{"id":9721,"date":"2017-01-16T15:52:33","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T14:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/blog\/es-ist-mein-job-euch-neu-zu-erfinden\/"},"modified":"2022-06-30T15:56:23","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T13:56:23","slug":"es-ist-mein-job-euch-neu-zu-erfinden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/blog\/es-ist-mein-job-euch-neu-zu-erfinden\/","title":{"rendered":"“MY JOB IS TO RE-INVENT YOU”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The composer Georges Aperghis, who was born 1945 in Athens and moved to Paris in 1963, was for a long time only perceived as a personality at the margins between music and theatre. That has changed in the last years\u00a0: Aperghis\u2019 scenic productions are important references for younger composers, his musical works have arrived in the centre of the contemporary music scene. His newest, not yet premiered work \u00ab\u00a0Intermezzi\u00a0\u00bb (2016) are tailor-made for the musicians of the Ensemble Musikfabrik. Florentin Ginot, the double bassist of the Ensemble, talked with Georges Aperghis about this new piece, about his audience and politics.<\/p>\n

You have a strong sense of political engagement \u2013 do you think that contemporary music is in phase with the accelerated evolution of\u00a0 today?<\/em>
\nThat\u2019s very complicated to answer. I think that everything artistic (and not only music) is very distant from what we call the \u2018general audience\u2019, as opposed to specialists or those who are interested because their parents or a teacher initiated them. Those who haven\u2019t been that lucky have much less help nowadays than before. Big, noisy exhibitions, which become places of pilgrimage where people don\u2019t even know what they\u2019re going to see, aren\u2019t the thing that\u2019s going to replace an artistic education or genuine daily engagement\u00a0; neither is some kind of media barrage on such a scale that finally people end up going, like a seasonal sale at a big department store. That\u2019s just a way for people to bypass what\u2019s essential. Obviously a few people are going to get a painting by Matisse right in the face, and that\u2019s great. But this mass culture\u2026 I think we need a much more intimate kind of education, right from early childhood, for poetry, for painting, for music, for everything. All the same, classical music is very much cut off from the world\u00a0: take the example of the \u2018grand concert\u2019. I do have the impression that the relationship with music could be much simpler. The grand concert still has this monumental aspect – the music is up there on a pedestal. You have to go and find the audience. They\u2019re not against our music, they just don\u2019t know it exists. What we do is unknown to them.<\/p>\n

Obviously we\u2019ve moved a long way from many traditional musical cultures which are completely integrated into daily life.<\/em>
\nWe also don\u2019t have any perspective on the cultures of Africa or Asia (I\u2019m scratching the surface of course, those are large continents with multitudes of different cultures, music and arts). There\u2019s no real work on material, on substance, so things have just become frozen. Life goes very quickly: biology and technologies advance; people are evolving as well, but in the wrong direction, they\u2019re left out of consideration more and more, in every sense \u2013 cultural, physical, moral, mental.<\/p>\n

How do you situate yourself in this context as a composer?<\/em>
\nI think that our role is complicated. We need to find new forms to talk about these things. Singing someone\u2019s life story while they\u2019re suffering next to you is just indecent, a little bit like television cameras filming people who are crying, I really don\u2019t understand how we have arrived at this point. But honestly, nothing much surprises me any more. How can music speak of such things\u00a0? We would need to find what shape this might take, since otherwise it would be a purely academic exercise, and how do we find something that corresponds\u00a0? How to touch people who have practically nothing, in fact almost no music, or just the most basic? Because it\u2019s necessary to speak\u00a0in their place<\/em>, since they can\u2019t speak themselves. Those who are in the camps, isolated, they don\u2019t know themselves where they will go the next day, they are treated like animals. So to speak in the place of those who have nothing, we really need to find an equivalent. Four words, one string, hardly any bow, something like the wandering musician one sees in the street, playing completely basic instruments. How can we find the right language? It would almost be another way of imagining the function of music. For me that\u2019s what we need to look for, I haven\u2019t found it myself yet, but that\u2019s where I\u2019m looking.<\/p>\n

Do you think that contemporary music and contemporary music theatre are still a means of reacting to current developments in world politics\u00a0? Is our means of expression still suitable for countering or critiquing a growing violence in social relationships<\/em>?
\nI think so. Since there is a dialectic between image and sound, texts and their music, there is also some polyphony between those aspects. There is also the body of the actor who helps to take some distance, have some humour, even with the most serious subjects; one can create contradictions which mean that the audience isn\u2019t being constantly confronted with some kind of tombstone. There is action, there is life; ultimately I feel that this is a good context for telling the story of our world.<\/p>\n

Why do you compose?<\/em>
\nUltimately music is simply a way to get to know yourself, in your own life. For me, I know that when I write I am in situations where I don\u2019t know myself, in which I\u2019ve never seen myself before. I observe myself, and I ask myself what to do in this situation\u00a0: do you dare to go where the unknown takes you or do you give up? The artists I like are those who have created situations with artistic problems and have fought to find solutions and to go even further. Those are the ones who move me.<\/p>\n

