“I believe in cities. I believe so personally living in a city is the contemporary way of lifeespecially in the bigger cities,” says the German composer and musical theater innovator Heiner Goebbelsrecently arrived in Buenos Aires to present the work Surrogate citieswhich will be released on Friday 14 at the Ciclo Colón Contemporáneo.
“The city teaches us about the coexistence of different cultures, of different opinions, of different types of people and professions and political ideas. We need this experience to be ready for the 21st century. I don’t think it’s a good strategy to retire and live in a small village in the middle of the countryside”.
In the 80s, Marshall Berman reclaimed modernity with its paradoxes and contradictions in his book Everything solid melts in air. The experience of modernity. There the city stood as a factory of vital experiences of modernity, an environment of adventure, growth, transformation and, at the same time, destruction of everything.
Since the publication of the book, those critical voices against the horror that this entails have not ceased to manifest themselves, but, as Berman points out, none of these voices would like to live outside modernization and, consequently, outside the cities.
Less noise and more orchestra
Something of everything that runs Surrogate citiesa commission to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and the 1200th anniversary of the city of Frankfurt.
In his previous visits, Goebbels presented his unforgettable musical theater works, such as Stifters Dinge OR Of Materialand this time it is a work for orchestra.
-Your proposal in “Surrogate Cities” is for the audience to experience a big city. Can you experiment with a traditional orchestra? Because if we think of the sound of the city, the first thing that appears is noise.
-You will hear noises. First of all, I want to say that we are not going to go through the whole cycle of Surrogate cities, which is much longer. We decided to cut it short because the amount of essays we have wouldn’t be enough.
There is a large part of the work cycle that basically focuses on different sources of sounds coming from industrial experience machines. This is played over and through a sampler from a keyboard, but we won’t be playing this part. It lasts about 30 minutes, but not only for the duration; technically the level of this part is much more complex than the others, every instrument needs to be amplified, and there are not enough rehearsals to prepare it. The technical level for instrumentalists is very demanding.
So we leave that out and give the Academic Orchestra the opportunity to play most of the other orchestral parts.
-Are noises included in those parts?
-Yes. In the parts you’ll hear on Friday there’s a lot of what you call noise, although I wouldn’t call it noise because I like it. I can’t tell the difference between noise and music, when I hear cars, I hear the frequency, the pitch. as it happened in Stifter Dingewhich I presented here in 2016, I love the noise of things and the voices of things.
Texts by Müller and Auster
-What are the sources of “Surrogate Cities”?
-Besides the question of sound, a second source is literature and the visual arts. At Friday’s concert we will focus on those literary sources, such as the texts of Heiner Müller, which speak of a civil war between two cities. There is also a text by Paul Auster, In the country of last things.
These literary sources have inspired me a lot to reflect on the different experiences, the different spirits and also the emotions in which a city lives.
-The title of the work is taken from a text by Hugo Hamilton. What is the meaning and what is it about?
-I don’t want to define the meaning because I think everyone may have a different association when hearing Surrogate cities. But what is the significance of a substitute for cities? Or do cities replace something else? I also believe that Hamilton, author of Surrogate cities -those who have listened to this piece, written about it and loved it- wanted to describe that the city has an ambiguous character.
Especially the mega cities, the metropolises we are talking about. We started small, first with Frankfurt and then moved on to the bigger cities. In all the other cities where we have done this work – Taipei, New York, London, in the big cities – there is that ambiguous character. You love them because you grew up there or had strong experiences. But they are not welcoming. They don’t give you heat. It’s a permanent struggle. Here is the meaning of Surrogate cities.
-Are the lyrics narrated, sung or loved?
-There is a circle of three songs in a text by Heiner Müller. It is rather an epic narrative, but quite dramatic because it tells the story of the civil war between Rome and Alba; there are many killings and people die in this representative battle. There is also a reflection at the end, which perhaps could be described as bluesy or gospel.
More details of the work
-Is the work in the form of a suite, with several interconnected and heterogeneous pieces?
-Yes.
-And there are no actors or musicians on stage. Is there any visual device?
-Not at this Friday concert. However, there is something visual because I work with lighting: I create a lighting design and some staging. We couldn’t do the visuals here, like I said, they’re just excerpts from the work. I think it’s a great idea to compare young academic musicians with contemporary music. The normal thing is that they go straight to the 18th and 19th century repertoire. And now we are already in the 21st century. This piece was written in the 20th century.
It’s amazing how far away music education is in most countries and most institutions, even more than 20 years ago.
The urban experience
-What could you say about the urban experience in our time?
-It is a very personal question, which cannot be extrapolated and generalized. We see that the development of cities continues to grow and people want to go to the city, even though it is always a struggle.
-How is the city you are trying to evoke in this piece?
-It does not pretend to be a portrait of a particular city. I try not to illustrate or portray. I try to dig a little deeper into the structural correspondences.
Some pieces, like the first, are probably more inspired by architecture, even by the hyper-aestheticisation of the commercial. And other parts, which here will be with the collaboration of two great Argentine guitarists, are destructive. It works as a sort of opposition to the first piece. I mean, I’m not trying to be illustrative.
-Then it’s not a personal summons.
-It’s very interesting because I usually question it. I always say, even in the process of composing this work, that I am very focused on external inspirations, such as literature, architecture, visual arts, soundscapes. But then people come up and say, ‘Yeah, but it feels very personal’ and point me to those very biographical moments in this work. But this happens unconsciously.
-It is inevitable that something personal will not be transferred.
-Somehow, there are always biographical or personal elements that become visible. But it doesn’t happen as an intention. In fact, I try to avoid them.
Did you grow up in a big city?
-NO. I grew up in a small town in southwest Germany, but have never been out of a big city for more than a week or two. I lived in Frankfurt 50 years ago. Now I’m from Athens, before I was in Stockholm and Porto, the next city I’m going to is Vilnius. Then I go to Budapest and Madrid. So I always work and live in the city. I remember spending a week in a house in the woods in south southwestern France and couldn’t sleep because I was completely terrified.
-You have come to Buenos Aires more than once, what is your perception of the city?
-The first time I was here was in 1985. I had a concert with a saxophonist at the Goethe Institute. We toured Latin America, from Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Colombia; Bolivia, Mexico and Chile. It was an incredible experience. And also dramatic in each country, in different ways, always with catastrophes around. When we left Mexico there was a big earthquake. So it was a very dramatic tour that also shaped my idea of the city.
-As?
-Diversity, richness and the incredible differences between what can be a city like La Paz and Mexico City or San Pablo.
-What do you see in Buenos Aires that you haven’t seen in other cities you know?
-I would never make generic statements because, of course, I live in a certain area and move around in a certain area. So I just have a general impression, but what I see, especially in my last few visits, is the intellectual level and interest in literature. The number of bookstores, which you no longer see in any city in Germany. And the presence of the arts and literature, and the level of intellectual discourse.
File
Contemporary Columbus cycle
excerpts from Surrogate cities by Heiner Goebbels
Teatro Colón Academic Orchestra
Musical director: Baldur Bronnimann
Plan: A.D; In the Land of Last Things on a text by Paul Auster; Die Faust im Wappen on a text by Franz Kafka; Drei Horatier-Songs on a text by Heiner Müller; surrogate based on a text by Hugo Hamilton
Function: Friday 14th April at 5pm
Colon Theater
Source: Clarin
