STEPHEN FERGUSON
On the road with Suppan

We are standing on the corner of Siebensterngasse and Kirchengasse in
front of that trendy, aluminium-chaired pub whose name is so discreetly
hidden from view that no-one has ever uttered it. The sun is ablaze. In
front of the pub is a shapeless square. Driven deep into its pavement are
steel structures, and engineered right into them are neon-green playback
machines playing some of Wolfgang's music (an Orpheus Trust project to
commemorate Jewish composers who were hounded out of the pre-war
city, in that darkest decade). We helped him produce this music.
Forever, aAmplify is showing composers hunched over their desk, or
pressed in between their machines. So this time, we have asked Wolfgang
to go al fresco, to walk up towards the mega-Mariahilfer street, pushing
through the throng, and obstructing its purposeful walk towards the thong
shops.
Waves of the credit-card-ready divide as we dive into the sea of shoppers.
It is very turbulent here, so we are relieved and buoyant when we reach
Café Ritter. Wolfgang is more relaxed being filmed before the tables than
slipping through chinks in the sidewalk mob. After strudel, mélange and a
smoke, he talks about the project. He said he wrote this music out of pure
conviction. As we had listened in the studio night, aware of the import of
its context, it had sounded that way to all of us.

Stephen Ferguson

WOLFGANG SUPPAN
The Idyll

For some time now, I have been looking for a new starting point for my
work. I want that starting point to be a bit like a dial on an instrument
which is turned down all the way to zero. I wish to start from the
beginning again.
You can use everything you know about music as a kind of helping hand,
helping to pull you up atop a wall, so that you can see out into a landscape,
and see what everyone else is doing. But for me the word idyll doesn't
describe what happens when we see a peaceful vista, it means freeing our
imagination up enough to create our very own landscape.
What I mean is: I don't want to use my knowledge of music in order to see
all the musics of the world laid out there. I want that knowledge to push
me forward until I find my own, personal version of what music is.
Rousseau fascinates me when he writes about nature and society. He is
not trying to say that one is good and the other is evil. He is talking about
things that have developed of their own accord and things that have been
shaped. That difference is what is driving me forward as a composer right
now.

Wolfgang Suppan / edited and translated by Stephen Ferguson