Who do you address with your compositions?<\/em>
\nI think we are always addressing someone. We, the composers, are the guinea pigs, the first ones to receive our own message. The new piece\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0Intermezzi\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>\u00a0for Musikfabrik, for example, is addressed to you, you are the ones it\u2019s written for. Of course I think of the audience, in the construction of the piece, but I\u2019ve really written\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0Intermezzi\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>\u00a0for you.<\/p>\n

You started your research for Intermezzi by meeting directly with each member of Ensemble Musikfabrik, asking us what we would like to contribute to the creation of this piece \u2013 how did you \u2018take possession\u2019 of all this material?<\/em>
\nIt was a way of getting to know you all musically, getting to know each player\u2019s interests. That saves me from writing a purely abstract piece where I take all the decisions on my own. That can happen too, but here I had the opportunity to meet you\u00a0! (laughs) Each musician brought something different: some wanted to sing, to speak, to push the instrument in a certain direction, sometimes with \u2018extensions\u2019 like the double-bell brass instruments \u2013 in short, it was a chance to get a feeling for everyone\u2019s curiosity, and along the way\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 extend the musician?<\/em>
\nThat\u2019s it \u2013 it\u2019s really about musicians with extensions. My job is to re-invent you. First to forget you, then to re-invent you. It\u2019s as if I had dreamt it all – what comes to me then are imaginary portraits, in all their different colours. In fact I have the feeling that the way you behave, not just with your instruments but also over coffee or at a restaurant, plays an enormous part, since I can see how one of you is a bit mischievous, another one is shy, there\u2019s a lot to perceive. That\u2019s also my style in staging my pieces: I watch a lot, I\u2019m constantly taking note of things. Now that I have developed this great musical friendship for each one of you, that pushes me to make a piece which would not be the same had it not been for this process. I\u2019m surprised myself by\u00a0Intermezzi<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 its process surprises me. I\u2019m always looking for coincidences – what is most interesting to me is where my artistical problems meet what the musicians are offereing me.<\/p>\n

You mentioned a while ago that this piece is a turning point for you, a change in your working method?<\/em>
\nYes, in fact that\u2019s the idea of \u00ab\u00a0Intermezzi\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 interludes. This means that there is an enormous amount of material that ultimately has no allegiance, no role, no function, and no succession. The material is just waiting. I decided not to \u2018build\u2019 anything, not to impose any visible construction onto these different heterogeneous materials which all head off in different directions, but, on the contrary, to try to give in to this idea of interludes\u00a0: in other words, a parenthesis that opens, inside which another parenthesis opens, then closes, and so on\u2026 This means that I have no \u2018idea\u2019, except perhaps the form: ultimately I have nothing else to \u2018say\u2019 other than to let you play, let you deliver these elements according to the impression that I have of each one of you. These things reappear in different positions, like a roundabout in motion \u2013 the audience discovers them each time in a different syntax.<\/p>\n

Are you ultimately directing the musicians\u2019 bodies on stage?<\/em>
\nDirecting each musician\u2019s music, and then of course their bodies, connected to the production of the music. As the different elements return in different directions and contexts, the listener has to put their memory to work. Finally I don\u2019t have anything precise to say \u2013 I digress, I open parentheses, I close them again, these are only interludes. From this comes the difficulty of hanging onto an underlying construction\u00a0: maintaining the authenticity and independence of each fragment, and at the same time the piece has to be organic, there has to be one single body, one big body that breathes. I wouldn\u2019t have written a piece like this for an ensemble without energy (laughs). I\u2019m not suicidal!<\/p>\n

In the migration crisis, a practically unknown world has arisen, a situation which is submerging our\u00a0 politics and creating enormous tension. Shouldn\u2019t a composer take into account these refugees (or at least try to)?<\/em>
\nI think that above all we have to take into account the great civilisations that these migrants belong to! Working with the instruments and the musical conventions of these civilisations has always seemed self-evident to me. I\u2019ve done a lot of research with the instruments and the playing styles of African and Iranian music\u00a0; that has always provided me with just as much inspiration as \u2018our\u2019 music that we\u2019ve lived with since childhood. I would never have written the\u00a0R\u00e9citations<\/em>\u00a0(1978) or many other pieces if I hadn\u2019t been familiar with Ethiopian music. These civilisations are hardly known in our culture \u2013 we behave towards them as though they were refugees cut off from any other reality, we don\u2019t know what culture they come from, and above all we\u2019re not interested in knowing who they are. There are so many different nationalities, it simply can\u2019t be that the only question we ask ourselves is whether they are a threat. I think we have to go further in getting to know these countries, not simply because these people are so miserable, but because these are great countries, great civilisations.<\/p>\n

