Society of free artistic initiatives

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The society of free artistic initiatives (GfkI) was a concert organization, from 1982 to 1989 in North Rhine-Westphalia , particularly in the Cologne-Bonn area , classical concerts and festivals with new program concepts performed.

founding

The organization , constituted as a society under civil law , was founded on October 25, 1982 in Bonn by four students: Wolfgang Badun (student of orchestral conducting at the Cologne University of Music ), overall artistic coordination. W.-Joseph Hölderle ( composition student at the Cologne University of Music) Chairman. Roland Hoinka (student of law at the University of Bonn ), managing director. Roland Hoinka left the company after a year; the management was taken over by Wolfgang Badun. Ingo Metzmacher ( music theory student at the Cologne University of Music), program director .

Program

Cover of the statutes of GfkI from 1982

According to its social contract, the GfkI saw itself primarily as a "free initiative" that wanted to invent, try out and implement other and new content regardless of the constraints of conventional concert operations and its traditional program.

In the preamble of the statutes it says u. a: "A deepening of the lively awareness of new music is given special importance against the background of the occidental tradition ." According to the statutes, "... the promotion and realization of independent artistic projects should be carried out independently of fashion trends and the dictates of an anonymous cultural bureaucracy".

Central concerns:

  • The performance and realization of works outside the usual repertoire that appear to be of particular musical appeal and interest
  • The processing of the repertoire of the so-called " Classical Modernism "
  • To build bridges in the classical repertoire in order to marvel at classical works from today's perspective and vice versa
  • To be a podium for outstanding young soloists and ensembles

financing

The GfkI projects were financed from the founders' own resources, income from the events and donations from private individuals. In individual cases, project grants were received, such as from the Secretariat for Joint Cultural Work NRW, the cultural offices of the cities or fees for radio recordings. In addition, the "GfkI-Förderkreis" established in 1985 made membership fees and donations available. Many volunteers support the often complex projects. The work of the GfkI was particularly promoted by the Rector of the State University for Music Rhineland and later President of the German Music Council Franz Müller-Heuser as well as by other institutions and private individuals.

background

At the beginning of the 1980s it was not yet common to mix different genres and styles in concerts , that is, to perform classical works with works of new music and different musical styles and genres from different epochs in one program. But it is precisely such a genre mix and style clash that has become a focus and trademark of the GfkI programs: In the comparison of musical works that at first glance appear to be far apart in every respect, their musical differences, similarities or analogies should be understandable for the concert-goer made and thus a more conscious listening and a deeper access to the works are made possible. The aim of such cross-programs was to break down entrenched listening conventions and expand them in perspective: The program makers put it this way: “To make the music of our time tangible and to build bridges to older music, which it is new from the perspective of the 20th century to be admired ”. Since the Gfki also acted as a podium for outstanding young soloists and ensembles , contacts were made with like-minded and ideally committed musicians throughout Germany and across Europe. Musicians and ensembles from London , Hamburg , Paris , Hanover , Copenhagen , Freiburg and Essen came to Cologne for the festival on the occasion of the “European Year of Music” (theme year of the European Union 1985) .

In this sense, the GfkI projects were completely new “concerts for thinking and listening” in their time. They mostly had a specific motto or a musical-conceptual idea and were thus a kind of "themed concerts."

Examples

Programs and spectacular performances:

The starting point and criterion for putting together the GfkI projects could be, for example, an unusual cast (example 01), a specific starting point (example 02) or a thematic ascription (example 03); The rule was: the more unusual the better. Such initially non-musical aspects were expanded into a conceptual and musically coherent bracket, within which the musical works across epochs and styles were linked with one another in a direct sounding comparison in order to open up new auditory aspects.

Example 01

Starting point occupation

"Many an organizer would bury such program ideas (if they had them at all ...) after the first organizational considerations - not so the GfkI people: they will stop at nothing!"

Motto: The age of the drum kit has begun. Based on the Ballet mécanique , the sound aspects of the instrumentation of this work are declined. The four pianos are presented on the one hand in combination with 13 percussion instruments (ballet mécanique) and on the other hand in combination with 13 strings (Bach concert). The 13 instruments then appear once again, detached from this (accompanying) connection with the pianos, quasi-solo: the percussions in ionization and the strings in prelude and fugue . How different or similar the same instrument group (s) sound and work in the different combinations and “languages” of the four composers and how the piano is used as a quasi percussion instrument for the first time, shown and conveyed in these cross-over combinations.

