (video jockeys) following hard on the heels of more overtly “classical” new music.
Tempted? With such a palette of possibilities, it would seem a shame not at least to open your ears to something new. After all, today’s contemporary compositions could be classics in the making.
