Performance as Composition

8/13/2019 Performance as Composition

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Performance as Composition

Author(s): Heiner Goebbels and Stathis GourgourisSource: PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Sep., 2004), pp. 1-16Published by: The MIT Presson behalf of Performing Arts Journal, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3246471.

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PERFORMANCEAS COMPOSITION

Heiner GoebbelsInterviewed by Stathis Gourgouris

or more than two decades the German composer Heiner Goebbels haswritten music for theatre, ballet, opera, radio, TV, and concert hall as well astape compositions and sound installations. He has created music for manytheatreproductions, such as Dantons Death, directedby Ruth Berghaus,and RichardIII, directed by Claus Peyman. In recent years New York audiences have beenintroduced to his work with performances of Hashirigakiat the BAM Next WaveFestival and Eislermaterialand Black on Whitewith the Ensemble Modern at the

Lincoln Center Festival. Goebbels had worked frequently with the texts of HeinerMuiiller,ncluding The Liberationof Prometheus,Shadow/Landscapewith Argonauts,WolokolamskHighway, and The Man in the Elevator, seen in New York at TheKitchen within days of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It featured Miiller himself readinghis text, accompanied by the musicians Don Cherry,Arto Lindsay,George Lewis,and Ned Rothenberg. Other authors whose writings have been used in musicalsettings are Gertrude Stein, Poe, Thoreau, Robbe-Grillet, and Kierkegaard.PaulAuster's In the Country of Lost Things was featured in SurrogateCities. HeinerGoebbels' music is performed frequently in festivals on several continents(www.heinergoebbels.com). In 2003, Sir Simon Rattle conducted his orchestrapiece, From a Diary, in its Berlin Philharmonic premiere. This interview wasconducted in New York,March 19, 2003.

Welcomeo the United States extend thegreeting n the ashion that FrankZappa doesin hispiece with the EnsembleModern, but with thepresentmoment in mind. I wantedto ask the art-in-relation-to-politics uestionlast, and Ifeel I have to ask it at the outsetbecause he historicaloccasiondemands it. So, I would likeyou to consider heproblemthat one'sart can never entirelycontrolthe context of itsperformance.The New Yorkperformanceof your piece Hashirigaki happensto coincide with the initiation of thebombing campaign in Iraq. If nothing else, this is what the audience brings to thetheatre; ts thoughtand affect s weigheddown bythisoccasion,whetheracknowledged rnot.

PAJ 78 (2004), pp. 1-16. * 12004 Stathis Gourgouris

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I doubt that an artist has much of an influence on the political relevance of hisartistic work. If art is too much on purpose, if its destination is too obvious, it losescertain qualities as artwork. As Heiner Miiller points out: "It is like harnessing ahorse to a car. The car doesn't run well and the horse doesn't survive it either." So Ithink it's good that the artist does not completely control the political context of aperformance. Especially if you are a political artist and you want the work to beopen to the world, to whateveroccurs out there, I think one day or anotheryou willface such a coincidence. It is much better than to pretend that your work isimminently actualized. I'm very skeptical about direct political relation betweenartistic statement and the messageto the audience. Once you'reworking in an open-minded way, I trust that sooner or later the work will come to breathe in thesituation around it. I'm not sure how this will come to be with Hashirigaki,whichis rather colorful and playful and perhaps light, except to say that the piece alreadystands in a strong controversialposition towardmy other work, which is ratherdarkand concrete.I just finished an opera in Geneva, called Landscapewith Distant Relatives,where Ialso used texts by Gertrude Stein, from Wars Have Seen,which she wrote duringthe Second World Warin the south of France.Texts she wrote sixty or seventy yearsago nowadays seem as if they were written yesterday.It's much better this way: todiscover, almost by an accident, the political importance in the material than topretend there is such importance in advance. This pertainsas well to Eislermaterial.I don't deny the historical difference between this piece now and Hanns Eisler'ssituation. In fact, I do the opposite. I ratherenlarge the differences by putting theoriginal musical material in a sound-frame which is quite "old-sounding"(with theharmonium, the big bassdrum and the particularway of singing), preciselyin orderto allow the audience to discover how close a connection it can feel to this sound, orhow touched it can be by this nostalgic material.I preferthat the audience discoversthis on its own than insisting on how important and actual his work is nowadays.Infact, I had Eisler in mind as well. I askedtheprevious questionin the way one wouldask it of Hanns Eisler in the 1940s. During the war and in exile Eislersimilarlydid nothave control over the contextof hisperformances ompared o the way he did, let us say,during the time of performingDie Mutter around Germany, n 1932.Actually, I just saw a Berliner Ensemble performance of Die Mutter. It's veryinteresting how these words fall now on completely different ground than even tenyearsago. I mean, in the 80s everybodywould be so provoked by their strangeness;they sounded so far away.While now-unfortunately, I have to say-the floor isready again for such words.Thestorybetweenyou and Eisler is a very ong story,asyou haveacknowledged.But alsoit's evident in the recordings,he history of your recordings. m veryinterested n yourvariousglosseson Eisler and I've gone back recentlyeven to your earlier work. YouobviouslyrevisitEislerswork,as if drawingfrom an unendingpool. Therecord ou didwith AlfredHarth in 1976 (Vier Fauste fiir Hanns Eisler) is a bit of a deconstruction

