Contemporary Music Review

Vol. 27, No. 6, December 2008, pp. 643653

Nicolaus A. Huber: An Holderlins

Umnachtung1
Cornelius Schwehr

Preface
This text on Nicolaus A. Hubers piece An Holderlins Umnachtung2 intends to be
nothing more than an attempt to devise listening and thinking aids which make it
possible to adequately engage with the piece. I do not expect to be addressing a
sufficient number of readers with access to a score as well as a recording,3 and
therefore will try not to report anything beyond that which I can develop and present
in the here and now.

Motto (a Situation)
Quite near the end of the piece there is a passage that, as pure acoustic information,
cannot be decoded. It is the result of an act of drawing. One or three players (not
two)4 are to create an

acoustical portrait: audibly draw with a pencil on paper. Template: Holderlin at

age 55. (Holderlin, rororo, Hamburg, 1961, p. 155). sketching: very dense, with
several very rapid cross-hatchings, seemingly rushed, but certainly not copying
(aiming for a pictorial result!), instead striving for an analogous, acoustically
translated acoustical portrait (see examples).

One hears that one cannot comprehend that which one hearsthat is, that what is
taking place doesnt reveal its purpose in the sounding result.5 The listeners are also
unable to decipher the processthat is, they cannot imagine the pictorial result,
from where they sit. That which takes place as an extreme of absurdity, the self-
alienation of that which sounds, shall serve as a motto for the piece.

First Motion
Two spots in the piece prepare us for the acoustic situation of the portrait. In the
measures 168f/13131321, pencil lines are drawn with as yet still specific rhythmic
indications, and in measure 136/1136 a line completed by the pencil on paper

ISSN 0749-4467 (print)/ISSN 1477-2256 (online) 2008 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/07494460802410351
644 C. Schwehr
continues an action of the tutti strings (toneless bowing on the bridge, decrescendo al
niente). Thus the act of drawing emerges from the sound production field6
tonelesssustained and evolves in three stages: from a simple, unarticulated sound,
via a series of five strokes in different directions and of different durations, to the
situation described above.
In measure 136 the pencil stroke is still a by-product of an action conceived
sonically; by the end (m. 222), this relationship has become inverted. This kind of
mediation between events that were originally connected, but upon arrival at the ends
of their respective developmental processes no longer seem to have anything to do
with one another, leads us back to my original point of departure, the motto: that
which takes place is alienated from itself; it may retain a trace of that which
determines it (a pencil on paper), but it intends something else.

Excursus 1
In a text (Huber, 2000, p. 374) prepared for the premiere of the piece, Huber cites
two biographical sources critical to the comprehension of the piece. He quotes first
from the memoirs of Theodor Schwab, 1841:
Today I was once again with him, to pick up several poems that he had made.
There were two among them that had not been signed. Zimmers daughter told me
to request that he write the name H. underneath. I went in to see him, and
delivered the request, but he became extremely livid; ran around in the chamber;
grabbed an armchair and haphazardly positioned it first here then there; shrieked
incomprehensible words, among which I am called Scardanelli could be clearly
discerned; but finally did sit down and in his rage wrote the name Scardanelli
beneath them.
I hastily took my leave again, and though he vehemently gestured me away with
his hands and cursed, I retained my composure and bowed properly as I left the
room.

And, from a letter sent by the landgravine Caroline von Hessen-Homburg to her
daughter, the princess Marianne of Prussia, residing in Berlin:

The poor man Holterling was picked up this morning to be returned to his
parents; he made every effort to throw himself from the coach, but the man who
was charged with looking after him always pulled him back. Holterling screamed
that the Harschierer were going to kidnap him, and tried to jump out again, and
in the process scratched the man so deeply with his extraordinarily long fingernails
that the man was thoroughly bloodied. (Huber, 2000, p. 375)

The writing and scratching described here may have provided the inspiration and
point of departure for Hubers compositional decision: to allow the encoded message
to grow out of the piece as a quasi-graphic analogue. However, its motivation may be
found within the piece and in the composers own attitude toward that which he
composes.
 Contemporary Music Review 645

Second Motion
Just prior to the acoustical portrait (m. 220f/16571749), one of the musicians
(using a microphone, if needed) recites two brief texts over a grounding bass drum
roll: Ich bin jetzt voll Abschieds (I am now replete with farewell) and, after a brief
fermata:

It is a prolonged death. The individual layers of his personality come apart. The
ingenious level proceeds to float, loses its centripetal connection. The mental and
the corporeal matter remains behind, bewildered and directionless. Reason no
longer coheres, breaks asunder. His life is a fully internal one.7

