AUDIOphile No.1 | Page 102

Musikk - Artikler En hyllest til Boulez Picasso: Like with any woman or any blank canvas.. work of harmony" Bach: Never the less it can be mastered but it takes time and hard work, it does not simply fall into one’s lap. Then of course you have to endure the experience of having your beautiful structure completely disintegrated by a third rate musician who cannot even be bothered to play the correct rhythmical ornamentation. But the problem as I see it seems to be that in order to make a living and to be able to live with yourself while making it, your descriptions needs to be accessible to others as well as to yourself. Picasso: For me the system comes with the gut-impulse. I always paint objects as I think them, not as I see them, therefore any system inherent in my thoughts invariably shows itself in my work, I cannot put it there intentionally in order for the art to emerge within it. God knows I tried in my youth, my head bursting with the new ideas from the evening songs, with the new possibilities! All of these new ideas literally pouring from my fingertips! And what do they say?? "Surprising variations and irrelevant ornaments which obliterate the melody and confuse the congregation". (Mumbles and reaches for his glass) As if three months is such an enormous amount of lost time... As for your talk about Cain-motifs, Pierre: in my opinion every creation starts with destruction. You have to rid yourself of or deliberately destroy any previous notion of what you think you know about something when attempting to describe it. How else can you gain access to its essence, and once you've found that: how else can you make an accurate description of it? Unless of course you are very wealthy and may do as you please. Boulez: In that case I am thankful for our differences in time. At least I had the fortune of being born into a world where creating your own language can be seen as a valid line of work. Although of course merely trying to oppose old structures can easily get you artistically dismissed as an attention-hungry musician. Boulez: I believe that is something I can relate to. What finally gave me my stand against my Viennese brothers: I needed to be allowed to describe, to be a painter! You really cannot just be constructive all the time; you have to be descriptive, as well! No, the skill that must be "mastered" has for me always been the skill of balance, the delicate balance between constructivism on the one hand and spontaneity on the other. For me, these are the two elements of a true musician. Picasso: Perhaps you would like a canvas? But of course when describing something the real question is always “who are you describing for?” Bach: Hah! Spontaneity! a lost art in deed. You know, there were times when I felt myself suffocating underneath all of these innumerable careful souls. People who lived by rules, never venturing outside of what they had been taught were possible. Especially the organ builders! At times I would give them all a good fright just to get back into a happy mood. Pulling out all the stops on the organ and letting the instrument make its loudest sound ever always made them all go quite white. I used to say that I needed to hear whether the organ had a good lung (chuckles) Ah, but that sound, gentlemen, what an experience! I have been describing the world to so many people and in such an amount of different languages but it was not until I finally started describing it to myself that it really got interesting. Bach: By "yourself ", you mean the divine core of your own self? Picasso: If there ever is or was a divinity he lives within the perfectly painted line of a woman´s back.. (Smiles) Bach: Personally I would say that I have never doubted his presence in my music. After all, gentlemen, did not the great Luther himself one state that it is "when music is sharpened and polished by Art that one begins to see with amazement the great and perfect wisdom of God in his wonderful You know, Pierre, I quite envy you your enormous palette of sound. What I could have done with such a palette... Picasso: It is still just a palette. What use is a palette without the ability to wield the brush? Not that you of all people lack that ability, my friend. (smiles and places his hand briefly on Bach´s shoulder) My point is only that the wielding, or maybe more accurately the will to wield is infinitely more important that what you happen to be wielding at the moment. Boulez: I must certainly say that your pale