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Eislermaterial,a stage concert with Ensemble Modern and actor Joseph Bierbichler.Photo: Courtesy Lincoln Center Festival.

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of specificEislertunes or even his tonalities n general; he word "deconstruction"soverused, ut I can't hinkof a betterone here.WhileEislermaterials not quiteadeconstruction;ts a sortof distillation, contemplationf the corematerialofEisler.Andthere s lotsofwork n between.'mnotsurehowI'dcategorizeheDuck and Coverperformance1985) in thisrespect.ndcertainly,he brassroup ou ounded n the ate70s,Sogenanntesinksradikaleslasorchester,ad a distinctive islerianeel, thoughtwasalsoveryoose tructurally.ow is all thisconnectedforou,bothmusically utalsopolitically?I thinkall thisstartedn the mid-70s.Listening o Eislerchangedmylife. His workconveyed o me that there s awayin whichmusicandpoliticscan be linked,not byforming one layer upon anotherbut by incorporating he politicalwithin themusicalmaterial.That'swhat I learned romhim,and that'swhatmademy decisionto studymusic aftersociology.So, I owehim a lot. And, asyou said,I performedlot of his workbefore discovered ifferentmodesof working, ikeliteraryexts,etc.ButwhenI got this commission or his 100thanniversary,n 1998, I discovered hateven when I had sort of "forgotten"im Eislerwas always here. Evenduringmyclose collaborationwith an author who is considereda grandchildof BertoltBrecht-you know,when I wasworkingwith Heiner Miiller-I neverthoughtofEisler,perhapsbecauseof a differentmode of working.With Miiller, workedwithliteraryexts that reston a notion of landscape r on textsand musicwherethe twoelements arecompetitivewith each other,whereasEislerworkeddifferentlywithtexts;he composedsongs.But,of course,thiswayof accepting iterary exts as anauthority or the music is ultimatelyverycloselyrelated o the work of EislerandBrecht.And it'snice to discoverafter wentyyearsof working n differentareas hatan undercurrent elationwasalways here.We've een alking boutEislerbutyourworkas a wholebelongs ot ust to Eislerbut toBrechtas well in a directsense.And again, not merely o the Brecht/Eisleruo ascomposerndlyricist ut to bothofthemasdramatic ndperformativertists.Brecht sa dramaturg, believe,s crucial oyourperformativenderstandingnd it is in thissense hatI seeyourassociation ithHeinerMiiller.Allofthisconstellationelongso thegreattraditionof Musik Drama in Germanart, but explicitly oliticized.(I wouldincludeAdornos eading f Wagnern this as well.)How doyousituate ourselfn thistradition?n whatsense s musica dramatic erformanceor you?I alwaysconsideredmusic to be boringwithout an externalframe of reference.Musicwas mostinterestingo me when it had a referenceo the non-musicalworld.If this referencewasn't here then music wasjusta private hingfor me evenin theearlierdays.So, I started o do a lot of film scoresand composewith words andrarelydid "autonomous" usicalwork until the late-80s or early-90s.That'swhy IthinkI discovered,with the helpof Eislerof course, hattheremustbe a gesture nmusic. Musicwhich chattersawaydoes not interestme. I can see the circumstancesof my musicalbiographyas quite logical actually. n my developmentI came toinclude moreandmoremedia,but I didn't tart hatwayand didn'tuse them allat

