Bernd Alois Zimmermann

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Bernd Alois Zimmermann (actually Alois Bernhard Zimmermann ; born March 20, 1918 in Bliesheim , today Erftstadt ; † August 10, 1970 in Königsdorf , today Frechen, near Cologne ) was one of the outstanding German composers of the musical avant-garde, who dealt with the New music found its own style. His best-known work is the opera The Soldiers .

Life

Zimmermann grew up in the rural Catholic environment of the Eifel . His father was a civil servant at the Reichsbahn and ran agriculture as a sideline. From 1929 Bernd Alois Zimmermann attended the Catholic private school in Steinfeld Abbey , where he systematically dealt with music for the first time and laid the foundation for his enormous literary education. When the National Socialists closed the private schools in Germany in 1936 , Zimmermann switched to a state Catholic high school in Cologne, where he graduated from high school in 1937. In the same year he did the Reich Labor Service and enrolled at the University for Teacher Training in Bonn for the winter semester 1937/38.

Zimmermann originally wanted to study theology, but then began studying school music, musicology and composition at the Cologne University of Music in the winter semester of 1938/39 . In 1940 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht , from which he was released in autumn 1942 because of a serious skin disease caused by explosive ordnance. He resumed his studies, the completion of which was delayed until 1947 due to the end of the war and the turmoil after the war. Zimmermann had been working as a freelance composer since 1946, mostly for radio. From 1948 to 1950 he took part in the Kranichsteiner / Darmstädter Summer Courses for New Music , with René Leibowitz and Wolfgang Fortner , among others , and worked from 1950 to 1952 as a lecturer for music theory at the Musicological Institute of the University of Cologne . During this time he composed several of his works, such as the Concerto for Violin and Large Orchestra, the Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra, the Concerto for Violoncello and Small Orchestra, several trumpet concerts and the Concert Perspektiven for two pianos .

In 1957 Zimmermann received a scholarship for the Villa Massimo in Rome and, in 1958, succeeded Frank Martin as a professor of composition at the Cologne University of Music, where he founded the seminar for stage, film and radio music. In the 1960s he established himself as a successful composer with the anti-war opera The Soldiers . He was honored with the Great Art Prize of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1960 and the City of Cologne Art Prize in 1966. In 1964 he received a second scholarship for the Villa Massimo and in 1965 became a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts . On February 15, 1965, after a long hard struggle, the opera The Soldiers was premiered, based on a drama by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz . In 1968 he turned down an offer as a composition professor at the Berlin University of the Arts . In 1969 he was awarded the Berlin Art Prize.

Bernd Alois Zimmermann was married to Sabine von Schablowsky and the marriage had three children.

In 1967 he presented the composition Tratto and the Requiem for a young poet . This time was characterized by depression and the worsening of his eye problems and made it more and more difficult for him to work with music as usual. In 1970 he began to work on a Requiem for the funeral mass . Ever longer lasting depressive tendencies led to a psychological crisis, in addition there was the rapidly worsening, inoperable eye disease. His statement “I can no longer compose!” Was like an outcry in a hopeless situation. The composer committed suicide on August 10, 1970. He was buried in the Königsdorf -Süd cemetery.

plant

Zimmermann was a composer between the eras: he was too young to be decisively influenced by the musical events of the Weimar Republic , but at the same time too old after the end of the Second World War to accept the negative attitude of the younger generation towards the composers of the Weimar Republic to bear. This led to a distinctly independent style of work, which was shaped by the concept of “pluralistic” composing and the use of collage techniques.

In his compositional development Zimmermann first followed the development of New Music , from which German composers were largely cut off during the Nazi era. He began with works in the neoclassical style , then came to serial music (from 1956) through the impressions of the Darmstadt summer courses on free atonality (from 1949) and dodecaphony (from 1951 ). His predilection for jazz is also expressed in several compositions, such as the violin concerto from 1950 and the trumpet concerto from 1954 as well as in his opera The Soldiers . In order to secure his livelihood, Zimmermann wrote or arranged radio play and film music, for example in 1956 on Deluge and Ashes, a short film about the destruction of the war and reconstruction. At a screening of the film as part of the German Architecture Exhibition in Buenos Aires, criticism of the music was loud, which reached Franz Rowas , who was responsible there, via the German ambassador and the Foreign Ministry . He put pressure on the director of the film, who had to exchange the music for Bach's chorale music, with which the film - at least abroad - continued to be shown.

