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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
[A selection from Schwertsik's writings was made in 1980 by Harriett Watts for a projected Tempo article, and translated by her in collaboration with Schwertsik. Even though the present expanded and updated selection is once again intended as a general introduction to the composer, it takes account of a marked change in his reputation during the past seven years: neither his detractors nor his friends from the Darmstadt era can any longer echo the ironic words with which he began one of his own poems: ‘We have lost all trace of him./His very existence remains doubtful’.
below left: self-portrait by Schwertsik; below right: Schwertsik on location for Eine Reise nach Mu, a TV-film about him directed by Barrie Gavin for Hessischer Rundfunk TV, Frankfurt, in 1983.]
* After the first performance, in 1953, Schwertsik's teacher Joseph Marx (see p. 37) wrote the following review: ‘A cheerful companion and colleague […] a merrily free–ranging draughtsman in the five-stave system, that is Schwertsik. A sonatine a tre voci for horn & piano gives even more opportunity for quite some pranks. Deviating as a matter of principle—that is also an attitude. The New is sought with ambition and skill, and is also attained. The question that remains open, however, is who will have pleasure with this strangely hidden play with and among staves, where one often gets the impression that the composer carefully avoides any musical formulation which might ultimately sound natural. A creative principle. Conviction …? It remains to be seen where this thorny way will lead’.
* The composition acquired its Artmannesque title (and its four movements acquired theirs) after it was completed. In his paper ‘Überlegungen meine symphonischen Arbeiten betrefFend’—delivered at a conference in the Bruckner House, Linz, in 1978—Schwertsik remarked of the string symphony that the music had turned out so ‘guileless’ (treuherzig) that he had invented the sinister labels and changed the scene to Transylvania. He continued: ‘The fourth movement is the only sonata movement I have yet written. Much as I enjoy making use of the title “Symphony”, for sonata form I have only great respect: it does not seem to serve my formal purposes’.
† The disc was issued in 1974 and has since sold out.
* In 1979 Schwertsik began the orchestral cycle Irdische Klänge (Terrestrial Sounds) with a two-movement symphony. Five years later, he continued it with 5 Nature Pieces (Wind, Thunder, Rain, Water, Bird), which he dedicated to Cornelius Cardew.
* Tom der Reimer, a two-act opera to a libretto by Richard Bletschacher, has occupied Schwertsik as a major ‘background’ project (without commission) for more than ten years.
† The identity of the Monk of Salzburg—several of whose songs are merely ascribed ‘Mönch’—remains unknown (like that of most mediaeval poet-composers). He was active in the late 14th century at the court of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and his works include the first known examples in German song of polyphonic and rhythmically notated compositions. In one of approximately 90 manuscripts of his sacred and secular songs there is an allusion to unspecified ‘support’ given by a priest named Martin. Schwertsik's Tag– und Nachtweisen ‘im Ton des Mönchs von Salzburg und Hcrrn Marteins’ was commissioned by the Salzburg Festival and first performed on 25 August 1978 by the Mozarteum Orchestra under Ralf Weikcrt. The present introduction to the work—here somewhat abbreviated—was delivered to an audience of medievalists in Salzburg one year later. Numerous music examples—of which four are reproduced here from Schwertsik's own manuscript—were specially recorded by the composer (voice and horn), his wife, and HK Gruber.
‡ The work won the composer an ovation from the Salzburg public, and the expected booby-prize from several critics. Respighi, rather than Ketèlbey, was the dire example cited by one of them, who lamented that a one–time follower of Stockhausen could have fallen to such depths.