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once butmoved romone into anotherand so on. But the basicassumption-musicreacting rreferringo otherartformsor otherformsof perception-has been withme since the beginning.I like Bachandthat'swhereI come from,not Chopin,forexample,wherethe pianisticvirtuositywill alwaysbe celebrated.It'sfunny,I hadin mynotesherea sortof off-beat uestion,whichI mightas wellasknow.WhatdoesEislerowe toBach?The effectis quitedirect.Actually, herehavebeencertainmusicological tudies nGermanywhich havepointedto passagesn EislerexemplifyingdirectquotesfromBach, ike in the beginningof the Die Mutter antata,where t is quiteevident. Heloved the functionalityof Baroquemusic. There are also direct quotes fromSchubert,by the way.I rememberedhinking his whenIfirst heard omeofEislers antatas. hadgottenmyfirstrecordingsn EastBerlinaround1980. Nowadays,muchofthishasbeen ransferredto CDs, including hegreathistoric ecordingsf thepre-Naziyearswith ErnstBuschsinging.Thearrangementsrequiteremarkable.So,you would haveheard herecordingswhereEisler ingshimself.Forme this washugely important.HearingEislersinging the Balladevon der haltbarenGraugans(Balladof the GreyGoose)made me think of usingthesaxophone nsteadof goingdirectly o thewords,because hesingingsoundedso instrumental,hewayhe usedhis voice, amazing.Yes,here s a wholeway of singing n this, letssay,epictheatre radition hat'squitecompelling.ts a wholenew senseof musical erformativitynd Eislerwasentirelyelf-consciousfitsimportance.utI want to comeback othequestion boutMusikDramaand HeinerMullerparticularly. ow didyou become o extensivelynvolvedwithhiswork?What s theimportancef his workor you musicallynddramatically?meannotjust thepoetryitself (whichis singularand barelyevaluatedas poetryoutsideGermany), ut his wholeconceptualizationrperhapshis method. s it a matterofmethod?I thinkthat,generally peaking, he kindsof textsI like to workwith arealwaysbyauthorswho strongly onsider he matterof literaryorm andstructure simportantas the content,the semantics.Hence the few authors hat reachthis level for me:GertrudeStein and Heiner Muller-who havea lot in common,by the way-andKafka,andEdgarAllanPoein away,becausehe was ableto instrumentalizeisstyletoward he intentionof his text;he couldslipinto differentpathsof writing.This isthe basicviewI haveon literaryexts,which is not onlyon what heytell but on howtheytell. Andif thisquestionof "how"hasa musicaldimension, ikethe rhythm nGertrudeStein or the substantial eduction o singlewords n HeinerMuller, henI canwork,thenI havesomething o do, because can make his syntax ransparent.I can tryto enlarge he view on the architecture f the text, to readthe text with a

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magnifying glass. My interest is to sharemy observations with the reader or with thelisteneror, looking behind the authors'way of writing, to show some of theirwritingstrategies, to be able to understand more levels than just the overall semantic one.So, you are in a sense,as a musician and a composer,acting as a readerof literature,makingthe readingof literature heprimarymodeof makingmusic.That'safascinatingway to go about it.That's right. Reading as a form of composition.You know, I rememberyour performance of Heiner Miiller's The Liberation ofPrometheus, which I saw at Delphi, in the ancient stadium in 1995, and remainsstillone of the most memorable heatricalexperiences f my life. It was the closest ever cameto havingsome sortof understandingof whatAeschylean heatremighthave looked ike,which had always been a mystery-the idea of the one actor,particularly.It's interesting you say that because you have experienced so much Greek theatre.Well,I was astonished.And I came thereknowing the Miiller text verywell. The onescene that reallygot through o me was the one whereHercules s circlingaround the rockbecause he stenchrom the encrustedfecess so intolerable,and he is circlingaroundtherockforthreethousand ears,as the textsays,and thenanother three housandyears,andso on, tryingtofind theproperanglefor ascent.And the way you did this, with ErnstStotznergoing wayout to theend of thestadium,whichfrom the audiencespoint of viewon thefront end, wheretheperformancespaceis set up, is pitch black, with only theshadowsof thetipsof the treesrom thesurroundingwoodsshowingover theDelphigorgeand the starryskyoverhead, o thatyou lose all senseofproportion, ust like in the text.But the sheer eel of the experiencewasprofoundlytheatrical,thoughthe essenceof theperformance was musical, strictly speaking. The drama came through the musicalperformance,not throughthe acting in the conventional sense, though Stotzner is abrilliantactor,no doubt. Thepoint is that the wholething wasextraordinarilyheatricalwithout any 'traditional" heatrical elements.But the key for this scene, you see, is in the sentence itself. The complexity of thesentence is performing exactly the difficulty of Hercules to reach Prometheusbecause the sentence doesn't reach the point without a lot of grammaticalobstacles.The circling and circling creates obstacles and you can't understandfinally, you can'treach the point of resolution of meaning, let's say. Especially not with the firstreading.Let'sextend this way of lookingat things to the Schliemannpiece you did. First of all,what is the connection between the theatricalpiece, Schliemann Scaffolding (1997)and the earlier musicalpiece, Schliemann's Radio (1992)?I did a piece in Frankfurt n 1990, collaboratingwith a set designer,Michael Simon.We called it Newtons Casino, but it was in fact a piece about Schliemann's

