promo cd produced by odd recordds in 2005 > 30 copies >

design based on ernst köch photographs of pieter hurst >

photo > marc terrel gibson

piano mobile,

opus 6, 1981

pieter hurst

live at the national theatre, berlin, august 1981

The deposed, the defeated, the disenchanted, the wounded, or even only the bored, have seemed to find there something that no other place could give. But such people came for themselves, as we seem to see them – only with the egotism of their grievances and the vanity of their hopes.

Henry James about Venice and his residency

with Katherine Bronson in the Casa Alvisi.

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is moved with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

William Shakespeare, in The Merchant of Venice.

Ernst couldn’t be more reliable and pleasant. He can’t stop saying that we should live as we think we should, in his case as works of art. Art. He insists that we, the artists, are privileged citizens of the world, the same geographical territory, but belonging to another realm of humankind. I laugh at him and he gets furious. I do not have much time to write seriously, music or prose. He possesses a devilish quality: he is immensely entertaining and docile. Katarina adores him, and him Katarina. In turn they can not adore me more.

She fucked me with a cucumber, a huge cucumber rubbed in butter while Ernst fornicated her in the ass, her in fours, my assrose opened to her tongue and cucumber, of course. An assnight… The smell of slated Italian butter, sperm and shit in my room this morning is delicious. I started a new sketch of music, but I am not sure. The waves of the canal in front, the neighbours on the other side laughing, the splash of water when a boat zaps past… I went to smoke a small cigarette to the small veranda, utterly forgetting I was naked. A little girl waved from the other side of the waterstreet.

Loredan, the golden book… Vendramin, Foscari… Redentore, Cornaro… we shall ride a traghetti today! I want to see the 3-balled Colleoni, three balls! You need bull-ball-courage to have three testicles, O, condottieri!

  …

   Can’t do much now, it is time for one of them to come and pick me to go and do, see, eat, walk, laugh and be merry. Ernst wants to photograph me naked. I don’t want. Yes, I want and I do not want. My assrose hurts. I am still wondering from where the cucumber came from. 

Venice notebooks, 14 September 1981.

 > original venice photography by marc terrel gibson used by permission 

composer: pieter hurst ◊ pieter hurst: piano, electronic keyboard, treatments &  tapes ◊ second piano  played by myriam kraft ◊ recorded in analogue equipment by adam helffan ◊ mixed and engineered by ernst leddick ◊ restored by david h. hillman @ sheen road studios, london, may 2005 ◊ remixed and remastered by benjamin croaxford @ the naked lizard lounge, may 2005 ◊ copyright 1981, 1996 & 2008,  pieter hurst gmbh, berlin ◊ released in the united kingdom by catalogue of wonders by agreement with the pieter hurst foundation ◊ graphic design by ars publica, london ◊ pieter hurst and venice photography by ernst köck  ◊ released with the support of the pieter hurst foundation, berlin ◊

> on pieter hurst's piano mobile, c.cu (belfast) > I love hearing his work on soundcloud and am glad to see you are releasing a cd of the work. It is nice to hear music that is not all electric blip/bleep (my standard listening) and I think it will be perfect music to play in the dark, it fits so well the transitory moods of slippery hours that drift. I thought it goes well with pieces like those by basinski and greg kowalsky. If they can be famed why not hurst as well?

silk screen print by edward lacqueur >

~

HURST, pieter keller mertens [2^nd of august 1950 - 14^th of june 2007] - german novelist, essayist, germanic's professor, and composer that was at centre of the utopic psychological realism and the de-deconstructivism in europe and founder of the cataloguism/cataloguists; and the main author of their manifesto (with the ‘thinker’ william b. heinz). his literary work, that include the trilogy of the blues (lemuria chants, 1976; blast off herr commandant, 1979; impossible corpses, 1981) is the perfect representation of the utopic psychological realism movement with its dystopic, deranged and complexly absurd world where all the characters are dependent of something, without salvation. after 1981 the author devoted most of the time to composing, but he would return to literature in 1999 with a god’s notebook, after starting the DE-C movement, and later in 2006 with balance and the order, critically acclaimed.

    the american ron silliman and mei-mei berssenbrudge’s poetry and their experimental, critical and philological work heavily inspired hurst, even his music. mute pleonasm, a novel and a concerto [opus 21, 1990] is based in one paragraph of the first and illustrates well the surreal, dada, futurism and cut-up methods [in sound and writing] that hurst adopted earlier as methods and influences expanding his work to include various media and collaborations [in mute pleonasm he works with ryuichi sakamoto, izumi tateno, frederic chiu, boris bergman, and oliver knussen using themes and sounds from john cage to decaux, debussy and telectu.] this pattern will follow until his last recorded work [outono em lisboa / autumn in lisbon, opus 39 and 40] written across the decades and using samples and collages with other author’s materials.

