32 - Jörg Widmann (b. 1973)

Summary

The interview took place in the lobby of Jörg Widmann's hotel in Donaueschingen, on the eve of the premiere of Mark Andre's clarinet concerto über—a piece that Widmann had initiated. He was also responsible for its considerable technical difficulties: he had shown Andre many of the feats the clarinet was capable of.

Our conversation was inserted with some difficulty into his schedule as he was desperately trying to complete his work on a viola concerto: the deadline was the very next day. I was grateful that he should have squeezed in the time for it and I had concomitant pangs of remorse. It was a relief to hear a few days afterward that he had brought it off: the viola concerto was ready on time.

I have known Jörg Widmann for many years without our ever having conducted a proper conversation. There had been friendly greetings at Donaueschingen, Salzburg, and Vienna, but it was all too fleeting for me to form any reliable picture of his personality. The forty-five minutes we now spent together gave me some idea of the phenomenon Jörg Widmann.

This interview ought really to be heard and seen rather than read. The aural and visual aspects are very much part of it: the many nuances and registers of his voice, his innocent purity, his willingness to open up without any reservation, the musicality that imbues every word—all that captivated me. I sensed his vulnerability, a kind of defenselessness that deeply moved me; the interview itself proved ideal for the purposes of this book.

The next day I was impressed by Widmann's interpretation of Mark Andre's clarinet concerto. I was once again struck by his total identification with the music that also manifested itself in his body language. Respect for the music, humbleness, concentration—inspiring for the listener, to try to likewise identify with the work.

In recent years, I have encountered an encouraging phenomenon among younger composers, of whom Widmann is one, together with Enno Poppe, Rebecca Saunders, Mark Andre, and others: their mutual support and appreciation for one another's work, an attitude that was more or less absent in my initial years at Editio Musica Budapest in the early 1970s.