Sympathy (music)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term sympathy (from Latin sympathia , Greek sympátheia , “sympathy”) describes a small work of instrumental music by Natias Neutert , which was premiered as a performance under the title Sympathie für Piano und Pump in Berlin in 1988 . Because of its small size and its character as an instrumental piece, it is musically considered a bagatelle . In the sense of an homage , it refers to the oeuvre of the visual artist Joseph Beuys , in particular to the so-called Darmstädter Block .

Peter Adrian Wulff and Natias Neutert , 1988

Concept history

The term sympathy was introduced into music theory by Natias Neutert, through his musical performance with the allusive title Sympathy for Piano and Pump . The musical performance , consisting of three movements, arose in the climate of vehement disputes over the question of whether or not the so-called Darmstadt block - arranged by Joseph Beuys "last hand" in the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt since 1970 - should be moved to other exhibition purposes. “In order to counteract the pupation of the oeuvre of Joseph Beuys in a museum” (Neutert), the total work of art, Natias Neutert , who lived alternately in Berlin and Hamburg at the time, “fell on the ingenious idea of ​​a Third Way:” He used two significant elements from Joseph's sculptural work Beuys, while he only "stole" the piano and air pump symbolically , made them sound in an extremely real way.

premiere

The project was mediated by Heiner Bastian. It was financially possible through a Harald Szeemann scholarship donated to Neutert in cash. The fact that not only Anselm Kiefer from the Odenwald but even the Italian composer Luigi Nono came from Venice especially caused a sensation in the context of Berlin - European City of Culture 1988 . Peter Adrian Wulff was a sensitive pianist; Performer, drummer and “air pump fan” was Natias Neutert himself, as the creator of the whole.

reception

Since during the performance in the Martin-Gropius-Bau recorded and soon after disappeared inexplicably video documentation as after before untraceable, only "ear witnesses" can be somewhat reflect the unusual charm of this event which shortly afterwards in the Hamburger Kunsthalle was re-listed :

  • Wulff "explores the unknown musical-artistic terrain of the wooden material." And when "Neutert plays his flute part, surprisingly clearly melodious and at the same time with a quiet plaintive undertone, the grand piano's resonance body becomes an amplifier, a ventilation hole becomes a microphone."
Record of sympathy by Natias Neutert, facsimile 1987
  • Everything that happens in the three movements [...] "does not only happen in the high- pitched pizzicati, plucked with a fine wire, and the dull pizzicati and the eleven-fine melody particles, not only in the swelling, tremolating, fading of tones that become noises, and of noises that would like to become tones; it happens not only in arpeggios and the airy, hissing, emancipating flute tones that Neutert wrests from his air pump - but also in the many pauses in which the music seems to ponder, in the silence in which the audience takes pleasure in it to listen."
  • "Neutert's sympathy got by without any showmanship: the whole tension developed from music that vibrates back and forth between sound and noise so that you have to listen again, not just hear. A bicycle air pump as a" magic flute "and a piano that became a harp "- in a word:
  • an “idiosyncratic requiem ”.

That the term sympathy has become the name of the piece is proven not least by the young film composer Pablo Paolo Kilian , who subtitled his short journey through time - there and back - and dedicated it to Natias Neutert.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Duden: German Universal Dictionary. Mannheim / Vienna / Zurich, p. 1553.
  2. ↑ See Klaus Thomsen: Sympathy for Piano and Pump. In: Kunst Köln 4, 1988.
  3. ↑ Der Spiegel No. 38/1988.
  4. ^ Klaus Thomsen: Sympathy for piano and pump. In: Kunst Köln 4, 1988.
  5. ↑ See Klaus Thomsen: Sympathy for Piano and Pump. In: Kunst Köln 4, 1988.
  6. ↑ See e.g. B. Parkett (magazine) No 15, February Kunstzeitschrift / Art Magazine, Zurich 1988, p. 189.
  7. ↑ See Laura von Spreckelsen: Border Crossings - on the activities of Natias Neutert in Berlin. In: NEW ART IN EUROPE No. 22, '88.
  8. ↑ Wednesday, September 21, 1988, 8 p.m. in the TiK, Theater in the Kunsthalle.
  9. ↑ Elfie circle: Neuterts, sympathy for piano and pump 'in Gropius-Bau. In: Der Tagesspiegel , May 1, 1988.
  10. ↑ Manfred Sack: Musical Performance - Piano and Pump. In: Die Zeit No. 40, September 30, 1988.
  11. ↑ Michael Huber: You have to listen, not just listen In: Hamburger Rundschau No. 40 of September 29, 1988
  12. ↑ Isabell Främke, Hamburger Morgenpost , September 21, 1988
  13. ↑ See web links.

Web links