   hurst lists very early the large significance of the american minimalists, brian eno and the baroque composers, especially antónio vivaldi, alongside modern masters as john cage and stockhausen, as the main inspirations and raw material to work upon. this dissection of other author’s work, instead of creating him any problem, provoked him to return to composition, as it is often the case [al santo sepolcro, adagio molto, is a large concerto in three variations of the same name by his adored vivaldi and using some techniques that eno used in discreet music – opus 16, 1987.] while teaching in berlin in between 1985 and 1989 hurst spent his nights in hans-joachim irmler’s studio [a member of the kraut rock band faust] working and experimenting with sound tapes, as he called them, which result of his love for abstract, concrete sounds and repetition being, most famously and enduringly als das kind kind war [opus 18, 1988.] his approach to electronic music and studio composing produced also, later in life, pieces of a hybrid nature as poemaths in 2000 [opuses 22 to 25], that used electronic sources and also the traditional symphonic orchestra. 

       the now [in]famous toru variations [opus 26, 2001] that launched his international career, with the blessing of toru takemisu’s expert and aficionado Robert Aitken, but brut criticism of the classical world, used the sparse material of the japanese composer to create a plexus of luxurious soundscapes, maximalist [as often described]: ‘the delicate balance of takemitsu’s compositions – debussy meets traditional nipponic classic music – seems unrecognisable by the compositional inventions and variations of a somewhat different composer. as he said in an interview ‘the multiplication works as idioms of takemitsu universality and strong presence in our lives. if Debussy took ideas from frank, ravel from fauré, himself from saint-saëns, I took the ‘clarity’ or takemitsu and, inverting it, expanding it, i made it mine, but I truly believe the essences are pretty there.’

one of Hurst first loves was the ancient culture of china, country he visited several times, and from where he brought several musical instruments and recordings. one of them would transform itself into a work of musical variations [the bamboo plant named after the imperial concubine of xiang, opus 10, 1983] played nowadays in contemporary concert programmes all over the world.

   the themes on pieter hurst’s oeuvre, though his output was small, are large and various. his love for the arts, especially literature, took him to dip deep in poetry, film and painting. friends with edward lacqueur he would compose the latter’s requiem [rito funebre e pagano per edward lacqueur, opus 41, 2004], and soundtrack for abdullah al azakyas’ documentary film enfant de ton silence, hurst’s last opus. orfeo, music for ballet, saw hurst compiling old pieces of his and re-writing them, adding a vast amount of new compositional material to produce a veritable astonishing new avant-garde piece of music, premiered at the royal opera house, london, in 2003 [opus 34, 2002.] mythological scenes and sketches are present since the beginning of his career, as the referred orfeo, but especially on his collection of miniatures, nocturnes and interludes, as his nudi maschile, a collection of nineteen miniatures [opus 14, 1986], intermezzi illuminati [opus 17, 1987], prisioneri de note [opus 15, 1986.] his admiration for the french piano music took him at length to produce some of his most lyrical and passionate works, as his mirages I-III and his mirages’ suite [opus 13, 1985] but essentially his homage to william s. burroughs, the piano concerto no. 1, in memoriam [opus 9, 1982] and brion gyson piano sonata no. 1, in memoriam [opus 11, 1984.] the piano, always a present instrument, figures predominantly in les sentiments apparents [opus 7, 1981], two long pieces based on poems by paul eluard that features, on movement two, a soprano with her voice treated electronically. very keen in mocking and transform the ‘classical’ world, hurst would frequently misname his compositions, altering the meaning of the usual definitions and labels of musical nomenclature. the most flagrant example is his sonatini automatici [opus 8, 1981], a six part concerto for percussion, recorded birds’ songs, orchestra and pianos, where the normal definition of sonata is completely obliterated.

photograph (c) suna aktas used by permission

the first memory, the real primordial memory i have, perfectly clear, is of i strangling my pet cat, an infinitesimal little kitten, whole black and a white spot on the right eye, my hands around its neck, his small paws scratching my fat rosy hands, soundless, balancing like a pendulum, his golden eyes staring at me. the body dangling inert and soundless, seemed natural to me. i threw it on the litterbin in the kitchen and i went out to play in the garden sand. i must have been three or four. before that it seems to me i didn’t exist at all. [pieter hurst in conversation, 1998.]

