An Holderlins Umnachtung
study score
Sheet Music

Ensemble

SKU: BR.PB-5414-07

Study score. Composed by Nicolaus A. Huber. OUT OF PRINT. 20th Century (after 1950). Study score. Breitkopf and Haertel #PB-5414-07. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel (BR.PB-5414-07).

ISBN 979-0-004-20985-1. 9 x 12 in inches.

world premiere Porto, October 31, 1993


My starting point in composing this piece were the fields of sound production. We know that similar traits can provoke entirely different situations, developing like the links of a chain. The field to dab, for instance, gives pizzicato, pencil points, pianissimo cymbals and soft touches on the strings of a piano. The latter can resound with the right pedal of the piano pressed down. To resound leads to pencil strokes, glissando harp, to short and long chords, to chord chains, to melodic sound aggregations, etc.

This general method, inspired by linguistics, attracted my interest mainly because, in the context of the musical process, it allows for the production of very precise and specified shapes. These shapes tended to fade away, whereas the given sounds, melodies, chains of chords, etc. separated themselves from the normal context and repeated themselves in a peculiarly moving atmosphere of extraneousness.

The same can be said of the insanity, life and works of Holderlin in his tower in Tubingen. His creative insanity gave me the strength to study the techniques and problems of shape mentioned above, and helped me make key decisions relating to the music.

Anyone - be it performer or listener - wanting to fully understand the expression of this piece should read the following narratives since its dedication to the insanity of Holderlin (the piece also contains an acoustic portrait of the poet) indicates something contrary to poetic sentimentalism.

Today I visited him again in order to take a few poems which he wrote. Two of them were unsigned. Zimmer's daughter told me that I should ask him to write the name H. under them. I entered his room and asked him to do so, and then he became furious, he started pacing up and down the room, shifting a chair from one place to another and shouting incomprehensible words, amongst which he articulated clearly the following: My name is Scardanelli. Finally, he sat down and with passion signed the poems Scardanelli. I entered the room once again, and although he swore and gestured wildly trying to get rid of me, I did not lose my resolve and bowed respectfully. (Theodor Schwab, 1841)

Letter from the Landgrave Caroline to her daughter, by marriage the Princess Marianna von Preussen, in Berlin (letter dated September 11, 1806, original in French): Poor Holterling was taken this morning to his parents; he made every attempt to jump out of the carriage, but the man taking care of him managed to pull him back in. Holterling shouted that Harschierer [most probably Hascher, bandits] wanted to kidnap him and again tried to jump out, scratching the man with his exceptionally long fingernails making him bleed all over.

Nicolaus A. Huber

CD
Musikfabrik NRW, Ltg. Johannes Kalitzke
CD cpo 999 259-2

Bibliography:

Huber, Nicolaus A.: Die Zeit ist buchstabengenau und allbarmherzig. Zu Holderlin in meinen Kompositionen, in: Dissonanz, Heft 76, August 2002, S. 4-13, und Heft 77, Oktober 2002, S. 4-15
Le temps est litteral et misericordieux. La place de Friedrich Holderlin dans mes compositions, in: Dissonance, Heft 76, August 2002, S. 4-13, und Heft 77, Oktober 2002, S. 4-15
ders.: THIRTY ARE BETTER THAN ONE (A. Warhol), in: Neue Musik und andere Kunste, hrsg. von Jorn Peter Hiekel (= Veroffentlichungen des Instituts fur Neue Musik und Musikerziehung Darmstadt, Band 50), Mainz u.a.: Schott 2010, S. 220-235
Nimczik, Ortwin: Neue Musik: Nur die Feder hort man auf dem Papier. Anregungen fur akustische Portrats von Friedrich Holderlin, in: Musik und Bildung 44 (2012), Heft 2, S. 66-70
Schwehr, Cornelius: Nicolaus A. Huber. An Holderlins Umnachtung, in: Musik und Asthetik 7, Heft 25 (Januar 2003), S. 60-70
Engl. in: Music of Nicolaus A. Huber and Mathias Spahlinger, hrsg. von Philipp Blume, Contemporary Music Review 27 (2008), Heft 6, S. 643-653

CD Heart edition zeitklang ez-22024


Bibliographie:

Klotzke Ernst-August: Nicolaus A. Hubers Auf Flugeln der Harfe in: Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik 2/1994 S. 15-16
Jurgen Karle
CD PERDI 05 109902
Jurgen Karle
CD PERDI 05 109902.