[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Boris Blacher: “Angst”
From the work Abstract Opera No. 1 (1953)
This is the first of a two-part feature on the experimental music of the German composer Boris Blacher (1903-1975). Blacher’s first major works dated from the 1920s and his breakthrough came with his 1937 orchestral composition Concertante Musik, but his music was suppressed as “degenerate” by the Nazis. After World War II he became a prominent figure on the European scene, eventually becoming director of the Music Academy of Berlin, where he distinguished himself as a composition teacher during the 50s and 60s.
Most of Blacher’s music shows the enduring influence of the 1920s style of the Neue Sachlichkeit, which favored clear textures, restrained expression, and strong rhythmic profiles. But he had an experimental streak, as exemplified by his enigmatic 1953 composition Abstract Opera No. 1. (The title is deceptive; there would be no number two.)
The opera consists of seven movements, each treating an archetypal emotional situation, such as anger, love, and fear. The libretto, written by fellow composer Werner Egk, is almost entirely wordless, consisting of artfully composed nonsense syllables. The single exception is the movement entitled “Verhandlung” (“Negotiation”), a duet for English and Russian speakers exchanging meaningless platitudes—words, but still no sense. In his preface to the score, Egk states that “the composed words are invented musically and phonetically and are directed at the listener’s capacity for forming automatic associations.”
With craft and humor, Blacher seeks to illustrate how these classic scenarios can be musically conveyed without the verbal substrate of the libretto. The result is a work that both parodies the stereotyped expressive forms of opera (the love duet is especially effective in this regard) and points toward the radical renovations of the musical stage undertaken by later composers such as György Ligeti and Maurico Kagel. Not surprisingly, Blacher’s music was not well received at its premiere in Mannheim in 1953: one reviewer bestowed upon it the singular distinction of being “the worst opera ever written.”
Played 70 time(s).
July 17, 2011, 2:31pm
