Erfundene und gefundene Musik

This collection of 25 essays, written by Peter Ruzicka between 1973 and 1997, is being published to mark the 50th birthday of the composer, artistic director, and essayist. The texts are divided into four main sections. Based on their content, they have been subdivided into writings that firstly reflect Ruzicka's own aesthetic and compositional position, secondly, illuminate the work of important contemporary composers in a more monographic form, thirdly, reflect Ruzicka's dialectically oriented understanding of tradition and history in broad strokes from a music-historical perspective, and fourthly, focus on the composers Franz Schreker, Alexander Zemlinsky, Hans Pfitzner, Allan Petterson, and Karl Amadeus Hartmann, who have received little attention at times, at the center of his considerations.

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that were largely uncharted territory at the time have been left in their exploratory form, which is now inevitably outdated due to more recent research findings.

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