The composer stipulates that both texts are to be read by one and the same musician,
and that the musician read the second text with his voice altered.8 Not an Other, then,
but rather the Same One, another way. What reveals itself here (in yet another
different manner) is also present in the subsequent acoustical portrait: The pencil
stroke is, after allif its truth is, as in its first appearance, of a purely acoustic
natureas such already non-identical with itself; for the listener it is not perceived this
way, however, until in the act of the drawing process it again becomes that which,
from the point of view of its determination, it had already been from the very
beginning.
The speaker says, through the alteration of his voice: I am an Other, a suggestion
amplified further by the content, which obviously takes the speaker of the first text as
its object. He thus delivers a commentary on himself, and simultaneously addresses
the theme of the loss of ego.
Hubers affinity for language is evident through his entire oeuvre. Time and again
he brings his pieces into situations where he finds it necessary to make room for the
unadorned spoken word.9
Although the implementations of spoken text in the individual pieces always
differ in their motivation, what binds them together is one important principle
namely, a fundamental skepticism toward the linguistic character of music
itself. Music cannot be a language, because it is incapable of forming a meta-
language (even music about music is itself no meta-music) and because, due
to its nature, semantics and pragmatics cannot be conceived separately within it (a
distinction which has no place in music in the first place). In this manner
the music conjures, in and through language, something which she herself would
like to benamely, a thing, that can simultaneously be itself (language) and
another (not itself), namely practical consciousness (Porsch, 1990, Band 4,
S.414).
The word music is, after all, not music, any more than the word table is a table.
Robert Schumann already felt this, but lamented it from the other end: to wit, that
language cannot become music. In this way, his repeated efforts to expunge the texts
from music become highly relevant.10 Incidentally, Hubers affinity to Schumann
seems to strongly outweigh his affinity to Holderlin.
646 C. Schwehr

Main Part (Identity)

An Holderlins Umnachtung is first and foremost a musical text, in which
the composer exploits all means at his disposal to prevent the events that
occur within it from retaining their identities. Thus he illustrates and thus
he interprets Holderlins Umnachtung: This precisely is . . . what insanity,
living and working in Holderlins tower in Tubingen, was like (Huber, 2000,
p. 374).
Since there is no music that can directly achieve this, the awareness of the
composer and the engaged listener is focused on the level of the respective context,
through and in which the music can succeed in saying: I am an Other. The strategies
employed to achieve this will be elaborated in detail with regard to two fundamental
aspects: articulation and harmonic organization.

Articulation
The term sound production field, coined by Huber himself, was mentioned earlier.
He clarifies it as follows:

Common features can cause seemingly disparate things to appear as links in a

chain. For example, the production field plucking brings forth pizzicati, pencil
points, pianissimo cymbals, plucked piano strings. These can obtain pedal
resonance, and the field of resonance leads to pencil lines, to tone-point
glissandi on the harp, to short, then long chains of chords, to melodic pitch
aggregates, etc.
This general method, which derives from linguistics, was particularly
fascinating to me, as it always allows the generation of very precisely specified
shapes. At the same time these shapes melted away, as individual tones,
melodies, chains of harmonies, as well as less overt matters as highest and
lowest tones of chord sequences, and so on, were dissociated from their
normal context and returned in a curiously poignant alienation. (Huber, 2000,
p. 374)11

Of central importance for the work is the compositional method which conceives the
articulative aspect of instrumental actions in a specific context, or attempts to force
them into that context. In this manner Huber sees to it that everything that takes
place in the dimension of articulation is one determinate and distinct thing while at
the same time meaning something else (though apparently something just as
determinate and distinct).
One example will make this clear: here is a chronological summary from the
beginning of the piece to the 17th measure (to 112), for now with a simple
moment-by-moment description of what happens.12

