Henzes Utopie - Jugend. Musik. Fest.
Die Jugendmusikfeste Deutschlandsberg 1984-2003
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The Jugendmusikfest Deutschlandsberg
(Deutschlandsberg Youth Music Festival)
An attempt in Mürzzuschlag, intended as a decentralised event of the Steirischer Herbst, had reached its limits after two years, but the then director of this major modern festival, Peter Vujica, was determined to keep Hans Werner Henze on board and brought him together with Barbara Faulend-Klauser, then director of the music school and the cultural association in Deutschlandsberg. Henze set up a composition course for young people and showed that composing could be learnt like a language, like reading and writing. After numerous discussions with the city's cultural players, he gathered colleagues and friends to support him in his educational work, as he had done previously in Montepulciano, including his former student Gerd Kühr to supervise the composers' workshop, the cellist Heinrich Schiff to supervise an orchestra workshop and Michael Kerstan to organise the production processes and the festival dramaturgy. Numerous composers responded to his call and wrote new pieces for the pupils of the Deutschlandsberg music school.
"Introduction
Creative powers are dormant in every young person. Most of the time they remain unrecognised, are laid to rest without having roused themselves even once, let alone unfolded, without their owner ever even becoming aware of them. Lack of stimulation and encouragement, being overwhelmed by bad taste, the vulgarity of the mechanical-electronic mass media are all to blame.
Antiquated and authoritarian teaching methods may also suffocate the tender emotional impulses of young individuals.
Every person has their own music, their own images, their own poetry. We artists find one of our most important and most beautiful tasks in life in encouraging and promoting such very personal ideas in our fellow human beings. It is not about discovering or inventing thousands of geniuses and professional artists.
It is about saving thousands of forms of playing, speaking, singing and personal expression from discouragement and renunciation. Playfulness is of crucial importance, the joy of making music, dancing, painting, rhyming and storytelling.
Our little music festival, which centres on the premieres of four first musical works by young people from western Styria, would like to be seen as a beginning, a stimulus, and nothing would make me happier and more festive than if this first attempt were followed by further attempts and perhaps next year we could come up with new, courageous artistic expressions from the most diverse areas and from the most diverse generations.
Our thanks to all those involved in the realisation of our small festival, not least the "Steirischer Herbst"."
Hans Werner Henze, preface to the music booklet of the 1st Youth Music Festival Deutschlandsberg 1984
A highlight of Henze's work in Deutschlandsberg was undoubtedly the premiere of the opera Robert der Teufel in 1985, which was composed by seven young people, among them Olga Neuwirth, who was seventeen at the time and whose extraordinary talent was already apparent. Elfriede Jelinek, who would later win the Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote the libretto and incorporated poems by Deutschlandsberg schoolchildren into the text. The Munich choreographer Birgitta Trommler was responsible for the direction and the Viennese artist Hans Hoffer for the stage design. Kühr conducted the performances and Kerstan was involved as dramaturge and production manager.
Henze also made a decisive contribution to the financing of the Robert der Teufel project: In the summer and autumn of 1985, Süddeutscher Rundfunk (now SWR) filmed a documentary about the composer, to which he only agreed if the project's work in Deutschlandsberg would also be the subject of the film in return for a hefty fee. And he accepted an invitation from the city of Gütersloh to celebrate his 60th birthday one year later on the condition that Robert der Teufel would be part of the planned music festival, also in return for a good fee.
The festival highlight in 1986 was the world première of Das Mädchen und das Ungeheuer in the castle ruins of Landsberg. The music was again composed by the young people of the composers' workshop, with Hans-Ulrich Treichel contributing the libretto. Under the direction of Ian Strasfogel and the musical direction of Gerd Kühr, young and professional artists sang and played together.
Henze's successor as artistic director from 1987-1989 was Gerd Kühr, who continuously supervised and developed the composers' workshop and enriched the programme with children's operas, including the children's opera Agleia Federweiß, which he composed himself, and Henze's children's opera Pollicino. He was then followed for three years by Michael Kerstan, who succeeded in obtaining a considerable amount of money from the then Federal Ministry for Education and Cultural Affairs (BMUK) for the expansion of the Laßnitzhaus into a theatre hall.
By and large, the following programme scheme had been established after these nine years:
| Orchestra workshop | Festival concert chamber concert |
| Concert or music theatre | Concert or music theatre |
| Music theatre | From the composers' workshop and/or Children's opera |
| Modern composers write for children | Commissions for exponents of the international composer scene |
| Jazz and Rock Music | Local musicians and guests |
| Sporadic events | Drama Guest performances by external ensembles Brass music Exhibitions |
A few more fruitful years followed, in which the Viennese stage designer Hans Hoffer left his mark, and in November 2003 the Deutschlandsberg Youth Music Festival was discontinued.