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excavations nd his diaries.And he did this amazingset-it was exactlysomehowwhat I just describedabout the sentenceof Heiner Miiller.He emptiedout thewholetheatre-the audiencewasonly sitting n the balcony-and he put in thereagiant mobile machine with a set of buildings which he reconstructed romSchliemann'slanof the wall of Troy.So, in a very customaryway,he put togetherthe sketchof the ruinsof Troy n a three-dimensionalonstantlymovingmachine-likething.It was a wonderfulwork, n whichwe included he texts of thediary.Butwhen we performedt we took all the textsout-we thoughtit was betterwithouttext-so it was like a big installation f sound andmusic,voices,etc. For the radioversion,I broughtback the diarytext.Its interesting ecausen mysenseof theradiopieceit seemsas if Schliemann,n hisobservations, ightbemakingafield recording, hich s obviously form of musicaswellashistory.Theres a realsenseofalmostethnographicpacenscribedn the music.Yes, n factwhenI did the recordingn the studioI clearedout an areaon the floorwherethe performerwouldwalkaround n front of the wall of inscriptions. n thetheatricalperformancewe subsequentlydid in Greece, I enrichedthe writtenmaterial,and wrote a part for the "folksinger,"which was performedby LydiaKoniordou.1t was realfun working here. It premieredn Olos.Yes, remember.wasn'tn Greecehen,butmyriends,whoknewofmy nterestnyourwork, entme otsofpress lippings.t wasquiteexciting.Andseeinghe video ater wasimpressedith thewayyou usedGreekmusic.Whichbringsme toanother etofnoteshavehere,concerningourabilityto weave ogetherotsof, let ussay,"non-European"musicalmaterialwithyourown. Thework oudid with theAfricanmusicalmaterialnOu bien le debarquementdesastreux(1993) was particularly mpressive-thesepassages ith thekora, heelectricuitar,and thetrombone,ll woven n a contrapuntalrelation o each other.Whatconcernsme is thequestionof how we can avoid,whenintertwiningll sortsofmusical nd cultural lements, sortofpostmodern ricolage,kindofmixingofcommodities?ightwespeakofa certaindramatic thos erhaps, ra musical thos,all of which s alsoa specificolitics?How do we avoid thistrap?Well, I try to be veryawareof this trap,and I try to constructa lot of criteria owhich I then submit my choice of material.In the case of both pieces youmentioned,in the processof one or two yearsin advance,I createda systemofoutlines,which I probably nstallin my body becauseI'm not able to be totallyconsciousof all this, that serve as a systemof criteria.I then pour throughthissystem my musicalmaterial,and whatever allsthrough t I throwout. And onlywhat remainsalongwith thesecriteria thenuse.Forexample, he soundchoiceinOu bien le debarquementesastreux as completely aithfulto whateverhas to dowith wood, because the forestwas somehow one of the elements that patchedtogether his choice of texts of HeinerMiiller,FrancisPonge,andJosephConrad.Behindthis theme of conquestand estrangement,herewas a whole metaphoricsubstratum uilt on the different deasof forest.So I onlychose soundmaterial hatfit into that.I'mquitesuperstitious oncerningmaterial. n the Schliemannwork,I