(1) Percussion I: small Balinese cymbals, struck together at pp; one is damped
immediately, the other permitted to ring, while:
 Contemporary Music Review 647
(2) Piano: a string opened by a mutely pressed key is tapped or struck vertically,
in a steady triplet subdivision, for 12 quarter notes; the string then resonates
another 3 quarters before overlapping with:
(3) Percussion II: small Balinese cymbals, struck together at pp; both continue to
resonate over:
(4) Violins: one tapped pizzicato on each of the strings IV to I (quasi-arpeggio),
then, after a rest of two quarter notes, once again the strings III and II, but
both less than a half step above their original position (the quadruple stop
seems to have slid higher), then:
(5) Piano, as in (2), but now a half-step higher; now, however, the subdivisions
are no longer triplets, but switch between 5, 4, 3 and 2 taps per beat. After
another 13 quarters of this, the note is sustained by the pedal for another 3
quarters. Then:
(6) Percussion III: Four short, synchronized attacks with the Balinese cymbals.
The first three (twice fff, once mf) are damped immediately; the fourth is pp,
and both pairs of cymbals continue to resonate.
(7) Piano: quasi in the shadow of the 4th cymbal strike (like an asynchronous
doubling), a natural harmonic, which resonates together with the cymbals
over:
(8) Violin, viola, and cello: a quadruple stop for each; these are played
asynchronously and aperiodically in differently tapped arpeggios, while over
the course of 21 seconds, the fingering slides gradually to the end of the
fingerboard. The fingering is held constant, leading to a natural distortion of
the intervals. The whole action is mounted on a crescendo (pppp to ff) and
concluded by:
(9) An individual brief chord (fff, secco) in the four woodwinds, the three brass,
the harp, and the contrabass. Only the oboe and the trombone hold their tone
(with a crescendo from p to ff) for the duration of a quarter. Following
immediately:
(10) Piano: as in (2) and (5), but again differently subdivided, and again a half-step
higher.

This, in turn, is followed immediately by sustained tutti chords (as in [9], but
strengthened by violin, viola, and cello), while the harp has loud, short accents. The
other instruments begin with a crescendo, and then the piano follows once again (as
in [2], [5], and [10]), thereafter the small cymbals (as in [6], but fff), then a
bisbigliando on the harp together with the piano harmonic from (7) (all this still
attached to the cymbals) . . .
It is the particular characteristics of particular instrumental actions that cause the
events listed here to appear organized. It doesnt seem worthwhile to me to make
explicit what is taking place on the surface, herefor example, how the cymbal or
piano actions evolve as such, etc. All that is easily inferred from the given
constellations, and this aspect does encourage the perception of further insightsfor
648 C. Schwehr
example, that the tapped action in the piano from the start of the passage, imposed
upon a chromatic scale, appears time and again at varied distances; how this
chromatic scale gets distorted by octave displacements and twisted by permutative
procedures; and that the very feature which permits sundry events to be heard as a
links in the chain is not the tapping sound at all, but rather the repeated piano tone
(the tapping becoming lost over the course of the chain).13
Much more significant than the journeys one can take on the surface of the
eventsthat is, on the back of the repeated piano tone (or on that of the little
Balinese cymbals, or on the string arpeggios, etc.)are the movements that one
observes between the individual instruments and instrumental groups. And this need
not have anything to do with their chronological order of appearance in the work.
Two passages can be cited in this regard:
In measures 127130/10511116 we hear in the clarinet a c#, crescendo (ppp
fff). The oboe enters in measures 129/130, serving to amplify the c#; the other
instruments also contribute (except for percussion, piano, and harp), by
rhythmicizing the sustained pitch with staccato interjections, dynamically adjusted
to the crescendo. In measures 131f/11161125 this crescendo on c# is taken back
by a decrescendo in the horn and strings (fffppp). This time the rhythmic
component is omitted, and instead a timbral transformation takes place: underneath
the horn sound, which goes away before the others, a flute comes in. In measure 133/
1125 everything from the previous two actions is erased except for the following
categories: crescendodecrescendo and rhythmicization: we hear a ratchet sound of
quarter-note duration (its prescribed accelerandoritardando is identical to
crescendodecrescendo).
Now the categories just described are retained, but the rhythmic component is
further refined: the ratchet is followed by a guiro, decrescendo (which is the same as
ritenuto); then the same action on corrugated cardboard; then the pianist runs a
thumb along the ridges of the keys; then a piece of cellophane tape is pulled from the
roll; then a tutti-string noise on the bridge; and finally a stroke of the pencil on paper
(pppp). The dynamic envelope of these actions since the entry of the ratchet amounts
to a broad, internally structured and rhythmicized decrescendo, and thus each
successive action is not only in and of itself an answer to the preceding one, but the
toneless actions in measures 133136/11251141 are, as a decrescendo group, an
answer to the decrescendo c# upon which they followed.
In measures 204209/15471611 the result just described (i.e. the pencil
stroke) is dismantled in another way: the pencil stroke (drawn deciso on paper)
remains a pencil, but becomes a tapped point on the temple block, this in turn
remains a point, but takes on an internal rhythm as a ratchet accent (now ff), which is
immediately answered by a staccato chord (fff) in the winds, strings, and piano. In
this manner the ratchet accent becomes an anacrusis, and its internal structure is
folded outward. This fff-chord remains as fff-chord in the winds and strings, but now
it is marked tenuto (as an eighth note) and the oboe provides a kind of reverberation:
a long, sustained decrescendo on g#, fffppp. There is also air noise in the brass
 Contemporary Music Review 649
instruments and the string players are bowing on the bridge. The sustained g# then
wanders from the oboe to the clarinet, and the piece finds itself at the place where it
was in measure 127, only transposed a fifth higher.