In contrast to the representatives of the so-called Darmstadt School ( Stockhausen , Boulez , Nono and others), Zimmermann did not make a radical break with tradition. At the end of the 1950s he developed his typical personal composing style, the pluralistic sound composition, which is characterized by the combination and superimposition of layers of musical material from different times and from different origins (music of the Middle Ages through Baroque and Classical to jazz and pop songs, like the Beatles ). This ranges from embedding individual musical quotations in a composition (for example in the orchestral piece Photoptosis ) to a piece that is entirely conceived as a collage ( Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu ). In vocal works (particularly succinctly in the Requiem ) the procedure is also applied to the text.

Zimmermann's art is based on a special concept of time:

“As we know, the past, present and future are only linked to the process of succession because of their appearance as cosmic time. In our spiritual reality, however, this succession does not exist, which has a more real reality than the well-known clock, which basically shows nothing other than that there is no present in the strict sense. Time bends into a spherical shape. From this idea [...] I developed my [...] pluralistic composition technique that takes account of the complexity of our reality. "

In Zimmermann's only opera The Soldiers , this simultaneity of events is expressed through complex simultaneous scenes, which are further deepened and meaningfully charged using multimedia techniques: music, drama, ballet, pantomime and film are interlinked. In addition, there is also a pluralism of the styles used: Zimmermann inserts a large number of musical quotations from various musical historical epochs into his score and also has a jazz combo perform in the 2nd and 4th act . All of this is structurally held together by a superordinate all-interval series . The opera had its successful premiere in 1965 in Cologne under the conductor Michael Gielen , after it had been rejected several times (by Wolfgang Sawallisch, among others ) as "unplayable" due to enormous personal and musical demands. A new production in 1969 in Munich with Zimmermann's participation, again under the musical direction of Gielen, was an overwhelming success.

Zimmermann was an emphatically literary and emphatically political composer. A large number of his works are based on works of literature or deal with them. His opera The Soldiers is based on the play by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz , his Musique pour les soupers de Roi Ubu is an imaginary ballet music for the play King Ubu by Alfred Jarry . In the Requiem for a Young Poet , Zimmermann uses texts by poets who died voluntarily: Jessenin , Mayakowski and Konrad Bayer . Zimmermann's adding to the composition against injustice and oppression is particularly evident in the musically expressive portrayal of the merciless destruction of a human life in The Soldiers and in the trumpet concerto Nobody knows de trouble I see , directed against racism in the USA , in which Zimmermann uses African-American music ( spirituals and jazz ). Zimmermann's Requiem for a Young Poet is about the social situation between 1920 and 1970, which is brought closer through original excerpts from speeches by Adolf Hitler , quotations from the Basic Law and Mao Zedong's Red Book .

His sense of religion and his Catholic upbringing also had an influence on Zimmermann's thought and work. A visible sign is the sequence of letters that Zimmermann put at the end of each score: OAMDG (Omnia ad maiorem Dei gloriam = Everything for the greater glory of God). A number of Zimmermann's works make direct or indirect reference to religion and liturgy , among others. a. Antiphons , omnia tempus habent and ecclesiastic action . Nevertheless, many of Zimmermann's works have a profound pessimism about them. At the center of the Requiem for a Young Poet are the verses of the poet Konrad Bayer What hope for? / there is nothing that can be achieved except death.

