Heard anew: Dieter Ammann

When it comes to classical composers, most people think of old masters such as Beethoven and Mozart. But the »Elbphilharmonie Visions« festival demonstrates that contemporary music can also be »just as rich and diverse as humanity itself« (Alan Gilbert). The festival’s programme features only music by contemporary composers. Not only is that musically very exciting, it also offers an amazing opportunity to ask the composers questions about their works and the process of creating them. How do you go about composing? Do you have a concrete idea of the work before you sit down to write it, or does it emerge only when you start? What role do your surroundings play? And what are your hopes for your music?

The Festival composers talk about this in short interviews. In this case with the Swiss composer Dieter Ammann, about whose music his great colleague Wolfgang Rihm has said: »There is not one second where the music idles, everything is lively and full of force lines in the best sense.«

Do you already have a strong vision of a work before you set about writing it?

It's not there from the outset, but evolves over months and years, with and within the work of composing. My oeuvre is not that large, which has to do chiefly with the way I work. My music is the result of an intuitive search, of putting inner acoustic moments into words,of trying things out, making sketches and variations that sometimes end up being rejected. It involves a search without predetermined material. And that includes the form that a piece will take: I don't decide this in advance. Essentially, I derive the individual morphology from the music as it's written.

Pierre Boulez said about my »Triptychon«, which is being performed in Hamburg, that it was «a synthesis of seemingly improvised habitus and meticulous care in formulation«; he also coined what is really a paradoxical term: »artistically reflected spontaneity«. Either way, the situation at the outset is completely open: you can't depend on a »correct« set of rules where there are no pointers for how to proceed, where you need to feel your own way, like going somewhere without a map to guide you. You have to deal with the contradiction of looking for something in a world which you have created yourself. But this challenge is probably exactly the reason why I am a composer.

What role do non-musical factors play in your work?

Not really any to date. In general I can say that my relationship to sound, which includes noise, is not informal and material, but rather intrinsic and artistic in nature. In other words, sound is not a vehicle for some kind of information transfer outside oneself. No, it is the information itself. The sound doesn't just speak about itself: it narrates itself, it »speaks for itself« in a double sense.

However, in the Viola Concerto I'm currently writing I do respond to non-musical factors for the first time, namely to the Russia's unspeakable war of aggression against the Ukraine. The music will include a reference to Schubert's »Death and the Maiden«.

At the »Elbphilharmonie Visions« festival, contemporary orchestral music plays a more prominent role than probably at any other concert hall in the world: 18 works by 18 composers are being performed on nine consecutive evenings. Do you think that's a good idea, or is it the wrong strategy?

Where contemporary orchestral music is performed and thus finds an audience, it can never be wrong, whatever the strategy is. In this respect, the »Elbphilharmonie Visions« festival plays an outstanding role. But I feel that music that is being written today should feature on »normal« concert programmes as a matter of course.

What does contemporary music need to win the public's favour?

This is a question that has not really arisen before now. In terms of music history, our own time is an exception: for centuries, only contemporary music was played, sung, performed and listened to. That was normal. It should be normal for us, too, to take genuine interest in what art has to say in the time we are living in. A society that doesn't actively shape and reflect on its own time has no future, for what we do in the here and now will be an integral part of tomorrow's tradition. What do we need to achieve that? An inquisitive public that sees challenge as a way of developing. And of course good-quality works in excellent interpretations.

What improvements to concerts would you like to see  – today and in the near future?

I do have one wish. Premieres are often the subject of lots of public attention. This »premiere hype« is encouraged by the concert promoters and even sponsors as well as the media, and that has prevented the creation of a true contemporary-music repertoire in the last few decades. For me, composing doesn't mean »producing« as much music as possible; I prefer to write a smaller amount of music whose quality and artistic impact is sufficient to make it part of the repertoire of tomorrow. That's why I attach more significance to subsequent performances than to premieres, which ideally should be just the starting point from which the work goes on to have a life of its own. This wish of mine doesn't only apply to my own music, of course, but to contemporary music in general.

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