Figure 1 An Holderlins Umnachtung (score excerpt). Breitkopf & Hartel.

650 C. Schwehr

Harmonic Structure
A key moment in the piece is the 11-measure passage from 4959/542616 (see
Figure 1). This is the densest passage in the whole work, a classical tutti,14 and shall
here serve to exemplify two harmonic fields critical to the piece. On the one hand,
there is a series of 11 (101) chords that derive from the set of 5 chords shown in
Figure 2.

Figure 2 HChord series in mm. 4959.

These 5 chords (notated here in the order that they appear in measures 4953 of
the piano part) are repeated in measures 5458, in different variations and a new
permutation (2-1-5-4-3). The chord series concludes with a chord that combines all
the bottom pitches of the previous chords (except for b-flat, which is emphasized in a
different manner on this page). This series of 2651 chords is simultaneously played
in a different order in the winds together with the piano. The strings presentalso at
the same timethe edges of these chord seriesthat is, the first and last chords of
the piano unfolded into a (horizontal) melodic movement, in 4 tempo layers that
differ from the basic tempo (MM 70)namely, MM 60, 80, 90, and 100.15
Set in opposition to this utterly dominating layer (5 chords in 3 variants) stands
the harp, in a sense set aside as a background: she has her own dynamic arc, strongly
subordinate to the other events, and her own rhythmically structured glissando
through 8 chords, each differing from the preceding by one pitch (see Figure 3).

Figure 3 Harp pedal positions in mm. 4959.

Were one to summarize this 1 page according to the aspects cited, then we have 2
harmonic strata, the first with 5 chords in 3 variants, the other with 8 chords in 1
mode of presentation, and thus the following distribution of occurrences: 1-1-2-3-5-8
and thus the start of a Fibonacci series. This observation will require further
commentary in the next section.
 Contemporary Music Review 651
Each of the two strata has a very different impact on the harmonic structure of
the piece. Two examples for each of the two strata shall suffice as evidence: The
harmonic structure exhibited by the harp glissando also appears in measures 91
101/736808, nearly identical to the version described above, but in retrograde
(with two small incidental discrepancies), but also quieter, and, after the
overlapping piano repetitions have ceased, no longer in the background but
considerably more prominent, propelled by a percussion pulse and accompanied by
newly introduced tapped repetitions in the piano (these have in the meantime
arrived at the 6th and 7th tone of the permutated and octave-displaced chromatic
scale described earliernamely, e-flat and e). In measures 139152/11451218
this harp-glissando harmony appears once again, albeit considerably quieter, and
reverting to the order of measures 49 to 59, and this time accompanied only by a
single sustained tone (a d that changes timbre in the course of this chord series).16
The progress of this harp glissando gets interrupted at three places for 2, 3, and 4
quarters rest, respectively. What takes place here is, in yet another way, that which
I have pointed out in connection with articulation: that which is the same
becomes foreign both to itself and to the listener perceiving it. For this to happen it
surely must remain largely the same and change its expressive import through the
context in which it appears. So it is with these harmonic fields of the harp:
although they become steadily quieter,17 they are nevertheless pushed into the
foreground.
To my senses, this passage seems to some degree to suggest the logic of
nightmares.18
As regards the five chords of the second harmonic layer, which had already
appeared on page 7 in three variants, I refer the reader to the passage which
immediately follows measure 59/616. In it the overlapping of the wind and the
piano layer is, by and large, dissolved, and one instead has the impression of an
antiphonal structure (in the middle of which the strings also become involved),
except that in this discursive back-and-forth both participants are saying the same
thing.19
Another manifestation of this harmonic field appears in the measures 182187/
14261440 as a tremolo on the piano, juxtaposed and layered with a further
appearance of the harp glissando harmonies.

