10 czerwca 2025 (wtorek), godz. 11:00, Sala im. Sobieskich
DR. HEIN SAUER (Universität Zürich), Tracking Music from the GDR — Friedrich Schenker's Missa nigra in Zurich
ABSTRACT: The German Democratic Republic had a stately, enforced but rich musical life. While composers were able to make a living from their work, they also had to contend with the rigid, all-encompassing socialist system and its aesthetics. Research into the music of the GDR concentrates greatly on the question of how composers dealt with this ambivalence and how they conformed to, distanced themselves from, or undermined the system. But what happens when this music is taken out of the socialist system? When there is no audience to read between the lines? In the search for new ways of understanding this music, answers may be found in its presentation outside the GDR. Using a case study of Friedrich Schenker's Missa nigra in Zurich, this paper will discuss why this work was performed and well received in Switzerland in the 1980s, opening up new interpretations beyond the constraints of the GDR.
~
BIO: Hein Sauer is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich. He studied musicology and Intercultural Cultural and Event Management at the 'Franz Liszt' University of Music in Weimar and the 'Friedrich Schiller' University of Jena, earning his PhD in 2022 from the University of Zurich with a dissertation on music manuscripts from the parish archive of Neustadt (Orla). Prior to this, Hein contributed to cataloguing projects at the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) and worked at the universities of Heidelberg and Cologne. His research interests encompass musical manuscript culture, the intersection of music and religion in the early modern era, and East German music history post-1945. Hein's monograph, Zwischen Kirche und Stadt: Musikpraxis und -überlieferung in Neustadt/Orla um 1600 is forthcoming by Bärenreiter.
Photograph: German composer Friedrich Schenker. Photo taken august 2005 in Höfgen near Grimma. Credit: CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=561336