General
General

General

NJ: No Joke

Lassies and Gendermen, let me introduce you to one of the greatest hypocrites in German music business—Enjott Schneider. A successful and influential representative of film music industry, president of the German Composers Association, and honoured with the highest academic and professional merits, this man doesn’t miss an opportunity to denigrate the system that feeds him. Here are some testimonials of his blatant double standards (quotes in in my translation):

(1) In a public discussion on the sense and nonsense of the term ›maestro‹, he contemptuously mocks German audiences for their alleged vanity and superficialness: »The average attendant of classical concerts is rarely a responsible citizen: […] he is just interested in celebrity hype and […] reactionary, masochistic self-suppression.«
(2) In an interview just published in this month’s nmz, he exuberantly praises the Chinese government for its cultural policy, and particularly for funding his recent mammoth opera project with fabulous production conditions. At the same time, he again dismisses the European music scene for its shortlived capitalism: »Everything is subordinated to capital and rigid economic principles«, focusing on »the ego’s hyperindividualism«, and »›freedom of art‹ has long become an eyewash«.

I say: Enjott, stop lamenting the system. You are one of the most powerful figures in it, so start improving its deficiencies if you really mean to change something. If not, please do me a favour—just enjoy your wealth and STFU.

The Misery of Music Universities

How can we restore employability for classical music graduates? I keep denouncing it all the time, but here is somebody who is capable of finding the right words on the absurd and deplorable state of professional music education in Germany. Please read and share this noteworthy interview with Esther Bishop in VAN Magazin, conducted by Sophie Wasserscheid. It’s really about time that a paradigm shift takes place in the current system of dysfunctionality, self-referentiality and maladministration, and to rethink music performance curricula from scratch. But alas, wise words won’t change anything—and I have serious doubts whether music universities will be able to carry out reforms on their own initiative.

Farewell, Lehrauftrag

Closing a chapter today: Just taught my last two classes as an adjunct lecturer at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Despite the ridiculously low income associated with teaching undergraduate music theory modules as a minor subject, it’s been a pleasure helping those students (most of which were focused, dedicated, and really smart in conversation) develop their abilities in reading and listening to music. Yet I am more than happy that I’ll never require to work as a freelance lecturer again. The concept of Lehrauftrag (teaching assignment) is one of the most corrupted and exploitative constructions in German academia, and even though the hourly rates at Berlin’s universities will rise to a €35 minimum in the near future, there is very little hope that conditions for adjunct staff will significantly improve.

The Pitfalls of Harmonic Functions

It continues to amaze me how German functional analysis is still used and taught in an idiosyncratic way, seemingly in disregard of critical approaches and enhancements of the past decades, and sometimes leading to apparent inconsistensies. Have a look at the following passage, taken from a harmony script which is currently used at a German music university. The self-referentiality and dogmatism of functional theory becomes already apparent in the title of the chapter (»The subdominant fifth-sixth chord in root position«). Your thoughts are appreciated.

»Just like the dominant, the subdominant harmony employs a characteristic dissonance: the sixth above the bass, which is also used in the S6 [= ii6] chord where it functions as a consonance. […] The added sixth [marked ›sixte ajoutée‹ in misattribution of Rameau’s concept of the same name] causes the fifth, despite being consonant to the bass, to become a dissonant note which must be correctly resolved.« (Manfred Dings, Harmonielehre I. Skript zur Übung im Wintersemester 2017/18, Hochschule für Musik Saar 2017, p. 40; see also: Wilhelm Maler, Beitrag zur Harmonielehre, Leipzig 1931, p. 15).

Chopin’s Barcarolle

Just completed the engraver’s copy and critical commentary of my first scholarly sheet music edition, due for publication during next year at Bärenreiter Verlag. It is one of Frédéric Chopin‘s most beautiful piano pieces, the F-sharp major Barcarolle, Op. 60, of 1846. The source material is complex and partly confusing: there are two autographs, three parallel first editions, and two annotated copies of Chopin’s pupils which I had to check for discrepancies and possible contradictions, as well as a number of newer editions. Looking forward to proofreading the new engraving, to which Hardy Rittner will contribute fingerings and remarks on performance.