Heinz-Klaus Metzger

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Heinz-Klaus Metzger (born February 6, 1932 in Konstanz , † October 25, 2009 in Berlin ) was a German music theorist and music critic . He was considered to be one of the most important theorists of new music after 1945. Together with Rainer Riehn , he was the founder and editor of the musicological series Music Concepts (until 2003) and querstand. musical concepts .

life and work

Metzger grew up in Konstanz and Dortmund. After graduating from high school early, he studied piano with Carl Seemann at the Freiburg University of Music , where he also met Dieter Schnebel . He then studied composition with Max Deutsch in Paris and Hebrew and Yiddish studies with Mendel Horowitz. He also sat in Willi Baumeister's painting class and learned theory and practice of interpretation from Schönberg's brother-in-law Rudolf Kolisch in Darmstadt. At the Kranichsteiner, later Darmstadt summer courses for new music, he met a. a. Edgar Varèse , Ernst Křenek , Theodor W. Adorno , Eduard Steuermann , Stefan Wolpe , Luigi Nono and Karlheinz Stockhausen . Metzger was able to establish himself as one of the most important theorists and propagandists of serial music at the summer courses. Since 1955 he has worked on the authoritative series “die Reihe” in a prominent position.

During the summer courses in 1950, Metzger's friendship with Adorno, who had just returned from exile, began. Since Metzger's Paris study visit in 1954, both had exchanged letters, which also dealt with Adorno's 1955 essay The Aging of New Music , which Metzger publicly criticized. The correspondence, which both continued until 1967, is scheduled for publication.

In the sixties, Metzger was one of the first European exegetes of John Cage and spokesman for the compositional "anarchy", u. a. with the Cologne Manifesto of 1960 and as editor of Collage in Palermo. From 1957 to 1976 he worked as a music critic, from 1965 to 1969 for the Zurich World Week , and as a university lecturer in Krakow and Stockholm. In 1969 he founded the Ensemble Musica Negativa together with the composer and conductor Rainer Riehn , which took on the performance of radical new music. In 1987 Metzger and Riehn went to the Frankfurt Opera as chief dramaturge under Gary Bertini , where they initiated the composition commission for John Cage's first two operas, Europeras 1 & 2, and oversaw the work dramaturgically.

From 1977 to 2003 Metzger and Riehn published the musicological series Musik-Konzept in the Munich edition text + kritik ; for this they received the German Critics' Prize in 1984 . They continued their life's work in a row . musical concepts continued.

They also edited the first two volumes of Adorno's compositions in the “edition text + kritik”. Metzger holds honorary doctorates from the Berlin University of the Arts and the University of Palermo . Heinz-Klaus Metzger died in Berlin in 2009. He was buried on November 10, 2009 in the Jerusalem churchyard on Mehringdamm in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

Against regressive and postmodern currents in composition, Metzger advocated clinging to the concept of progress, which "seems provocative and needs discussion".

Works

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated November 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , October 26, 2009 Heinz-Klaus Metzger died, accessed on April 15, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.internationales-musikinstitut.de
  2. ^ Heinz-Klaus Metzger , Spiegel , November 17, 1980.
  3. ^ Obituary in the FAZ, November 6, 2009, p. 36.
  4. ↑ Christiane Tewinkel: Music Thinking , Tagesspiegel , October 28, 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Metzger, Heinz-Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German music theorist and music critic
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Constancy
DATE OF DEATH October 25, 2009
Place of death Berlin