On 22 October Manfred Trojahn celebrates his 70th birthday. Although is too early for an assessment of his life and work, Gerhard R. Koch traces some of the directions and milestones in the composer’s work.

After 1945 the talk was of a radical new beginning, called “Stunde Null” in Germany, initially political, whilst some prominent individuals with a tainted past continued to exercise influence, or resumed doing so. And once again, music was the cause for conflict in two opposing centres, Bayreuth and Darmstadt. In Darmstadt serialism was developed via Webern and Messiaen, each individual note systematised according to its pitch, duration, volume, colour and articulation. Any echoes of tradition, even tonality, anything tried and trusted such as resembling speech, song, symphony, or even opera, was tabu. Anyone who contravened this was regarded as reactionary, if not downright old-fashioned. The formative Darmstadt school came to be demonised as a dogmatic stronghold. But in fact, it was not so monolithic. And the trio of Boulez, Nono and Stockhausen, initially dominant, were soon at loggerheads with each other. Nevertheless, in 2009 Boulez said: “Serial music was a tunnel lasting two years. This tunnel was absolutely essential in order to discover the new landscape.” Meanwhile, the trauma in Darmstadt included the rigid trio’s demonstratively leaving the hall at the Donaueschingen premiere of Henze’s Nachtstücke und Arien in 1958. After that, Henze, who had by now moved to Italy, became leader of the opposition to the avant-garde centres of Darmstadt, Donaueschingen and Cologne. And a whole range of younger composers followed him. Not least Manfred Trojahn.

He too, like Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms, even Reger, had and still has no truck with the “music of the future”: serialism, (live) electronics, aleatoric music, improvisation, noisy distancing, “music in space”, actionism, instrumental or “total theatre”, multimedia, exoticisms, also political engagement, even agitprop, collective work, popular culture, film music – all of these play hardly any role for him. In this he differs fundamentally from the highly-revered Henze with his abrupt changes of style, aesthetic crossings of frontiers, and not least his political shifts. 

Trojahn does not necessarily want to be regarded as an avantgarde composer. Nevertheless, even during his time as Professor of Composition in Düsseldorf and at numerous premieres and performances in major institutions, he still felt himself to be an outsider compared with the obligatory figureheads of “progress”. In the occasional polemic against this and the “business”, a begrudging tone creeps in. In the process he is only to a very limited extent like his contemporaries, colleagues who were labelled as the anti-Darmstadt faction and new German tonality romanticists from the mid-1970s. By contrast he is immune from that labelling through a cultural-geographical mixture of a very special kind. Born near Braunschweig, he was attracted to Italy and France in equal measure, but also to Scandinavia. Although he looked to the theatre, opera and ballet of the Romance world, he also was drawn to the lonely landscapes of the north. These, as ever, found their expression in the symphonies of Sibelius and the Swedish composer Allan Pettersson, whose works Trojahn has championed as a conductor. Thus the two main strands in Trojahn’s output are defined: symphonic and opera – no longer taken for granted even in the nineteenth century, at least not both together. From 1950 onwards in particular the structural preconditions for the great classical formats, such as tonality, had begun to fall apart. When Henze and Trojahn wrote symphonies and operas, this sometimes had the effect almost of a “credo quia absurdum”, strengthened in the meantime by pronounced intent and artistic success.

So this is in no way an acceptance of the “anything goes” of the so-called postmodern; rather, we find that the already fragile criteria of the reactionary or progressive no longer apply. At least much by Trojahn can no longer be judged or condemned according to such simple criteria. A reassessment of some works at any rate demonstrates that the former cliché of “neue Einfachheit” [new simplicity] is misleading. The fact that someone has not completely spurned tonal allusions, motoric patterns and semantic sound topoi (the “lamenting” cor anglais) does not automatically make him or her into a late romantic sentimentalist. In general his symphonic works are anything but nostalgic melodious-sounding idylls, they are much more full of blistering abruptnesses of kinetic turbulences, percussive eruptions. We can sense that Trojahn is a flautist in the virtuoso, blazing, downward-rushing torrents of the woodwinds.

Pierre Boulez adopted “amnesia” as his theme, favouring a future of “pure” structure uncompromised by anything from the past. Trojahn, however, allows himself to be led by associations, artistic, literary, musical stimuli, whether it is through compositions, or through his teacher Ligeti. Thus his first symphony Makramee (1974) draws on oriental linking techniques, as well as Ligeti’s micropolyphony. In the second symphony, echoes of Mahler can be heard (Marcia furioso, Nachtmusik), whereas the third, in no way showy, portrays an imaginary Italy. There is even a symphonic cycle: Fünf See-Bilder [Five Sea Pictures] (1979–1983) conjure up dark Nordic moods, integrate poems by Georg Heym, bring pure apocalyptic clouds of smoke and, with a cor anglais and E flat minor, expressive echoes of Wagner. Trojahn has a sixth symphony firmly in his sights.

In contrast with the Darmstadt avantgarde, Trojahn, like Henze, has repeatedly emphasized that dramatic ideas often have a formative influence on his composing. They are even a starting point, and the use of the voice remains a constant attraction. The path to opera was mapped out, and thereby also the path to a genre which is more strongly influenced by stage traditions, even conventions, than the more rigorous form of symphony. Verdi’s motto “Torniamo all’antico – e sarà un progresso” [let us turn to the past – that will be progress] also applies to Trojahn, while leaving open what is really meant by “past” and “progress”.
Trojahn has composed five operas to date, and we have the impression that the first – Enrico – and the last – Orest – are possibly the strongest. And although his fondness for the misty north remains great, the sources for his melodramas are rooted in the Mediterranean. They are connected in being games with reality and appearance, deceptive reality. The obligatory doubt about the meaning of “literature opera” is heightened in the successful cases. Particularly since Trojahn in no way set texts word for word, and Claus H. Henneberg as librettist has not merely functioned as an “adapter”. Enrico (1991), based on Pirandello’s Henry IV, features a nobleman who plays the German Kaiser in a dressing up game, falls from his horse and in his madness thinks he is the Kaiser, or at least plays this. Those around him want to heal him. But he discovers the rival who caused his accident, stabs him – and now has to play the mad pseudo-Kaiser for ever. The whole thing is a turbulent sex and crime rumpus with some of the excitement of Rossini, and corresponds with Strauss’s bon mot on his opera Salome: a “scherzo with a fatal ending”.

For Was ihr wollt too, Henneberg transforms Shakespeare’s text into elaborate ensembles. And for the fool’s final monologue, the whole thing returns to the English and to D minor. Limonen aus Sizilien has an obvious resemblance to Puccini’s Trittico, and even La Grande Magia is effective on stage as a subtle comedy. For his latest opera Orest, Trojahn wrote the libretto himself, which gives it extra force. Like Enrico, the Atrides tragedy is transferred to a kind of hospital, whereby once again the question of guilt and appearance drives the events forwards. At the beginning and the end, the cry of “Orest!” penetrates the outer and inner worlds. Orest is undoubtedly one of Trojahn’s most powerful scores. He is in no way overcome by “amnesia”. So for Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito, he has newly composed the ever-tricky, non-authentic recitatives, and creatively amalgamated the past and the present.

If we revisit Trojahn’s symphonic work like the operas, what results is an almost janus-headed picture: whereas the stage works still follow some lyric-buffo genre traditions, the orchestral language is kinetic and more abrupt to the point of frenzy. Even the Henze homage Contrevenir (2012) or Herbstmusik (2010) cannot remotely be described as “new simplicity” idylls.

Gerhard R. Koch
(from [t]akte 2/2019 – translation: Elizabeth Robinson)