Example 02

Starting point room acoustics

  • Poème symphonique (1962) for 100 metronomes by György Ligeti
  • Volumina (1962) for organ by György Ligeti
  • Ramifications (1968) for 12 strings by Györgi Ligeti
  • 3 madrigals Itene o miei, Moro lasso, Ardita zanzaretta by Carlo Gesualdo

The rarely performed Poème symphonique is the programmatic focal point of this concert. The acoustics of a church were chosen as the initial auditory perspective ; In this “sound effect space” (Hölderle) the sober mechanistic aesthetics of the 100 metronomes should (be able) to develop anew into a “pure sound dramaturgical ecstasy,” a quasi sound space composition. Sound space compositions in their purest form, but of a completely different kind, are the three other works juxtaposed with the 100 metronomes: volumes for organ, which creates shimmering beats in space with clusters and interference effects , as well as the ramifications for 12 strings and finally - as a jump within the bracket in the late Renaissance - three madrigals for choir ( a cappella ). The Poème symphonique creates the strongest contrast to the madrigals; It is the contrast between the aesthetics of the Fluxus movement of the 1960s and the understanding of style of the vocal polyphony of the 16th century - but also the contrast between a mechanical device (the metronome) multiplied to a 100-part musical instrument and the human voice , multiplied by also polyphonic a cappella choral setting. In this way, in addition to the experience of the tonal spatial effects of the music, the audience should be able to recognize in this program how terms and ideas in modern times change and expand in relation to the understanding of what a musical instrument is and means.

Example 03

Starting point topic

Opening concert for the '84 Festival in Cologne with the Black Angels and the world premiere of the Blake Light Tragedy
  • Black Angels (1970) by George Crumb
  • Blake Light Tragedy (1982) by Werner-Joseph Hölderle

The program focuses on the "Dark Side" or "Dark World" - which means the dark and abysmal side of human existence or the world of sensation and expression. The juxtaposed works of two contemporary composers make it possible to experience the different compositional and musical-dramatic ways in which this gloomy subject can be explored.

Subject: In Black Angels, George Crumb makes a clear reference to a period of war with the subtitle in tempore belli and refers to the specific war event (and suffering) in Vietnam and explores this musically in 13 images. The subtitle Wartime in the Blake Light Tragedy also means wartime, but is understood poetologically by Joseph Hölderle and relates to the raging despair inside the human being; this is reflected in the texts used, which describe the »spiritual hell trip« (The Composer) of the New York hipsters .

Instrumentation: Black Angels is instrumental for string quartet and additional instruments such as crystal glasses , tam-tams , maracas , etc., plus there is an electronic sound reinforcement of the instruments, without which certain sound effects would not be audible. The Blake Light Tragedy operates with the classic full line-up of solos, choir and orchestra and also uses special instruments that are seldom heard (because they are extremely rare) such as sub- double bass saxophone , bass trombones and wind machines .

Sound Effects: Both works use unusual sound effects to create a hallucinatory and cryptic expression. The means for this are special and sometimes noisy ways of playing the instruments. In Black Angels , sound generators such as crystal glasses or the electronic amplification placed on the instruments are added and in the Blake Light Tragedy the singers and the choir are involved with whispering , murmuring or speaking as well as the above-mentioned special instruments in generating such (orchestral) sound effects .

Composition: Black Angels consists of 13 pictures, which are arranged mirror-symmetrically around the axis of the 7th picture. A mystical - religious number symbolism organizes tone groups and sequences. The number 13 , which exceeds the sacred number 12 (the 12 disciples of Jesus ) and stands for death (and the devil ), plays a prominent role . Numerical ratios are used for fine-tuning, such as E.g. in the first picture: 13 times 7 (13 sequences of 7 groups of 1/8 value) and 7 times 13 (4 sequences of 13 keystrokes and 3 sequences of the small ninths (13 semitones)). The archaic - mythical conception has religious connotations , is stylistically very free and it draws on various historical quotations .

