Homage à Morton Feldman by Peter Ablinger
Morton Feldman was a composer who left the European avant-garde behind, shedding the complexities it was fraught with. Not only did he refuse to go backwards, but he postulated a new kind of theory that stated that there must no longer be a difference between construction and reality, between concealed technique and musical event; in short – and in the words Feldman himself often used – the only thing that matters is the surface itself, not the construction
behind it. Peter Ablinger, however, puts the question differently and asks: “What is a surface in music?”
Peter Ablinger
Peter Ablinger, born in Schwanenstadt/AT in 1959, studied graphic design at the Linz Polytechnic from 1974–76 and jazz piano at the University of Music in Graz from 1977–79. From 1979 on he took private lessons in composition from Gösta Neuwirth in Graz, parallel to this he also took lessons from Roman Haubenstock-Ramati in Vienna until 1982. Ablinger has lived in Berlin as a freelance composer since 1982. In 1988 he founded Ensemble Zwischentöne. The exploration of unconventional instruments, venues, performance practices and notational forms are paradigmatic for the Ensemble’s work. Along with his compositional activity he has also initiated and run numerous festivals. Together with Bernhard Lang, Klaus Lang, Nader Mashayekhi and Siegwald Ganglmair he founded the publishing house Zeitvertrieb Wien Berlin. Since 2012 he has been a research professor at the University of Huddersfield.