And how do you as a \u2018Western\u2019 composer derive inspiration from these cultures\u00a0? For example, I\u2019m currently listening to a lot of music from Mali, but from there to thinking I might be able to play it, or even just that I might be able to incorporate it, with these rhythms, these melodies\u2026<\/em>
\n\u2026these rhythms are absolutely extraordinary, and the rhythmic cycles as well, how they displace and then suddenly recombine. They\u2019re wonderful things, just like the music of the Pygmies. We should really be teaching it at the conservatoire. For example the Iranian santour, it\u2019s a miracle, insanely beautiful music, so refined, so sophisticated\u00a0! The same for the zarb\u00a0: it\u2019s a whole percussion orchestra in one instrument. We don\u2019t teach it, we decide that it\u2019s not for us. We take a tabla and instead of learning it and knowing how to play it, we hit it with a stick to get a \u2018bizarre\u2019 sound out of it (laughs). You can do that too, but at least you need to know how to play it, to understand the whole world hidden inside this instrument\u00a0! There\u2019s a kind of disregard, a deliberate choice not to know about it.<\/p>\n

Politics today are still informed by colonialism, by cultural imperialism\u2026 If we taught these cultures in our school we would be admitting their equal value, which in our civilisation is almost inadmissible, certainly for a large part of our political class.<\/em>
\nYes, and it\u2019s a great shame. Take John Cage for example, who was genuinely influenced by Zen, by Taoism. What wonderful things came out of that\u00a0! He made us rethink music completely. It\u2019s very close to the music of Bali in the prepared piano technique and so on\u2026 But it\u2019s a completely different way of seeing music. Ultimately it\u2019s a way of putting the musical\u00a0result<\/em>\u00a0into perspective, increasing the chance of things which are \u2018unimportant\u2019, which don\u2019t make noise\u00a0: accidents, chance occurrences. In other words, taking away the mystical aspect of the creator to say that music is simply there, it\u2019s enough to observe it\u00a0: music exists.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also about giving a voice to the poor, to social struggles, to the disadvantaged\u2026<\/em>
\nThere you are. Working with these sounds which don\u2019t have any kind of hierarchy or a predefined idea of beauty is one of Cage\u2019s lessons. The question is\u00a0: are we still learning these lessons today\u00a0? We don\u2019t seem to be\u2026<\/p>\n

In many countries the gap between the state and religion is closing drastically, especially in the Maghreb region and Egypt\u2026<\/em>
\nTunisia, which wanted to move towards democracy, is harassed by religious extremists, there are more and more terrorist attacks. Tourism falls away because people are afraid, the country becomes weaker and the threat to a democratic future grows.<\/p>\n

For younger generations, witnessing these events and trying to find a position within them isn\u2019t an easy task. It would be interesting to have your opinion on these questions, since you have devoted a large part of your work to the struggle against social inequality.<\/em>
\nThese are things which have a great effect on me but at the same time I don\u2019t know how to answer. If I could answer it would be with very basic means \u2013 a vocal solo accompanied by zarb, for example, like\u00a0Corps \u00e0 corps<\/em>, since I have the feeling that there\u2019s nothing to add, it\u2019s impossible to make poetry, impossible to make \u2018beauty\u2019. That would be indecent. On the contrary, you have to be modest, reject any complacency \u2013 add nothing. People say it\u2019s hard to listen to contemporary music but it simply isn\u2019t true\u00a0! (I remind you that all styles of music are our \u2018contemporaries\u2019.) If people confront an artwork, if the music and musicians are sincere, then people are moved, that\u2019s always been the case. I\u2019ve never had problems with the audience, it\u2019s simply never happened. There are people who say \u2018I don\u2019t understand this music\u2019, yes, obviously\u00a0! But that\u2019s just because they\u2019ve learnt somewhere that art is supposed to be \u2018understood\u2019. There\u2019s nothing to understand. You take the slap in the face or you don\u2019t\u00a0! (laughs)<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t inaccessibility the main thing contemporary music suffers from?<\/em>
\nThat\u2019s not true. It\u2019s not true that listening to Bart\u00f3k or Ligeti is inaccessible, I don\u2019t believe it\u2026 But you don\u2019t want an intermediary, you don\u2019t want people explaining the music for you. You just need the audience to experience the event. Imagine someone alone for five minutes in front of a painting by Rembrandt. Something\u2019s going to happen\u00a0! And if afterwards they can\u2019t talk about it or explain it, if anything that\u2019s a good sign\u00a0! (laughs) It\u2019s always hard to talk, to find the right words after such a powerful encounter. But something always happens!<\/p>\n

This interview was first published in\u00a0Neue Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Musik<\/a>\u00a006.2016.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florentin Ginot in an interview with the Greek-French composer Georges Aperghis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2636,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9722,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9721\/revisions\/9722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musikfabrik.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}