about Olga Neuwirth

The worlds of sound in Olga Neuwirth's compositions are like twisting labyrinths, and are not fully revealed on first hearing. Looking for points of orientation, one is left groping: the pitches, instrumental timbres and formal processes – that is, all the factors that can give the ear a certain support – are either absorbed or wiped away by the music. Behind the baffling wealth of sound patterns lies a systematic deconstruction of everyday acoustic experience. Here, many things familiar from daily life are sharply distorted and put into new contexts. The less recognisable the sounds become, the more susceptible they and their tonal qualities become to the listeners' own associations. It's because the composer often resorts to extreme means to achieve this effect that her music is so interesting and exciting.

Olga Neuwirth deploys her entire creative imagination to escape from speechlessness at the irrationality of human existence, and yet, at the same time, to reveal this irrationality through music. So her works have many things in common, things that reflect the composer's diverse interests. An example of this is the formal structure and musical language of her compositions, whose sharp cuts, superimpositions, rapid sequences of contrasts, and montages of heterogeneous materials betray strong influences from film.

In addition, Olga Neuwirth sees the application of all the possibilities of technology in her work as a great challenge. Here, it's the live-electronic medium that plays the central role: the constant interplay of instrumental sounds and the artificially generated sounds of live-electronic distortions create a state of tension which is deliberately introduced into the music as an expressive means.

Revealing the irrational – this goal calls for arresting forcefulness, but also for anger and dissent in the face of current convention. With their wealth of references, their uncompromising character, and their aggressive appropriation of materials, Olga Neuwirth's compositions demand a revaluation of everyday values, even where there seems to be nothing to question. This, precisely, is the cause of the numerous grotesque elements and the grim humour that keeps emerging from what has been composed. Both are, at the same time, forms of survival and protest against everyday insanity, and thus a means of combatting the unfeelingness and incapacity for communication of modern life. So Olga Neuwirth's works seek to be understood as a permanent resistance to the ab-surdities of daily life; their diversity of sounds conveys a field of associations which can intensify the listener's own need to observe and contemplate his daily environment attentively. Naturally, this presupposes willingness to listen reflectively.
© by Stefan Drees 1998

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