Publications

Even in her youth, Ursula Mamlok (1923–2016) had one single career goal: to become a composer – despite all the adversity of 1930s Berlin, which she left with her parents at the last minute in 1939. In New York, the struggle for her compositional identity began. After a successful career in the USA, the grande dame of contemporary music ventured a new beginning in Berlin in 2006 after her husband Dwight Mamlok passed away.

The 21st issue with a new design focuses on questions of sustainability: with texts and photo series on “The Great Repair” by Anh-Linh Ngo, Zara Pfeifer and Mierle Laderman Ukeles, among others, and literary contributions by Ulrike Draesner and Cécile Wajsbrot. Also: conversations with Luc Tuymans and Gundula Schulze Eldowy, short essays by Anna Hetzer, Moshtari Hilal et. al. as well as news from the Archives.

“The sounds ­are not the sounds! They ­are there to distra­ct the intellect ­and soothe the senses.” Born in Austri­a in 1959, Peter Ablinger, who h­as lived in Berlin since 1982 ­and is a­ member of the Ak­ademie der Künste, is not only considered to be a­n innova­tive composer but ­also a­ brillia­nt essa­yist. His writings were published in Germa­n in 2016 a­nd a­re now a­va­il­able in English tr­ansla­tion.

Sonate pour piano (1950–1952) by Jean Barraqué (1928–1973) enjoys a legendary reputation as probably the earliest attempt to reconcile the idiom of integral serialism with a monumental form. The work is now presented in a new critical edition, for which all handwritten and printed sources were subjected to an in-depth analysis and evaluation for the very first time.

At the start of the 1920s, Eduard Erdmann (1896–1958) made a name for himself as a pianist and composer. The present volume is dedicated to his compositional oeuvre, his personality and his contacts to artists in Berlin in the 1920s, such as Ernst Krenek and Hans Jürgen von der Wense. An edition on his correspondence with Artur Schnabel and essays about Erdmann's ties to Riga complete this overview of the artist.

Werner Grünzweig, who has published numerous books about Artur Schnabel (1882–1951), presents the first biography of Schnabel in German with this volume. It honours Schnabel as a performer, composer and theorist. His concert activity, records, publications and lectures have changed our concert life up to the present day.

As a young musicologist, Anneliese Landau (1903–1991) was at the beginning of a promising career. In 1933, she was left with only the activities for the Jewish cultural association. In 1940, she emigrated to the United States and soon found a new home in Los Angeles, where she worked as the Music Director of the Jewish Center Association. Her autobiography, together with extracts from letters from her parents who remained in Berlin as well as Landau’s correspondence with composers, have now been published for the first time.

With musical masterpieces, you never come to an end because every interpretation is merely an approximation of an unattainable ideal. To this day, Schnabel’s main argument in the lectures held in Chicago in 1940 represents a valid polemic position for every serious musician.