The Blake Light Tragedy consists of a sequence of fragmented and superimposed highly expressive fragments, which are stylistically in the footsteps of the European post-war avant - garde, but already follow a post-modern dramaturgy and logic . In its explosive concentration and force and the abrupt changes in expression and gesture , this avalanche of fragments corresponds to the original text, a wild collage of death-drunk poetry by Allen Ginsberg and Rolf Dieter Brinkmann as well as the Latin antiphon of the 91st psalm and a haiku .

Example 04

Starting points diversity

The festivals

The '84 Festival (30 works by 12 composers with 40 soloists, two choirs and orchestra within 5 days) and the '85 Festival (35 works by 22 composers with 45 soloists and four ensembles within 12 days) strengthened the GfkI brand. With these series of events (concerts, lectures , night sessions , film screenings , matinees ) the variety of musical languages ​​should be documented, whereby thematic focal points and musical accents for orientation were set over and over again.

Special projects

Composition competition

Following the innovative claim of the GfkI's program, a composition competition was held as part of the "Festival '85" in cooperation with the cultural office of the city ​​of Cologne , West German Broadcasting , the University of Music and a publishing house. The new composition of a wind quintet was written out . While in such composition competitions a jury usually decides on the winner (s) alone and usually in secret ballot, in this case the audience , the performing musicians and an expert jury (made up of a senior radio editor, three university professors, the cultural advisor and one representative each from the freelance scene and one representative from the GfkI) in the decision-making process. The experiment turned out to be problematic in terms of implementation and ultimately failed, as it touched one of the most sensitive points of the avant-garde today, the question of selection criteria and legitimation .

  • Festival 1984. Program booklet

  • Festival 1985. Program booklet

  • Concours / concert

Dissolution of the company

Two main reasons led to the dissolution of the company:

  1. Dissent regarding the strategic and programmatic orientation .
  2. The GfkI ideas increasingly found their way into the general development.

To 1:

Over the years, the company's planning staff came to differing views on issues of program and cultural policy. Two basic orientations were available:

Orientation A: Keeping the programs open for all compositional styles within New Music. By mapping the broad spectrum of stylistic diversity, a broad discussion with and in the audience about the development of new music should be stimulated, including projects such as the above-mentioned composition competition with the audience and musicians participating in the evaluation. The musical development process should continue to run organically and sui generis by “maintaining the power of the audience as the constructive and value-creating friction surface between artist and public”. This line was preferred by W.-Joseph Hölderle.

Orientation B: opening up the concert form to more experimental formats (e.g. productions), a stronger integration of works that convey the musically absurd and playful, as well as a concentration on the established names in the avant-garde scene. Ingo Metzmacher preferred this line.

To 2:

A few years after the first GfkI projects, other organizers increasingly took up the GfkI program concept. For example, the program booklet of the Philharmonie Köln from 1986 said: “The listener will have to make efforts, but they will encourage his interest in contemporary art and perhaps also allow him to hear the classical works of the music repertoire again!” In the concerts of many soloists and ensembles, too, there was an increasing number of work sequences such as “Schönberg-Brahms-Webern” or “Stockhausen-Beethoven-Stravinsky”; the “cross principle” and the building of bridges between different styles and genres began to prevail everywhere. The new ideas of the GfkI had evidently proven to be fruitful and slowly gained acceptance, although rarely or rarely with the same sophistication and radicalism. "Development caught up with us, ... it followed us, something we could be proud of!"

Classification / topicality

The merit of the Society for Free Artistic Initiatives (GfkI) lies in breaking up and expanding old program structures and establishing conceptual cross-connections across style and genre boundaries as a new program structure and principle of communication. This gave important impulses and suggestions for the subsequent developments.

As one of the consequences of the fall of the inner-German wall , the core repertoire of new music, which had been relatively narrowed up to that point, was expanded again to include works that, apart from the “representational style of modernity” (Hölderle / essay dto.), Mark other paths in the West . At the same time, the variety of concert formats and the freedom in the program compositions increased, which often drifts into arbitrariness. For several years now, program makers, artistic directors and orchestral directors have been asking more and more frequently what Beethoven, Bach or Schumann have to say to us today again or again and how these musical works, not least against the background of decreasing general musical and cultural education, are presented and understandable can be conveyed adequately.