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was very aware hat all the materialsmust have their roots aroundsome center,whichI tried to keepopen of course,but theywereall related o this centerbeforeI chosethem.A thing that remainsconsistentlyascinating n your music is the entwinementofcompositionndimprovisation.anyouspeak littlebit abouthowyouunderstandhisentwinement? ow improvisationmightin fact be compositionn itself?Or,how itmightbe linked operformance?I think improvisations the last step in what I describeas buildinga systemofcriteria;t's the last step in usingmusicalmaterial,not the firststep.In this wholelongprocessof composition,I alwaysallowmyself o improviseaswell,but I do sobecause think that the pathswhich arealreadyn placeareso limited,so definedby what I mayhave been doing in the periodof contextualizinghe material, hatwhatever maybe improvisingwill necessarily e within the pathof composition.So yes, I do allowmyselfto improvisen the compositionprocess,but in the veryend everything s completely precise.Though music will not alwaysbe writtendown, it will be completelyprecise n the way it is appointed.Forinstance, n TheLiberationofPrometheushere s not one note writtendown, but everyshow is likeeveryother.Yousee, there is a lot of freedom n creatinga veryprecisewindow ofmusic to which all the musiciansagree.Since we'realkingdirectly boutmakingmusic, et me askyou:doyou stillplay thesaxophone?No. I haven't layed orprobably.. I don'teven remember . . fifteenyearsmaybe.Doyou miss t?No, I only learnedt in threemonths to be able to found this brassband.Itwasbyvirtueof a certainmusical-politicalerspective,n manywaysalready rescribed ymy universityresearchon Hanns Eisler,with which I completedmy sociologystudies.And I'msure therewerea coupleof biographicaltrong mpressionswhichhelpedme to thinkthisup:a lot of free azzconcertsn theearly70s, aswell as someotherexperimental rassgroups, ike De Volharding, roundLouis AndriessennAmsterdam.The nice thing with this band was that it balancedout all kinds ofdifferent riginsof musicianship. herewereprofessionalmusicians ndcomposers,like my teacherRolf Riehm,or othercolleagues romthe musicconservatory,ndalso jazz players, ike Alfred Harth and ChristophAnders.And therewere alsopolitically nterestedmusicaldilettantes.And so we camenicelytogetherandwereableto balanceour interests n a veryopen and frankensemblesort of way.It is here that I also learned about collectivejudgment in relation to variouscommitments, o decisionsabout where to perform,or what to perform,how tolearna piece,how to composeit, etc.-you know,collective udgment n musicalterms in the widest sense-which was very helpful and constructive.I never

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Black on White, music theatre with Ensemble Modern at Lincoln Center Festival.Photo: Robert Douglas, courtesy Lincoln Center.

Black on White,music theatrewithEnsemble Modernat Lincoln CenterFestival. Photo:Wonge Bergmann,courtesy LincolnCenter.

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considered these decisions to get in the way of my aesthetic point of view. I foundit a very helpful experience to accept that, as a composer, you don't have to be alonein your room. It was very important for me.Well,you have always workedcollectivelyand collaboratively.This is self-evident n theentirerange ofyour work over theyears.Yes, that'swhy the collaboration with the Ensemble Modern was so workable. Yousee, the political challenge begins for me with the ways of production. As theGerman film critic Georg Seesslen recently pointed out, "an artwork with manyparticipants and collaborators, like in film or theatre, has to reflect the internalrelationships.As an experienced spectator you can easily see if the director uses theactors and musicians in a hysterical repressiveauthoritarianway, or if he is able tocreate with them in a fruitful atmosphere. You can see by the performance if thedirector is an asshole."I try an open process, in which every light technician or wardrobe assistant can easilymake suggestions and everyone in the crew alwayshas a fair chance to make the bestout of his field (light, sound, stage, costume, musicians, performersetc.). It ends upbeing very precise, of course, because the combination of all these media can onlywork properly with precision. Black on Whitewouldn't have been possible withoutthe strong inspiration and creativitynot only by the staff, but also all the musiciansincluded. They proposed to bring instruments; they developed characters, atmo-spheres, gestures, etc. Also, the fact that the music seems to have diverse culturalbackgrounds, the fact that three different languages are spoken (and in the latestopera six ) is not a postmodern invention, but only the outcome of the internation-ality of the Ensemble: with American, Australian, French, South American, British,Japanese,Swiss, Indian and, of course, German players.You can hear it in the piece.This piece is musically designed to be a portraitof a collective, not based on specialsolo protagonists. I hope that an audience is able to conceive this respectful,decentralizedperspective as a political quality, a gesture that liberates the senses.And with Eislermaterialespecially, tried to build three or four differentways of howthe musicians can incorporatethe material instead of just playing the parts. Because,you know, the Ensemble Modern play some hundred concerts a year; they performworks from all sorts of differentcomposers. But, thinking entirely in terms of Eisler,I wanted them to incorporate, to embody, the material: first of all, by not givingthem a conductor, which means that eachplayermust know exactlywhat everybodyelse plays; second, by having them participate in the process of arranging thematerial (who plays what); third, asking them to improvise on the material,whichdemands that everyone must be very aware of what they are riding on; fourth, bychoosing a stage construction that, as you've seen in the video, is three sides of asquare on an empty stage. This means to amplify and make public the necessarycommunication of them performing without a conductor, indeed by including theaudience as an important fourth part, fourth side.