student

Works

  • 1942–1946: Five songs for medium voice and piano
  • 1946: Extemporale for piano
  • 1946: Capriccio for piano
  • 1947: Praise of Folly for soloists, choir and large orchestra
  • 1949: Enchiridion I
  • 1950: Sonata for violin and piano
  • 1950: Concerto for violin and orchestra
  • 1950: Rheinische Kirmestänze (set for 13 wind instruments in 1962)
  • 1950: fairy tale suite
  • 1951: Enchiridion II
  • 1951: Sonata for solo violin
  • 1951: Symphony in one movement (new version 1953)
  • 1952: Concerto for oboe and small orchestra
  • 1954: metamorphosis. Music for the film of the same name by Michael Wolgensinger for small orchestra
  • 1954: Nobody knows de trouble I see - Concerto for trumpet and orchestra
  • 1955: Sonata for viola solo
  • 1955: Alagoana, Caprichos Brasileiros - ballet
  • 1956: configurations
  • 1956: Perspektiven - music for an imaginary ballet
  • 1957: Canto di speranza
  • 1957: The pious Helene
  • 1957: Having Omnia tempus
  • 1958: Impromptu
  • 1960: Dialoge - Concerto for two pianos and large orchestra
  • 1960: Sonata for cello solo
  • 1961: Presence, ballet blanc
  • 1961: Antiphons
  • 1962: Cinque Capricci di Girolamo Frescobaldi “La Frescobalda” for orchestra
  • 1962: Giostra Genovese. Old dances by various masters for a small orchestra
  • 1962: Vocal symphony from The Soldiers for six vocal soloists (coloratura soprano, mezzo soprano, alto, two tenors, bass) and orchestra, premiered on May 20, 1963
  • 1963: Tempus Loquendi
  • 1964: monologues
  • 1965: The Soldiers - Opera, WP: February 15, 1965
  • 1966: Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu - Ballet noir (revised as a concert piece in 1968)
  • 1966: Concerto for violoncello and orchestra en forme de pas de trois
  • 1967: Intercomunicazione
  • 1967: Tratto
  • 1968: Photoptosis
  • 1969: Requiem for a Young Poet - Lingual
  • 1970: silence and repentance
  • 1970: Tratto 2
  • 1970: four short studies
  • 1970: I turned and saw all the injustice that was happening under the sun - ecclesiastic action

Radio play music

Fonts

  • Interval and time. Essays and writings on the work . Mainz 1974.

