In Hans Zender’s oeuvre manifold traces of an intense confrontation with intercultural questions can be found. More specifically, many of Zender’s works relate to East Asian cultures. Generally, Zender highlights heterogeneity and his concepts of interculturality seem to be opposed to a hybrid mixture of idioms as described by the term »creolisation«. Most recently Zender’s opera Chief Joseph (2001-2003), a complex work about cultural conflict, oscillated between familiarity and strangeness, between descriptive and cryptic layers. Zender has referred to the ancient Chinese magical square luo shu and to ancient Chinese theories of tuning to widen eurocentric discourses of contemporary music, although the references in his scores can often hardly be labelled specifically »Asian«. On a similar conceptual level, three main traditions from East Asian philosophy have had substantial influences on him, namely: the anti-logocentric ideas of Zen-Buddhism (obviously partly triggered by John Cage), the Confucian ideals of music set forth in the ancient »Book of Rites« Liji, and the philosophers of the Kyoto-School – mainly Kitaro Nishida and his idea of »pure experience«. Zender’s works such as Fünf Haiku (1982) or Lo-Shu VI (1989) exemplify the composer’s transformation of traditional Japanese aesthetics into forms of obvious simplicity that establish a continuous change between uninterrupted flow and sudden silence. The notion of a »dissolution of time« is present in these pieces as well as in the earlier Muji no kyo (1975) which, conversely, ends in an intensification of the musical structure on all levels. Likewise, Furin no kyo (1989) and Nanzen no kyo (1992) superimpose different concepts of time associated with different cultures. In the final section of Furin no kyo the superimposition of different concepts of time and languages results in a collage-like microstructure. These examples confirm that Zender’s aesthetic focuses on contradiction and does not aim to harmonise cultural differences or conflicts. For Hans Zender interculturality means a fundamental »concussion of [established] meanings« (Roland Barthes).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:86348 |
| Date | 30 June 2023 |
| Creators | Hiekel, Jörn Peter |
| Contributors | Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst |
| Publisher | PFAU-Verlag |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | German |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:bookPart, info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 978-3-89727-366-5, 07, urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa2-854158, qucosa:85415 |
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