Düsseldorf School (Electronic Music)

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Düsseldorfer Schule (also: Düsseldorfer Sound or Düsseldorfer Avantgarde) is a style of electronic music that developed in Germany in the early 1970s. The name originated from the main place of activity of the representatives of this style - Düsseldorf .

The Düsseldorf School is one of the two main styles of German electronic music alongside the Berlin School and was created shortly before the Berlin School. In addition to electronic music, pop music from various currents from Düsseldorf is also subsumed under the term Düsseldorf School.

Origins and germ cell

Düsseldorf Art Academy

Joseph Beuys

The environment of the Düsseldorf Art Academy in the 1960s and early 1970s, where art professor Joseph Beuys worked, was important for the development of the Düsseldorf School . Beuys, probably the most important action artist of the 20th century, dealt with numerous media forms of expression in art, including experimental music. In later Fluxus actions, Beuys used tonal and atonal compositions and noise collages, adding microphones, tape recorders, feedback , various musical instruments and his own voice. He worked together with other artists, for example with Henning Christiansen, Nam June Paik , Charlotte Moorman and Wolf Vostell . He particularly appreciated the American composer and artist John Cage . Works like Eurasia and 34th movement of the Siberian Synphony were created with the introductory motif of the division of the cross , 1966. In the action ... or should we change it , 1969, he played the piano and Henning Christiansen played the violin. Beuys swallowed cough syrup while Christiansen played a tape with sound collages made up of voices, birdsong, howls of sirens and other electronic sounds.

In 1969 Joseph Beuys was invited by the composer and director Mauricio Kagel to take part in his film Ludwig van for the 200th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven . Beuys contributed the sequence Beethoven's kitchen with an action . The shooting took place on behalf of the WDR on October 4th in Beuys' studio.

Clubs and studios

An important basis was the scene of clubs and bars such as the Ratinger Hof or the avant-garde club Creamcheese , in which Beuys frequented and organized performances with psychedelic music and experimental films. In this environment stood two protagonists who shaped the sound of Düsseldorf for over a decade: drummer Klaus Dinger and producer Conny Plank . Dinger played in the first line-up of Kraftwerk , together with Plank and guitarist Michael Rother he founded the band Neu! . This generation of musicians from Düsseldorf wanted to be “progressive”. They looked at advertising and industrial design, orientated themselves on the newly emerging synthesizer technology for electronic experimental sound. Producer Conny Plank, who made the first records from Kraftwerk, Neu! or La Düsseldorf behind the mixer was an important source of inspiration. With contacts to the major labels, he was an important catalyst. A decade later, the Düsseldorf electro punks still trusted his “machine park sounds”.

Representative

Kraftwerk: Autobahn on Vinyl (2019)

After their entry into the scene, the first, second and third generation of Düsseldorf electronic musicians are spoken of. Critics characterize the music as techno , synth pop , pop , avant-garde, new wave , post-rock , ambient or electronica , depending on the release .

First generation pioneers

Well-known pioneers were bands based in Düsseldorf such as Kraftwerk, Neu! and La Düsseldorf . Abroad, the music of the pioneers was called Krautrock .

Kraftwerk worked on classics from Düsseldorf such as Autobahn (1974) and We are the robots in the Kling Klang Studio . The Kraftwerk group still exists today. Kraftwerk outshines the scene of all electronic bands from Düsseldorf because it achieved commercial success at an early stage: The Autobahn track hit the US charts. In addition to the music, the visual presentation of Kraftwerk was also unique and claimed to be a performance, a total work of art. However, there was also a wealth gap among artists. While Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider from Kraftwerk came from well-to-do families, so they always had the latest instruments and never had to make a living, others like Klaus Dinger and the La Düsseldorf musicians worked on the construction site to finance their next album.

Although the heterogeneous scene in Düsseldorf is often reported to have coexisted, there were also interactions with the Berlin school. Such was Conrad Schnitzler , a pupil of the object and action artist Joseph Beuys , came in the 1960s from Dusseldorf to Berlin. In 1970 he formed the second formation of the group Tangerine Dream together with Klaus Schulze and Edgar Froese . In the same year he obtained the first synthesizer for the Kraftwerk group .

