Erfundene und gefundene Musik

This collection of 25 essays, written by Peter Ruzicka between 1973 and 1997, is published to mark the 50th birthday of the composer, artistic director, and essayist. The texts are divided into four major sections. Given the nature of the content, a subdivision was suggested into writings that, first, reflect his own aesthetic and compositional stance, second, shed light on the work of important contemporary composers in a more monographic form; third, reflect the basic outlines of Ruzicka’s dialectically oriented understanding of tradition and history from a music-historical perspective; and, finally, place the composers Franz Schreker, Alexander Zemlinsky, Hans Pfitzner, Allan Petterson, and Karl Amadeus Hartmann, who have at times received little attention, at the center of the discussion.

Only texts dealing with questions of music history or aesthetics were included in the collection. This decision is in line with Peter Ruzicka's self-image as a composer who regards explicit and implicit poetics as belonging together, so that the present volume, which focuses entirely on music theory, can be read as both a reflection and a supplement to his productive work.

The works should be viewed as a reflection of their time. Today, Ruzicka would certainly express some things differently, and probably more comprehensively, which at the time, in the context of overarching discussions, were deliberately given a polemical edge. But even those contributions that were largely uncharted territory at the time have been left in their exploratory form, which is now inevitably outdated due to more recent research findings.

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