Hans-Joachim Hessler

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Hans-Joachim Hessler

Hans-Joachim Hessler (German: Heßler, born 7 January 1968 [1] in Recklinghausen) is a German composer, musician and musicologist. Today, he lives in Duisburg and Diemelsee. As a contemporary composer, he attributes his work in writing and composition to the epoch of musical postmodernism.

Recklinghausen Place in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Recklinghausen is the northernmost city in the Ruhr-Area and the capital of the Recklinghausen district. It borders the rural Münsterland and is characterized by large fields and farms in the north and industry in the south. Recklinghausen is the 60th-largest city in Germany and the 22nd-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Duisburg Place in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Duisburg is a city of about 500,000 inhabitants in Germany’s Rhineland, at the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr. In medieval times, it was a member of the powerful Hanseatic League, and later became a major centre of iron, steel, and chemicals. For this reason, it was heavily bombed in World War II. Today it boasts the world's largest inland port, with 21 docks and 40 kilometres of wharf. The city supports a large Turkish community.

Diemelsee reservoir in Germany

The Diemelsee or Diemel Reservoir is a reservoir with a surface area of 1.65 km² and about capacity of 19.9 million m³ on the River Diemel in the counties of Waldeck-Frankenberg in North Hesse, and Hochsauerlandkreis, Westphalia, Germany.

Contents

Life

He studied music theory at the University of Münster and then, from 1990 to 1997, school music and German literature at today's Technical University of Dortmund. He received his education in art from, among others, Werner Seiss and Bob Degen, in the organ from, among others, Karl Weyers and Thomas Gabriel, and in composition from, among others, Heribert Buchholz and Thomas Stanko. In 2008, he received the academic degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz.

Music theory considers the practices and possibilities of music

Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. The Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory":

The first is what is otherwise called 'rudiments', currently taught as the elements of notation, of key signatures, of time signatures, of rhythmic notation, and so on. [...] The second is the study of writings about music from ancient times onwards. [...] The third is an area of current musicological study that seeks to define processes and general principles in music — a sphere of research that can be distinguished from analysis in that it takes as its starting-point not the individual work or performance but the fundamental materials from which it is built.

University of Münster German public university

The University of Münster is a public university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.

Technical University of Dortmund university in Dortmund

TU Dortmund University is a university in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany with over 35,000 students, and over 6,000 staff including 300 professors, offering around 80 Bachelor's and master's degree programs. It is situated in the Ruhr area, the fourth largest urban area in Europe. The university is highly ranked in terms of its research performance in the areas of physics, electrical engineering, chemistry and economics.

Work

Poly-stylistics and boundary crossings of all kinds are a fundamental attribute of Hessler's work.

Much of Hessler's work appears to be influenced by the philosophical writings of the postmodern thinker Jean-François Lyotard; for instance his chamber music pieces "Aktualisierungszwang" [compulsion for actualisation] and "Tonregelsystem 189" [system for sound regulation 189], which deal in particular with the event philosophy of Lyotard, as well as the orchestra series "Le Différend XVII-XXIII", which are dedicated to his main philosophical work of the same title.

Jean-François Lyotard French philosopher

Jean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist. His interdisciplinary discourse spans such topics as epistemology and communication, the human body, modern art and postmodern art, literature and critical theory, music, film, time and memory, space, the city and landscape, the sublime, and the relation between aesthetics and politics. He is best known for his articulation of postmodernism after the late 1970s and the analysis of the impact of postmodernity on the human condition. He was a director of the International College of Philosophy which was founded by Jacques Derrida, François Châtelet, Jean-Pierre Faye and Dominique Lecourt.

From the beginning of his career onwards, Hessler has been placing particular emphasis on musical breaks and the configuration of transitions between the different genres and styles. During the mid-1980s, for example, the program of the Flax-Trio, which Hessler belonged to as a formative member, pianist and keyboarder, reads: "With pleasure, the boundaries between completely different musical styles are torn down; these are then decomposed into single pieces, absorbed and brought back to the listener in entirely new forms." [2] This compositional technique, which Hessler in leaning on Frank Zappa calls "conceptual discontinuity", significantly marks his producing until today.

Frank Zappa American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American musician, composer, activist and filmmaker. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse rock musicians of his era.

Writing (selection)

How close theory and practice are, can be seen in Hessler's transfer of the theory of intensities onto the practice of music in his book on Jean-François Lyotard. The theory of intensities implies that, in the case of conflict between two discourses, or rather, during the transition from one discourse to the other, intensive feelings occur. The book carries the title Philosophie der postmodernen Musik. [3]

The fact that not only Pierre Boulez, but also Madonna need to be considered under the heading of contemporary music, becomes clear in Hessler's posthistorical considerations in relation to the "Disappearance of music" (orig. "Das Verschwinden der Musik") [4]

Pierre Boulez French composer, conductor, writer, and pianist

Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez CBE was a French composer, conductor, writer and founder of institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of the post-war classical music world.

Madonna (entertainer) American singer-songwriter and actress

Madonna Louise Ciccone is an American singer-songwriter, actress and businesswoman. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop" since the 1980s, Madonna is known for pushing the boundaries of songwriting in mainstream popular music and for the imagery she uses onstage and in music videos. She has frequently reinvented her music and image while maintaining autonomy within the recording industry. Although having sparked controversy, her works have been praised by music critics. Madonna is often cited as an influence by other artists.

In his comprehensive treatise "Der zornige Baron", Hessler shows among others that, according to his view, the musician and composer Charles Mingus can also be subsumed under the ideal type of "conceptual discontinuity". [5]

Political commitment

Hessler interprets one of the most significant key texts on the discussion around postmodernism "Überquert die Grenze, schließt den Graben!" (Cross the border, close the trench!) [6] by Leslie Fiedler in the sense of an education mandate for artists and as a negotiated agreement of a convinced democrat to contribute, also in the area of contemporary music, to the overcoming of elitist and mass culture.

Catalogue of works (selection)

Piano works

Organ works

Chamber music

Orchestra works

Theatre music

Improvisations

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References

  1. ↑ Hans-Joachim Heßler. Personal website of Hans-Joachim Hessler. Retrieved 12 December 2012
  2. ↑ Program of the Flax-Trio. Personal website of Hans-Joachim Heßler. Retrieved 20 November 2012
  3. ↑ Heßler, Hans-Joachim: Philosophie der postmodernen Musik. Dortmund 2001, ISBN   3-935744-00-5, pp. 24 and 46ff.
  4. ↑ NonEM Publishing Company, Dortmund 2007. ISBN   3-935744-06-4; Heßler, Hans-Joachim. Das Verschwinden der Musik – oder: Papst Gregor I. und Madonna, die Göttin der Liebe, suchen Jean Baudrillard, ihren Verführer. pp. 74ff.
  5. ↑ Heßler, Hans-Joachim. Der zornige Baron: Das Prinzip Diskontinuität im Leben und konzeptkompositorischen Schaffen des Charles Mingus Jr., United Dictions of Music, Duisburg 2010. pp. 51ff. ISBN   978-3-942677-00-4
  6. ↑ Fiedler, Leslie. Überquert die Grenze, schließt den Graben! Wege aus der Moderne: Schlüsseltexte zur Postmoderne-Diskussion. Wolfgang Welsch. Hg. Weinheim: Acta humaniora, 1988. pp. 57–74.


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