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It becomes sort of a Lehrstiickn a way, because the musicians have to go throughthis experience learning the material. When they'replaying a very intimate stringtrio, for example, the violin, viola, and cello are in entirely different sides of the set,having the biggest distance between them, fifteen meters or so. And when they haveto communicate on this intimate passageeven the last row of the audience will noteit because it is so public.Thatsfascinating. Youknow,FrankZappas workwith the EnsembleModernstrikesmeas verysimilar in this way,althoughnot the splittingup of musicians.But he alsospenta long time teaching them to improvise with a certain attitude, a non-musical,performativetonality, if I may say it that way. But they are, of course,extraordinarymusicians.That's not the main point. Of course, they are incredible virtuosi, extraordinarymusicians. But the real difference is that they area self-organizedensemble, and thismakes their motivation so much higher than in the case of an orchestrawhere anartistic director tells them "tomorrowyou play Eisler" and the day after whateverelse, and then "weget a break."That'sthe difference.They decide whether they wantto work with me, where to perform, what to do next, etc. As musicians, they decidecollectively on all aspects of the ensemble, musical and non-musical aspects.Theway we aretalkingis leadingme to askabout rockmusic.I don'tknowwhy. Maybebecausewe aretalkingaboutthegroupprocess. wouldn'tidentifyyou as a rockmusicianbut thepresenceof rockmusic is all overyour work.So, what is the importanceof rockmusicfor you? How haveyou found yourselfinhabiting this domain over theyears, ormaybe,if not inhabiting it, going in and out of it at differenttimes, traversingt? Is ita matter of a certain kind of sound, a certain ethos, a matter of technology, ofperformance?I grew up with classicalmusic in my parents'house and with pop music. There wasno experience of contemporary music otherwise. I was very interested in visual arts,contemporary visual arts. But pop music was my most important influence afterclassicalmusic. And my firstway of liberating myself from teacherswho taught methe classical repertoirewas to play songs that I heard on the radio, songs of theBeatles, the Beach Boys. Later on, I had a band and we played Eric Burden, JimiHendrix pieces, whatever. But this is how I learned a certain freedom, primarily inthe way of performance,non-conducted performance,and definitely the freedom increating music together as a group, which is really the most important thing aboutrock music. I mean, what is Paul McCartney without John Lennon? Even if JohnLennon didn't write as much, even if they didn't actuallywrite everything togetheror equally every part, etc., it is by the very discussions they had about the material,by the encounter itself, that the great pieces happened. The encounter was thecreative instance. No one was ever, truly, working alone. And the thing about rockmusic is also the belief in the structure.The point is not so much to worry about theharmonies, not so much to worry about the solos or the lyrics. It's really to pay

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attention to the structure, the rhythm breaks, the orchestration, the sound-that'swhat rock music is all about.Wouldyou consider Cassibera rockgroup?I guess we were considered an art-rockgroup or something. No, I wouldn't considerus a rock group;we were too weird in a way. But when we tried to improvise,we allagreed not to improvise as jazz musicians. We improvised shapes, we improvisedsong forms. The earlyCassiber albums Man orMonkey(1982) or TheBeautyand theBeast(1984), though they seemed like collections of songs, were entirely improvised.Chris Cutler and I were improvising forms and the other memberswere improvisingsounds. In this way, we created together a form of instant composition. We createdsongs spontaneously, without rehearsing them. All these song forms were unre-hearsed, just played straight. And later on, when we would meet for recording, wewould recall these as shapes and improvised them as shapes. There were never anywritten parts; there wasn't even an agreement to play a certain theme in a certainway, four bars here or four bars there. That was the magical moment of playing withChris Cutler, for example: to be able to communicate in terms of shapes withoutdiscussing it in advance. Chris has realunderstanding, a greatsense of symmetry, ofmusic as shaping. After thirty two bars we could come back to an initial fieldwithout counting-this worked magically between us.It'svery interestingthat you mention the notion of the "songas a form" which Chrishimself uses a lot and has written about, particularly in terms of the Brecht/Eislerrelation.I mean, or me, the Art Bears'fantasticerformance f thesong "OnSuicide". . ... It's a masterpiece.It is a masterpiece.Firstofall, as a song,as an Eisler/Brecht omposition,butalso,asyousay,thisparticularperformance.For me, this wasa definitivemoment in understandingthis notion of the "song s a form. "And my interestin rock music itself-or certainaspects of rock songwriting-is fueled by this notion and by this experience.A verysimilar instance isyour own song compositionon Holderlinspoem Halfte des Lebens.But I broughtus into the topic of rock musicfor another reasontoo: to discuss theconnection between rock music and the piece being performed today, Hashirigaki. Imean, I can sortof picture how GertrudeStein works in it and certainlyhowJapanesemusic might be integrated n such a piece, but Im verycurious about the Beach Boysmaterial.As I told you, in the 60s I was playing pop music on the piano just by listening totunes on the radio. And I remember there were one or two Beach Boys songs whichI had heard only once or twice on the radio, and I could recallthem but I couldn'tcatch them, I couldn't play them on the piano, because the harmonies weresomehow weird. That's the one thing. Then, in 1998, The Pet Sounds Sessionswasreleased, where they published the backing tracks, the rhythm tracks, vocalharmonies, etc. And it was on that occasion that I heard the complete Pet Sounds

