by Violeta Dinescu
Pfau Verlag: Saarbrücken, 1996 - as published in the IAWM Journal, Fall 1997, p. 27.
For those of you who are fluent in German, I heartily recommend Gelb: Neues Hören (Yellow: New Listening), a recently published book written by musicologist and professor of music theory, contemporary music and aesthetics Eva-Maria Houben. As in her earlier publications, she demonstrates that she has the gift of analyzing and explaining music with insightful commentary that can be understood by the general public. Her well-known book on 20th-century music, Die Aufhebung der Zeit (The Suspension of Time) (Franz Steiner Verlag: Stuttgart, 1992), for example, was a "best seller" with both professional musicians and general readers.
In Gelb Houben offers a unique aesthetic and analytical approach to the phenomenon of contemporary music. The main focus of her study is the process of creation, which she interprets in such a dynamic way that it touches on the magic of creation itself. By absorbing her ideas, it is even possible that a composer might find a new method of creating music. As the title of the book suggests, the leitmotiv of the entire volume is the notion of "yellow," which is understood as an energetic symbol of complexity, communication, and intensity of messages that are to be sent as well as received.
Houben's work is the result of a very close professional collaboration with three significant European composers: Vinko Globokar, Hans-Joachin Hespos, and Adriana Hölszky. Houben did not select the three composers randomly; she chose them because she discovered certain similarities in their music. She points out that the main characteristic of their compositions is that they lack improvisational elements yet they create the impression of being spontaneous, with short musical ideas that function on different levels of complexity. It is the labyrinthine way that the composers put together the ideas that creates the specific personal context for their works.
Houben gives musical portraits of the composers' compositions in a way that is almost visual. She examines the pieces from different perspectives and may shift from a study of details to a broader outlook, one that views the overall sound image. The visual aspect of her analysis gives one the sense of needing to continue the process of understanding the aural constellations that are presented. Houben introduces the concepts of utopia, contemporaneity, moment, and reality, but she does not explain these ideas in a scientific way; she suggests them through a direct introduction to the music itself, with concrete examples from the scores so that these concepts, which are explained within the context of the music, are rediscovered and become clear and natural.
The compositions of Adriana Hölszky, the only feminine member of the trio, are of particular interest. Hölszky, who was born in 1953 in Romania of German ancestry, resides in Stuttgart, Germany, and teaches at the Stuttgart Hochschule für Musik. Her compositions have a strong personality and feature different combinations of instrumental sounds which are so imaginative that they give the impression of totally new instruments. Her works also represent a way of thinking and of constructing music which excludes any romantic expression but which suggests a romantic gesture in the communicative reaction between sound sources as they touch the improvisational sphere. In Gelb Houben provides a definitive study of Hölszky's approach to composition with her examination of Message, Miserere, Segmente I Monolog and other works.
Violeta Dinescu, born in Romania and a resident of Germany since 1982, is a professor of composition at the University of Oldenburg and a distinguished composer whose mature works include four operas as well as numerous orchestral, chamber, vocal, and choral works. Her compositions have garnered her more than 50 international awards.