Hideous kinky wins festival residency
mainThe Austrian Georg Haas has been named composer in residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
The blurb says: ‘A daringly innovative composer of rich imaginative power, a homo politicus aware of his responsibilities as a citizen, Georg Friedrich Haas is one of Europe’s leading composers.’
Mr Haas says: ‘I found an answer in the Robert Mapplethorpe saying, “S&M means sex and magic.” It’s the magic of voluntary submission. As the composer, I was the “master,” and the interpreters were my “slaves.” They had submitted themselves voluntarily to my score. They had to do things that were completely meaningless, but they did them with absolute precision. It’s like a sadomasochistic ritual, where the submissive partner has to do something without knowing the reason why. The emotional effect comes from the naked act of submission, which contains an almost spiritual energy.’
UPDATE: A colleague draws attention to the Festival’s acronym: HCMFUK.
Can you clarify your use of the word hideous?
Hideous Kinky is the title of a novel by Esther Freud and a 1998 movie.
And?
‘A daringly innovative composer of rich imaginative power, a homo politicus aware of his responsibilities as a citizen, Georg Friedrich Haas is one of Europe’s leading composers.’ A full-blown lie, produced by entirely anti-cultural people – what would we expect?
The last paragraph of this news item amply proves why it is a lie.
Huddersfield – a dinosaur from the jolly sixties – sinks to its lowest level, which had always been there, and (by the absence of ideas) scraping the bottom of the barrel, gets what it deserves. That Austria, which once produced or hosted composers like Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Strauss, Schoenberg and Berg can produce such a character, says something of the desperate climate of current established contemporary music. Fortunatelly Viennese composers like Wolfram Wagner (no family) and Johanna Doderer offer ample compensation.
He sure is handsome!!