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album againafter so many years,and those couple of songs-like "CarolineNo" and"Don't Talk"-reminded me of my failure. So I discoveredthis materialagain, reallyfresh four years ago and, of course, I understood immediately why it had been sodifficult for me to catch.They have harmonies which just float, they neversatisfythebass registerthat brings them back to the ground; they keep on going, never reallycoming to a resolution. That's the secret of this wonderful composition. It's not onlybecause of the melancholy quality of these songs that this music is so formidable forme-I mean, it's such a classic- but also because of this strange floating quality, asif everything is being lifted from the air. It'sjust not grounded; it's never grounded.So, somehow this connected in my mind with The Making of Americans,withGertrudeStein, becauseshe does a similar thing with words. She keeps words goingconstantly by changing some elements in the repetitive language. If we attend to theletter in her process of observation, of thinking, of writing, we might get a bettersense-it's very hard-of what she means about love, about sadness, aboutrelationships, about men and women, because she is just evoking associations in aprocessof reflectingtoward the reader,at the reader.But she is fading this sense andit is also hard to catch, you see-so this is the connection that brings this piecetogether. And then there is another thing: She starts TheMaking of Americansas afamily history, but she immediately goes off on a digression toward an overallhuman statement, which also makes it ungrounded. She starts off on the ground,with the family, the brother,the sister,the mother, marriage-but then immediatelyshe tries to find an overview from outside, about other families, about America,about the whole world, about humankind-before coming back to her subject fromten pages earlier with the words "as I was saying." And this strange, elevatedexpressionworks very well, I think, in the performance, particularlywhen we do thelast song "IJustWasn'tMade For These Times" which is itself an important phrase,coming, of course, from Brian Wilson, but it could very well have come fromGertrude Stein. She certainly felt untimely.You've lso talked elsewhere bout howyou are drawn to the melancholy ong.It'sevidentin mostof the Eislersongsyou choose operform-not all obviously, ou also take on themoreplayful, ironic ones. But still, there s specificattention to melancholy ongs. Whyisthat?Well, probably because they are the truest ones. That's the great thing about Eisler.He doesn't exclude feelings. He includes doubts and aggressions,hopes and fears-he includes everything. That's why I think these songs allow most of the truth tocome through. Because they don't pretend just to be powerful, to have no doubts-they'refull of everything.Perhapsyour insistenceon this totalityof contraryeelings in music might be linked toyour preferenceor a certaintragicmode inyourselectionof texts or in thewayyou frameor stageyour musicalcomposition. feel that in your particular conception(and in thetraditionofMusic Drama I spokeof earlier-Brecht, Eisler,Miiller-ancient tragedy sgiven a remarkable ctualization in modern terms.Does tragedy-and I mean this in a




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Hashirigaki,a music theatre piece based on texts by Gertrude Stein, presented at the BrooklynAcademy of Music New Wave Festival2003. Photos: Courtesy Richard Termine.



