Fifteen Paragraphs on Helmut Oehring and Rolf Borch
German composer Helmut Oehring has written a bass clarinet concerto for this year’s Ultima. Soloist: Rolf Borch. We talked to bothgot the chance to talk to both men.
I: Oehring’s biography
Helmut Oehring was born in communist East Berlin in 1961. As a teenager he taught himself to play the guitar, and by using his ears he picked up the music to of idols like such as Neil Young and Bob Dylan. He was trained as a builserbuilder, and during the 1980s he was a cleaner, a cemetery guard caretaker and a forest worker.
II: Oehring’s parents
His parents were deaf mute. That meant it was always quiet in the home where he grew up, except for some deep sounds his parents sometimes made. He probably did not hear spoken language until he was four years old. Before this, he communicated with his parents by sign language only.
III: Rolf Borch’s website
Clarinetist Rolf Borch was born (1975) and raised in Bergen. He has studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music under Hans Christian Bræin. Apart from a broad classical repertoire, Borch is passionate about new music – which has resulted in more than 70 world premieres by Norwegian and foreign works. Borch is also a regular member in the young, up-and-coming chamber ensemble asamisimasa.
IV: Oehring on inspiration
– My first experience with contemporary music was listening to Anton Webern «Variatonen op. 27 – a truly funky moment. My musical background today is, beside Webern, marked by artists like Victor Jara, Freddy Mercury/Queen, Yes, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Luigi Nono, Béla Bartók, Arnold Schönberg, Friedrich Schenker, Helmut Lachenmann and Franco Evangelisti, as well as my teachers Friedrich Goldmann and Georg Katzer.
V: Borch on Oehring 1
– I performed on the world premiere of one of his works with asamisimasa during Ultima last year. It was called «Fragile Water», and it was chamber music. Playing Oehring is much a lot of fun and “musicianesque”. He is characterized characterised by rhythm and clear musical points. For the listeners, he comes across as very direct. During the performance, we noticed that there was a good atmosphere in the audience, and the venue was packed. It is really rewarding to play music that hits home.
VI: Borch on Oehring 2
– I gave him this commission before we performed the last work. He sent me some information about himself, probably because he had noticed that I was going to perform «Fragile Water», hoping that we could work together again. Straight away mI said: clarinet concerto. He replied: «I’ll get going tonight». I will not bug him any more now, but I wouldn’t mind working with him again.
VII: Oehring on deep sounds
– Have you heard how deaf mutes speak? Their vocal chords are reduced, so they can only let out uncontrolled, deformed and deep sounds, and these were the first sounds I heard as a small child. Often I ask string musicians to tone down their instruments up to a fifth, or the kettledrum players to remove the skin from their drums in order for the instruments to only just react to the bows or the sticks. Then the instruments “talk” in the same uncontrolled way. To me the deepest instruments, like the double bass and the bass guitar, are not only interesting as bass rhythms, but also as “creatures”. Because I was born into sign language while I was able to hear myself, all gestures and movements were inimately connected to the ear. That’s why the “choreographical” parts of a work is are really important to me. This is particularly true for the double bass, as it so often requires big movements just to get around it. I need a musician that is capable of dancing with his or her instrument, being one with it; so often, the movements seem malformed and awkward; not that one never should notice the physical work, but it should never get in the way.
VIII: Oehring answering the question: In what way has growing up with deaf mute parents affected the way you perceive sound?
– For me, seeing is more “normal” and general, while hearing is exotic and strange, but moving.
IX: Borch on the bass clarinet
– The Ultima work this year is a concerto for bass clarinet. This is highly unusual. Off the top of my head, I can not come to think of a single other concerto for bass clarinet. He has been very determined that it should be a bass clarinet. Fortunately, I play all varieties of the clarinet. Being into new music, one has to be able to do that. It is huge, the bass clarinet. You have to place it on the floor, like a cello, but you play it in the same way as a normal clarinet. Normally, it shares the functions in music with a tuba or a double bass.
X: Borch on this year’s work
– I got the notations for my voice two weeks ago, and it’s heavy duty work. With new material, that is almost always the case. It’s a tiresome job, but as time passes, it will be fun. Like in other work, Oehring seems to be using a stable rhythm in this one, but in form, it’s the complete opposite of the last one. Then, it was more crosscutting; first a short and quick piece, then a slow one, and this pattern was repeated. Now, the piece takes its time to be poetical in the beginning before the rhythm enters and lasts all the way to the end.
XI: Borch on Brahms and growling
– The work is called «Die Meere», after a song by Brahms. Originally it was written for two singers and piano, but this is for two clarinets and piano while I growl away, doing my own thing. The work is a mix of Oehrings’ and Brahms’ music, and occasionally you can hear Brahms make making an apperance.
XII: The self-taught Oehring
After he had discovered contemporary music in 1985, Oehring went to the musical libraries and familiarized familiarised himself with the works of Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Friedrich Goldmann and Georg Katzer. Oehring taught himself reading music and writing down his own improvisations for guitar. From there, he proceeded to real composing. As he didn’t know any musicians that could help him, he borrowed as many instruments as he could and experimented with them on his own. In that way, he figured out what they were able to do.
XIII: Oehring answering the question: Do you think that you learned something about music that you wouldn’t have learned from a formal education when you at first were an autodidact?
– Yes and no at the same time.
XIV: Oehring’s formal education
Oehring was not able to begin a real musical education until the wall came down, as he had vocalized voiced his disagreements with the political system on offer in the DDR.
From 1990 to 1992 he took a master’s degree under Katzer at the Akademie der Künste, where he is a member. After this, he got to study at the Cité des Arts, Paris, in 1994, and at the Deutsche Akademie Villa Massimo in Rome in 1994–1995.
XV: Oehring on his favourite genre
– My biography and my encounters with specific people has made me prefer stage based musical works that deal with languages and signs. For me, musical theater is the most interesting because it connects different art forms with a poetical and political attitude.