Conclusion
In the discussion of score page 7 I had already referred to the scaffolding of the
Fibonacci series, which in that instance might have been responsible for determining
the quantities. I myself have reached the point where I regard these things as
belonging to the composers own private realm; theyre not anyone elses business,
unless they are central to the compositional considerations, which is not the case with
the present piece. For my part, I do not thus intend to disdain such structure-
generating meansindeed, the opposite is true.
652 C. Schwehr
Yet these remarks are intended for the reader who feels inclined to find out more
about the numeric and proportional calculations. When one has attained some
familiarity with them, they arent especially complicated. It is in that context that I
point out that the Fibonacci series is only used up to the number 13, while 21 divides
into 3 6 7 (that can only be surmised, because the number 28 also plays a critical
roleand 28 would be most elegantly presented as 4 6 7). The other numeric
cardinalities seem to be multiples of the Fibonacci valuesespecially, though not
exclusively, of 13 (thus 26 and 52 make their appearances).
In his program note to the premiere, after expounding on the curiously stirring
foreignness (Huber, 2000, p. 374), Huber writes precisely this isincidentally
within an exact numeric and proportional calculationinsanity.

Notes
[1] This article first appeared in January 2003 in the journal Musik&Aesthetik, 7(25), 6070.
Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta Verlag. Used with permission. Translated by Philipp Blume.
[2] Translators note: The title translates as To Holderlins Mental Derangement. The German
term Umnachtung, through its incorporation of the word Nacht (night), should be
understood as a genteel euphemism which, in the German cultural consciousness, is
associated with Holderlin. A study score of the work was published in 1993 by Breitkopf &
Hartel (Score Library 5414). The piece was commissioned by the state of North Rhine-
Westfalia and by AKTIVE MUSIK Essen for the MusikFabrik NRW. The premiere took place
in Porto on October 31, 1993.
[3] The only recording currently available commercially appeared on the classic production
osnabruck (cpo) label, number 999 259-2. The performers are the Musikfabrik NRW,
directed by Johannes Kalitzke. The time indications shown next to measure numbers in the
text are placed there in case the reader might have the inclination to find these points on the
aforementioned CD.
[4] The reasons for this will be familiar from traditional teachings of orchestrationfor
example, that one shouldnt, for example, permit a unison between two violins. This has to
do with the perception of a difference, which in the case of straightforward doubling thrusts
itself into the foreground at the expense of the intended object.
[5] Cf. score, m. 222. The examples are included in the score and consist of: (1) the drawing
Holderlin at age 55 by J. G. Schreiner, that is, the actual template; and (2) two sample
sketches, presumably prepared by the composer, meant to clarify how he envisions the
graphic execution of this acoustical portrait.
[6] The composer himself employs this term. We shall return to it later.
[7] This is freely paraphrased from Haussermann (1961), pp. 139140 and 150.
[8] On the recording this difference does not, in my opinion, come across clearly enough.
[9] It may suffice, in this context, to cite Versuch uber Sprache (Essay on Language, 1969),
Harakiri (1971), and Sechs Bagatellen (1981).
[10] The reader may refer, for example, to the 12th and 16th song from Dichterliebe.
[11] Cf. Imhasly, 1986, especially the keyword word field theory. It would certainly be worth a
separate study to investigate the many theories, emerging from at least as many scientific
disciplines, that are presented in this book, and compare these with the music that they
inspired. A good number of them have probably been scientifically debunked, but may yet
remain compositionally quite fruitful.
[12] At the start nothing happens simultaneously, everything is consecutive.
 Contemporary Music Review 653
[13] One of my students, after a close study of the score, uttered the suspicion that this passage
may have been influenced by Schumanns song, Mondnacht [from op. 39Ed.]an
association that is difficult to resist once it is internalized.
[14] Two metric strata, one a retrograde of the other (the percussion vs. the rest of the ensemble)
make the page a closed system, one which also includes 7 dynamic strata, 5 tempo strata, and
2 harmonic strata.
[15] This has been somewhat curtailed and isnt very thorough, but the principles with which it
deals are sufficiently clear.
[16] These sound transformations suggest a separate narrative of their own, taking place as they
do throughout the piece. They install at the level of the single note that which was already
pointed out with regard to articulation and harmony.
[17] Until they are so quiet (pppppp) that some of the highest tones are skippedcreating the
above-mentioned restsas if these glissandos continued inaudibly past the highest tones and
then dip back into the audible range from above.
[18] In my childhood I had various nightmares that exemplified this structure. Perhaps I am
alone in this experience, in which case I willingly withdraw the observation.
[19] That such things can frequently be encountered outside the realm of music is no argument
against this passage being remarkablethis too is a question of context.

References
Haussermann, Ulrich (1961). Holderlin. Hamburg: rororo.
Huber, Nicolaus A. (2000). Durchleuchtungen. Texte zur Musik. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hartel.
Imhasly, Bernhard (Ed.) (1986). Konzepte der Linguistik. Eine Einfuhrung. Wiesbaden: Aula-Verlag.
Porsch, Peter (1990). Sprache, Europaische Enzyklopadie zu Philosophie und Wissenschaften.
Hamburg: Meiner.