Many considerations and program orientations in recent and contemporary musical life take up central approaches and ideas from the conception of the GfkI projects from the early 1980s and thus the mission of the GfkI program pioneers: to build bridges between the apparently incompatible and, from today's perspective, the old again learn to marvel anew.

List of the most important composers listed

List of the most important ensembles and artists involved

  • Auryn string quartet (Matthias Lingenfelder, Jens Oppermann, Stuart Eaton, Andreas Arndt)
  • Bonn Sinfonietta (director Wolfgang Badun)
  • Camerata de Versailles, Paris (Dir .: Amaury du Closel)
  • Collegium musicum vocale Cologne (Head: Dieter Gutknecht)
  • Forma3, Paris (music theater group)
  • Mannheim String Quartet (Daniel Bell, Shinkyung Kim, Sebastian Bürger, Armin Fromm)
  • Sebastian String Quartet (Ursula Esch, Karel Walravens, Florian Kapitza, Sebastian Frick)
  • Singspiel Cologne, vocal ensemble (director: Norbert Bolin)
  • Anders, Paul - trumpet
  • Arrenas, Patricia - piano
  • Badun, Wolfgang - conductor
  • Boege, Andres - oboe
  • Bolin, Norbert - conductor
  • Böttcher, Andreas - drums
  • Braun, Richard - piano
  • De Bruyn, Christian - piano
  • Dehning, Martin - violin
  • Dombrowski, Detlev - trumpet
  • Dries, Maria - alt
  • Du Closel, Amaury - conductor
  • Elisbeth Grau - oboe
  • Fervers, Andreas - piano
  • Green-Armytage, Christopher - piano
  • Griffith, Beth - vocals
  • Grothe, Friedhelm - bassoon
  • Guerin, David - piano
  • Gutknecht, Dieter - conductor
  • Hardenberg, Roland - violin
  • Hashimoto, Akemi - piano
  • Havenith, Raymund - piano
  • Hitzden v. Lupaszkov - trumpet
  • Hoitenga, Camilla - flute
  • Hölderle, W.-Joseph - piano
  • Jüttendonck, Christian - violoncello
  • Kasper, Michael M. - violoncello
  • Keulertz, Birgit - soprano
  • Koch, Frederike - Viola
  • Kondas, Matthias - trombone
  • Koy, Henrik - spokesperson
  • Kretschmar, Herrmann - piano
  • Lott, Dietrich - flute
  • Machnik, Hubert - speaker
  • Manno, Ralph - clarinet
  • Metzmacher, Ingo - conductor
  • Metzmacher, Ingo - piano
  • Metzmacher, Rudolf - violoncello
  • Müller, Rainer - clarinet
  • Niesemann, Michael - oboe
  • Obst, Michael - piano
  • Oh, Jimin - piano
  • Oldemeyer, Klaus - piano
  • Oppermann, Jens - violin
  • Pelegrini, Antonio - violin
  • Pfeiffer, Sabine - violoncello
  • Rundel, Peter - violin
  • Disk, Gernod - horn
  • Stenz, Markus - conductor
  • Sturm, Wolf-André - bass-baritone
  • Teske, Hannelore - soprano
  • Varsanyi, Miklos - horn
  • Vickers, Catherine - piano
  • Wakefield, Benjamin - Speaker
  • Wicke, Berthold - organ
  • Windfuhr, Ulrich - conductor
  • Zeijl, Freerk - flute

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Articles of GfkI, S. 3, 1982
  2. ↑ p. 2, statutes from 1982
  3. ↑ Articles of GfkI 1982
  4. ↑ GfkI Festival Program 1984 / Foreword
  5. ↑ Hans G. Schürmann, critic Bonner Stadtanzeiger / Festschrift for the 5th anniversary / published by GfkI Cologne / Bonn.
  6. ^ In Journal , published by the Cologne University of Music / State Library in North Rhine-Westphalia, Society of Independent Artistic Initiatives
  7. ↑ Studies on the string quartet Black Angels / audimax
  8. ↑ W.-Joseph Hölderle: The Representation Structure of New Music , Essay 1994
  9. ^ Program booklet of the Cologne Philharmonic, 1986 season
  10. ↑ Ingo Metzmacher, letter from January 17, 1986 / private archive