literature

  • Hermann Beyer, Siegfried Mauser (eds.): Philosophy of time and sound shape - investigations into the work of Bernd Alois Zimmermann . Mainz 1986.
  • Patrick van Deurzen: Tijdsaspecten in het Werk van Bernd Alois Zimmermann . In: Tijdschrift voor Muziektheorie , Jg. 1 (1996), No. 2, June 1996, pp. 98-106.
  • Klaus Ebbeke: Finding language - studies on the late work of Bernd Alois Zimmermann . Mainz 1986. ISBN 3-7957-1793-0 .
  • Klaus Ebbeke: Zeitschichtung - Collected essays on the works of Bernd Alois Zimmermann , Mainz 1998. ISBN 3-7957-0345-X .
  • Heribert Henrich: Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Catalog raisonné. Directory of the musical works of Bernd Alois Zimmermann and their sources. / Created using preliminary work by Klaus Ebbeke (†). - Mainz: 2013 [!], Correct: 2014, ISBN 978-3-7957-0688-3 . review
  • Jörn Peter Hiekel : Bernd Alois Zimmermann's “Requiem for a Young Poet” (= archive for musicology . Supplement 36). Stuttgart 1995.
  • Jörn Peter Hiekel: Bernd Alois Zimmermann and his time (= great composers and their time 35). Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2019, ISBN 978-3-89007-808-3 .
  • Martin J. Junker: Nobody knows… Alagoana - Investigations into two early works by Bernd Alois Zimmermann . Frankfurt am Main 2007.
  • Wulf Konold : Bernd Alois Zimmermann - The composer and his work . Cologne 1986.
  • Oliver Korte : About Bernd Alois Zimmermann's later serial technology . In: Music Theory , Issue 1/2000, pp. 19–40.
  • Oliver Korte: The ecclesiastic action by Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Investigations into a poetics of failure . Sinzig 2003 (= Berlin Music Studies , Volume 29).
  • Aloyse Michaely: Toccata - Ciacona - Nocturno. To Bernd Alois Zimmermann's opera “The Soldiers” . In: C. Floros, HJ Marx, P. Petersen (eds.): Musiktheater im 20. Jahrhundert , Laaber 1988 (= Hamburger Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft , Volume 10), pp. 127–204.
  • Ralph Paland: "... ad usum delphini"? Bernd Alois Zimmermann's “Monologues” for 2 pianos as a transcription and transformation of the “Dialogues” for 2 pianos and large orchestra . In: A. Edler, S. Meine (Ed.): Music, science and their mediation. Report on the international musicological conference of the Hanover University of Music and Drama 26.-29. September 2001 , Augsburg 2002, ISBN 3-89639-342-1 (= publications by the Hanover University of Music and Theater, Volume 12), pp. 267-271.
  • Ralph Paland: “Work in Progress” and individual work. Bernd Alois Zimmermann's instrumental works 1960–1965 . Mainz 2006, ISBN 3-7957-1898-8 (= Kölner Schriften zur Neue Musik , Volume 9).
  • Dörte Schmidt: "It is enough ..." BA Zimmermann's Ecclesiastical Action: opus summum or opus ultimum? In: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft , vol. 46 (1989), pp. 121–154.
  • Moments. Concerts in the 2007–2008 season . City of Bochum and Bochumer Symphoniker, Bochum 2007, pp. 18–22.
  • Franz-Bernhard Stammkötter: A musical interpretation of Augustine. Motifs from the Augustinian philosophy of time in Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Requiem for a young poet . In: A. Zumkeller OSA, A. Krümmel (Ed.): Traditio Augustiniana. Studies on Augustine and his reception. Festival ceremony for Willigis Eckermann OSA . Würzburg 1994, pp. 415-440.
  • Ulrich Tadday (Ed.): Music Concepts Special Volume Bernd Alois Zimmermann . Munich 2005.
  • Bettina Zimmermann: con tutta forza. Bernd Alois Zimmermann. A personal portrait . Documents, letters, photos, contemporary witnesses. Wolke, Hofheim 2018, ISBN 978-3-95593-078-3

Sound carrier (selection)

Movie

  • Monk and Dionysus. The composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Documentary, Germany, 2013, 60 min., Written and directed: Bettina Ehrhardt, production: bce films, WDR , series: West ART Klassik, first broadcast: December 2, 2013 on WDR, a. a. with Michael Gielen , Hans Zender .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 20.3. Bernd Alois Zimmermann: 95th birthday . ( Memento from July 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Online marker; accessed on July 15, 2014
  2. ↑ Heribert Henrich, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, catalog raisonné, Berlin and Mainz 2013, p. 788
  3. ↑ 1968. Quoted from: Harenberg Composers Lexicon. Mannheim 2004, p. 1048
  4. ↑ Bernd Alois Zimmermann . UbuWeb Sound; accessed on July 15, 2014
  5. ↑ Hope for what ?: In Bernd Alois Zimmermann's “Requiem for a Young Poet”, Tristan and Isolde meet the Beatles, Kurt Schwitters merges with Beethoven . In: Die Zeit , No. 12/2007.
  6. ↑ Hermann Beyer, Siegfried Mauser (Ed.): Philosophy of Time and Sound Shape. Investigations into the work of Bernd Alois Zimmermann . Schott 1986, ISBN 3-7957-1795-7 , p. 113 and p. 143.Data from Wulf Konold: Bernd Alois Zimmermann . DuMont, Cologne 1986, p. 53 and p. 191.
  7. ^ Review by Ralph Paland on info-netz-musik , June 1, 2014; accessed on September 15, 2014
  8. ↑ Monk and Dionysus. The composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann . ( Memento from July 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) WDR, accessed on July 15, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Zimmermann, Bernd Alois
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zimmermann, Bernhard Alois
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Bliesheim
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1970
Place of death Frechen-Koenigsdorf