Hermann Nitsch

Recording of Hermann Nitsch's pipe organ concert, Berlin, January 22, 2016. "Hermann Nitsch is looked upon as the true successor the great masters of symphony: Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler. He draws from Scriabin's, Schoenberg's and Webern's experience, however comes up with different conclusions than their (sanctioned) successors. That is to say: Nitsch disregards Webern's analysis of music. Unlike others he does not attempt to advance atonal music with methods that should be handed over to science and technical realms (e.g. Stockhausen). Nitsch ignores any attempt to investigate the core of the construction of Webern's music. He does know it well though and starts where others don't react at all; at lust, rot (disintegration) and death, poison and madness, fragrance and temperature, the fluid, the excess. To him the intricate structure of a symphony is not accidental play with traditional forms, its necessity. A symphony is s-o-u-n-d (and complete). Nitsch draws material from a number of epochs, mostly though from late romanticism and expressionism. Unlike those who don't want to let go of the past, Nitsch uses materials that pertain to today's interests rather than adhering to structures established before. Theater and music cannot be left in the hands of specialists only. A new generation has to grow. Nothing is gained by performances of some puny imbeciles. These warmed-up-versions of Dadaistic rage are no good if the goal is to leave the current stagnation in theater and music behind. The staging of a Nitsch performance require something that is completely missing in today'sKarajans and Bernsteins: What is called for is rather exact knowledge of where liberation and expansion (really) take place? Few set out to work on Scriabin's fragrance and color prophecies. I see a legitimate expansion of Scriabin's mystery play in Nitsch's symphonic and theatrical work. Nitsch does not make the mistake to turn Scriabin's demands into dogma. He doesn't allow himself (run danger) to separate Scriabin from history like a fatherly patron the way it happened to Webern and his successors (epigons). Nitsch didn't run into Scriabin like a lost son but as somebody who clearly knew his own goals and was capable to integrate Scriabin's visions into his own work." --Günter Brus, 1969 (translated from the Austrian byHans J. Schacht) Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Full color six-panel digipak. Edition of 300.