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particularway:as the entwinementof dramaand myth-have meaningnowadayswhere the polis is so dispersed? ow do you confront hispoliticsor aesthetics fdispersion?ow is myth mportant owadays, ot as an archaichingbut assomethingverycontemporary?Probablyragicmyth is the presence-and representation-of powersgreater hanwhat we control.Becausewhatyou see in the traditionalhumanistdrama s moreand more conflictbeing broughtdown to the level of personalrelationsor conflictbrought down to psychologicalrelations,which is something I reallyhate incontemporary taging. Actually,the movies are better. The film industry hasunderstoodhatpeopleneed morethanjustlove stories.Of course, heycontinuetoproduce ots of love-story orts of films,but therehave beenmanyfilmsin the lastfiftyyears hattryto represent ther forces hat we dealwith in life, strongerorces.The science fictiongenreexemplifies his, of course. But the point is that certainfilms show an awareness hat not everything an be discussedand resolved n thecontextof a personal elationship.Yet,moderntheatrealways eemsto do justthat;even with the most politicalsubtext,even when dealingwith tragic mythologiesthemselves,t often seems to tryto reduce hingsto some sort of domesticdrama,and I think that'shorrible.I'mjust not interested n this sort of thing.As I haveexperienced he world alwaysas a politicalworld, I think we face dailyso manyrelationships f powerwhich are muchstrongerand cannot be so easilyreduced opersonaldimensions.So I'malwaysookingfor references r representationsf thatin literatureor musicor theatre.And, of course,I don't use mythological igures(Prometheus rHercules, tc.)asheroic ypes.I use themaswayof readingpolitics,because think thewaythe world s beingcontrolled,moved,shifted-or how livesare inishedand started-is sometimesdone withoutmercy,withoutany possibilityof beinga individual tory.So,as a lastquestionn this ight,what s thedifferenceetween eingapoliticalartistin the70s and nowadays?s it simplya generational ifference? r is there omethingelse,someother enseof timeliness t hand?Well,in the 70s I wasveryinvolved n the movement. t was a very ively,outgoingsortof movement,withpeople ikeJoschkaFischer,Daniel Cohn-Bendit-I lived nthe same buildingwith Joschka,now he is flying first class . . . For us then,everythingwasso immediate:whatdo we do next?whatdo we do next Saturday?when is the nextpoliticalmeetingor demonstration?-thatsort of thing. But thishaschanged.The contextwhereeverythings so immediate, o precise,and whereyourwork is but a trial,a commitment o all that,doesn'texist.Butmy relation owhat it means to translate politicalexperiencento an artisticone hasn'tchangedmuch at all.WhenI comparemyworkwithSogenanntes inksradikaleslasorchesterandmy work on Eislermaterialith the EnsembleModern, orexample, find thatit'snot all thatdifferent. t'smoreelaborate ow,of course. 'vegotmorepossibilitiesand resources, can work with lights, costumes,sound engineers,and virtuosiplayers,but thewaywe talk to eachother,thewaywe dealwith eachother, hewaywetryto solveaestheticandpoliticalproblemss not so different.WhenI look back




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throughall thosedifferent teps,whichyou have also followedheretoday, here snothingthatI regret,nothingwhereI wouldsay"let's ut thisout"or "don'took atthat." This is something that makes me very happy because there is a lot ofcontinuationanddevelopmentn thesesteps,and there's othingto be embarrassedaboutor,in theoppositeway,to long for thegooddaysof thepast.I neverhad sucha feeling.Then,I have to add one moredimension o thatquestion:Whatdoes t meanto be aGerman rtist oday?-as opposedo the70s,workingwithinthesituationofa dividedGermany, hich eems o havebeen mportantor youand thepolitics nvolvednyourmusic. mean, t was mportanto theleftistmovementn theWest.Doesthismatter tall? s thissomethingyouhinkabout? understandhatyouareaglobalartist,ofcourse,butI wonderwhetherou thinkat all aboutyourposition n German ulture.Well,this is somethingI owespecificallyo ChrisCutler, hiswayof workingat aninternationalevel.He was animportant igure n this movementbecausehe was thefirst to open up the spacefor an international ollaboration f musiciansandwaysof playing.Since that time, I think Eislermaterials the only piece that'sentirelyGerman.I workconsistently n an international ontext. But I neverignoredmyGermanroots.I startedverystronglywithdevelopingmy Germanpointof view-the musicI grewupwith andwas educated n. I remember he matterof playing azzthen. Otherjazzmusicianswould complain:"He'sgot no swing. He's much tooGerman."ButI wasproudof thewayIwas mprovising.Andin fact,when I sawtheSun Ra Arkestraperforming or the first time-and it reallychangedmy way oflookingat things-I remember eingastonished t howthesepeoplecould do it all,both swingand improvise n the wildestways.And be theatrical oo. For a lot ofstraightazzmusicians, venin Europe,SunRa was too much. But it'spreciselyhiscollectivewayof makingmusic,of bringing arious ields ogether,whichappeals ome.

NOTE1. LydiaKoniordous Greece'soremost ctressn classicalragedy,withexemplary

performancesn Euripides'lays,particularlylectra. hewayshe s used n thisplay, s afolksinger,s itselfa defamiliarizingesture.

STATHIS GOURGOURIS teachescomparative iteratureat ColumbiaUniversity.He has also taughtat Princeton,Yale,and the UniversityofMichigan.He is the authorof DreamNation:Enlightenment, olonization,and theInstitutionofModernGreecendDoesLiterature hink?LiteraturesTheoryor an AntimythicalEra as well as essays on political theory,psychoanalysis,ilm. He is currentlyworkingon a volume of essaysonmusic, performance,and the politics of sound, titled On TransgressiveListening.

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Performance as Composition