Second and third generation artists

To the second generation, include u. a. Die Krupps , Liaisons Dangereuses , DAF (German American Friendship) , Rheingold , Der Plan , Pyrolator aka Kurt Dahlke , Belfegore and Propaganda .

The third generation includes a. Kreidler and Mouse on Mars .

style

Rüdiger Esch , bass player in the group Die Krupps (2006)

The Düsseldorf school is heterogeneous. Against the backdrop of Kraftwerk, it is often referred to as "machine music". New! described the music as "motor skills". In any case, she has a penchant for electronic experimentation. As a common feature they can be described as electronic-cool, post-industrial pop music with elements of minimalism and reduction. Some contributions are also minimalist rock music with alienation effects, if z. B. acoustically generated sounds are modified electronically, tape music is played backwards or environmental noises are drawn in. In addition to pure instrumental pieces, language or singing is also used. A deliberately dry, static drum rhythm is typical, underpinned by a synthetic electric bass line as a groove foundation. The basic structure is then supplemented by additive sound elements. In addition to synthetic percussion and bass lines, electric guitars and other instruments are also used.

The time span extends from the analog phase to the digital phase of sound generation. The digital recording technology started around 1986. Electronic sounds that used to be generated in analogue can now be digitally generated, reproduced, stored, put together in a modular fashion, varied and looped. Today's cheap "means of production" enable it to spread to the artist scene. This heralded the current "decentralized era".

development

Building of the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf with the entrance to the Salon des Amateurs (to the right of the main entrance of the Kunsthalle)

New! and Kraftwerk were the most important protagonists of Düsseldorf's electronic music scene. In their home country they were only marginal figures, success only came abroad, especially in England. Celebrated abroad as “visionaries”, experimental music was initially a niche program in Germany. The music of Neu! and La Düsseldorf was a major influence on the music of Brian Eno and David Bowie . Bowie called La Düsseldorf “the soundtrack of the eighties”. This is how Düsseldorf became a Mecca for electronic music.

The success in England, later also in the USA, had reasons. The music was an expression of the post-industrial environment of this time, as well as the dawn of new musical forms of expression in the sense of futurism or modernism.

Even today there is a lively electronic music scene in Düsseldorf around the club “ Salon des Amateurs ” in Düsseldorf's old town. In addition, recording studios such as the still existing Kling Klang Studio or the 3Klang recording studio offer artists a creative platform.

Over the past few years, the Düsseldorf formation Kraftwerk has completed a remarkable process towards the postmodern total work of art. Starting with the exhibition of selected video projections in the Lenbachhaus in Munich (2011) through to retrospectives that have been shown since then. a. took place in MoMA New York, the London Tate Modern, the Burgtheater in Vienna or in the Berlin New National Gallery, Kraftwerk presented itself as an art object. By changing the platform from the concert stage to the museum, the band has once again proven their ability to set trends. Ralf Hütter spoke about the style of Kraftwerk as "industrial folk music".

effect

The Düsseldorf school exerted the greatest influence on the music styles techno , industrial and punk , but is also an important source of inspiration for the new German wave . Many of the ideas developed at the Düsseldorf school were taken up in forms of music such as electronic dance music , new age or ambient music .

Examples

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Beuys in Willoughby Sharp: An interview with Joseph Beuys. In: Artforum , December 1969, p. 46; quoted from Jürgen Geisenberger: Joseph Beuys and the music , p. 30.
  2. ↑ a b c d Ralf Niemcyzk: Düsseldorf Avantgarde: How a City Discovered Electronics. In: https://www.goethe.de/ . Goethe Institute. V., 2016, accessed December 16, 2019 .
  3. ^ A b Christian Werthschulte: Gods from Düsseldorf. In: https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/ . Deutschlandfunk Kultur, October 30, 2015, accessed on December 14, 2019 .
  4. ^ Enno Stahl: Düsseldorf and electronic music. In: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/ . Deutschlandfunk, January 5, 2015, accessed on December 16, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b Immanuel Brockhaus: Kultsounds: The most formative sounds of pop music 1960-2014 . 1st edition. Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-8376-3891-2 , p. 139 .
  6. ^ A b Uwe Schütte: Kraftwerk, DAF and electronic music from Düsseldorf. In: https://www.hsozkult.de/ . H-Soz-Kult, September 21, 2015, accessed December 16, 2019 .