Abstract
The article discusses how new developments in the notation of contemporary music were negotiated within the framework of the Darmstadt Summer Courses and which interests and actors played a role in this. The first part examines the publications and publication projects that emerged in the context of the Notation conference in 1964. The focus is on the interests of institutions such as the International Music Council and the International Association of Music Libraries, in whose name the New York publisher Kurt Stone attempted to persuade the International Music Institute Darmstadt to cooperate and, following on from the debates there, to systematically record various forms of notation together. In a second step, the content of the debates at the conference is examined, with a particular focus on the different and sometimes conflicting perspectives of interpreters and composers. Numerous connections to fundamental aesthetic discussions of the time can be worked out, in particular to the relationship between the composer’s intention and interpretation, which was renegotiated in a form of notation that was individualized to the extreme. Finally, with a view to later discussions, this topic is pointed to the question of the relationship between morphology and musical structure, exemplified by positions of Wolfgang Rihm (1982), Klaus Huber (1988) and John Cage (1990).
‘Bold Tendencies’: London Contemporary Music Festival, Peckham multi-storey car park, London, 25–28 July, 1–4 August 2013