Portrait: Friedrich Cerha

In recent decades hardly anyone has influenced Austrian music as intensely as Friedrich Cerha. He may be best known as a composer, who works with a variety of styles and repetitively inspires with new ways of composing and yet claims to have no specific style. But he is just as well known as head of various groups, conductor, and also for his tremendous efforts in (contemporary) music and its circulation, most recently also as head of the ISCM, teacher of composition and for the production of the III. Act of Alban Berg’s Lulu. There is yet a lot more to read about Cerha in numerous publications. Though it is not about the individual activities that form the great achievements of Cerha. It is rather the persistent continuity in his dedication for music, his non-dogmatic approach and the integration of differences which distinguish Cerha’s personality.

His compositional work: After the Second World War, Cerha was in close contact with the Art Club and due to his avant-garde aspirations, he received insight into the views of Schoenberg by Joseph Polnauer and at the same time played the works of his colleagues from diverse composition classes as a violinist. When he got acquainted with the current methods of composition in 1956 to 1958 at the Darmstadt summer courses, he was very interested in serialism, as well as in John Cage’s chance operations. And so Cerha, who constantly questioned power structures and allegiances, did not join any school, but worked out different methods of composition, altered them according to his own ideas and let them flow into his work. In compositions, like “Netzwerk” [in English: network] (1981), based on “Exercises” (1962-67), he lets the heterogeneity of styles exist side by side and combines avant-garde major parts with historically backward-looking subrogation. In other works such as „Spiegel I-VII“ [in English: Mirror I-VII] (1960-72), he refers to a compositional method, which either forms static structures or continuously follows the musical momentum. The rise and fall of the orchestral sound in “Spiegel VII” [in English: Mirror VII] creates a powerful, seemingly organically evolving continuum of sound – sound masses, which can also be found in “Fasce” or „Mouvements“. Despite the stylistic variety of compositional means, Cerha’s works are combined by comprehensibility. It is the continuous swaying of tension, the development of singular or multiple overlapping lines which characterize the individual compositions and always manage to arouse the curiosity.

There is a precise concept for the stage implementation of the compositions “Spiegel”-cycle and “Netzwerk”. The concept does not follow any strict plot but deals with the characteristics of human beings on a principle level, which Cerha describes as “world theater”. Influenced by his experiences during the Second World War when he was recruited by the German army, which he deserted and came in contact with the opposition, he deals with the “… questions about the possibilities and opportunities of the individual to deal with power …”. This is also the theme of the opera “Baal” (1974/81), the “Rattenfänger” [in English: Pied Piper] (1987) and “Der Riese vom Steinfeld” [in English: The Giant of Steinfeld] (2002), in which the attention is always on the outsiders. In instrumental works such as the violin concert or the saxophone concert, it is the ratio of an instrument in confrontation with the mass of the orchestra, which reflects the ratio of a single individual to society. In “Eine Art Chanson” [in English: some kind of chanson] or in “Keintate” he deals with the basics of poems, including parts from the Viennese group – again various styles run along with the tradition of the Viennese, contrasting each other, first alienated, but then find a new form.

But composing alone is not enough for Cerha. Inspired by the impressions in Darmstadt, Cerha founded in 1958 with Kurt Schwertsik the ensemble “die reihe” [in English: the series]. The name of the ensemble says it all, it didn’t stick to one performance, the goal was the continuous dissemination of contemporary music. And so they offered the Viennese public works of classical modern music as well as more recent compositions – always quite confrontational, for example the performance of the Piano Concerto by John Cage, which turned into a veritable scandal. But even this could not bring the ensemble down and so it still exists to this day. In the 1980s Cerha initiated together with Hans Landesmann the concert series “Wege in unsere Zeit” [in English: ways in our time] in the Konzerthaus Vienna, which again gave the public the opportunity to get familiar with the contemporary music scene. The fact that Cerha is not limited to one style is not only valid for his compositions, but also for his career as a conductor. Thus, while working for the ensemble “die reihe”, he was also engaged in conducting the ensemble “Camerata Frescobaldiana”, which performed works of the early Italian Baroque on period instruments.

Even with 85 years, Cerha is still active and dedicated to his creative work at his country home in Maria Langegg, where he has erected a chapel. The composer with diverse interests not only writes music, but is also active as a painter and sculptor. Another passion is – just like some other fellow composers – mushroom hunting, where he finds peace for his other activities. In this sense, we hope it will stay this way for a long time.

Doris Weberberger
translated from the German by Doris Miyung Brady