WRITTOMATON: evolves through three sets of simple rules that determine any text (form one instant to the next): 1. idea; 2. plagiarism; 3. cutting-up (see william s. burroughs; brion gyson).

there is no conclusive evidence for an essential similarity between the original text and the new. the state of the new final text in tyme is given by the state of composition of all its paragraphs and ordination at that moment. a discreet moment in tyme, evolving endlessly, irrationally. the parasites will very very soon be driven to extinction: ‘une heure après la mort, notre ame evanouie, sera ce qu’elle estoit une heure avant la vie?’ (umberto eco). les unpardonables negligences des langeurs-tendres…

/ let’s decorate tomorrow, sheathe it with sterling pounds bank notes and settle anywhere, drink egyptian black coffee, hieroglyphic beverage of kinges, let’s decipher the empire and collect materials for our excuse, raise your right hand and heil to the present cancer, all tomorrow parties under the pure flame of stars, let’s break beautiful statues of gods, let’s break all the isms, let’s be modern! we are ripe and ready to die for the nation, the symbols and our faith. long live the sterling pound and the dollar! / (from a fascist manifesto, 1935.)

(…) written things are written things to be read. to be printed and read. a writer’s a writer, the one who writes, the one who uncovers the mysteries of oneself and wonders at it, not himself, but at the words of surreal life, the unsurpassed love for signs and enigmas written to be read…] <

> sebastian credence, in absence d’air <

   silk screen print by edward lacqueur >

the business of writing biographies seems to enlarge each week that passes. there is a passion for the lives of others, as if they are a threshold of revelations. obviously, even for the badly educated, it seems that all are made of stories, fictional stories, more often than not, than the real thing. kabarrett de nerval suspected that too many facts in someone’s life was just a trick to hide a boring emptiness. while after someone dies it seems they all have fabulous unheard of lives and secrets and miracles (it is supposed each person to have at least three secrets in the family, otherwise it is not worthy of write about someone. one secret would do, i was told as well.

nevertheless this is not an ordinary and very factual biography. i grew accustomed to the fact of pieter hurst being around and writing together, talking on the phone, have some common friends and bohemian habits, circle around the same concerts and have the same interests. actually i never thought of writing anything at all until the moment i realised i had in my office in paris a full shelf of folders stamped ph and year after year on the spines. they were getting tired and old of being there useless and gathering spider webs and dust, even though, i sensed, it would be made of a kind of gold, memory gold.

the fact that we stumbled upon each other only so often, and that we had a magnificent epistolary collection, that hurst would confide in me and send me a few too many artefacts, writings, photographs, recordings, films and diaries – and we wrote and work together frequently – the thought of writing about him seemed stupid, small, uninteresting, boring, archaic, outrageous also, a small death, or a very big death – thanatos being an usual theme of work – he existed right here and there, in the past and present, and the need didn’t present itself as sufficient and necessary.

it was him, late in 2006, when he came to visit in paris with five boxes of his personal stuff for me to store, in the mist of a very cold december morning that he joked he should write a biography of i! i replied the opposite would be more applicable and interesting.

you see, i am not interesting per me; i am pretty common and vulgar. thus a mistake i make really often because i forget i was and i am and envisaging myself as a theme of an opus, sounds rather pompous and fatal, don’t you think? i told him that no, i really didn’t agree. it was in that morning, after he left down the montmartre steps, i watching him going down the road, opening the umbrella and turning to wave goodbye, that the thought of doing something with the junk in folders and boxes of his belongings in my attic and shelves really sprang; and i dismissed it almost immediately.

so, as one can guess, this couldn’t be and it isn’t a normal biography. yes, it seems that there are secrets to be revealed, lots of sex and death, thanatos again, but why? on that morning i realised i knew pieter for exactly thirty years and it seemed to be since yesterday that i met him. a look at the material, abundant around me said the opposite. he phoned me later from the gare du nort to say something, when i suggested a series of interviews with him to write a fictional biography. he laughed at the idea, because it was stupid and laudable, laughable and entertaining. in reality he said he could remember only just a bit of his life and that he wouldn’t like to remember much more. he always was comfortable with anonymity.

what really made me pursuit this volume was, mostly, boredom with my fictional and journalistic work (as auntie wilde said once, the difference between journalism and literature is that journalism is unreadable, and no one reads literature anymore!) fastidiousness and multifarious tasks of mechanical order nowadays, those. nevertheless, i decided to have a go, gather all i could, with or without his permission. hurst always tried to sponge over his own life. if at times he could be a perfect raconteur of his own stories, of his own life, the rest of times he camouflaged himself with a fictional character instead, signing documents with other names, running away from his motherland, doing exactly what he wasn’t supposed to do; silent, mainly silently. a man of the night, after all.

one should begin by sitting in the dock with the criminal, not by mounting the bench to sit among the judges. one should be an accomplice with the writer in his act, whether good or bad, of creation. for each of these books, however it may differ in kind and quality, is an attempt to make something. and our first duty as readers is not to try and understand what the writer is making from the first word with which he builds his first sentence to the last with which he ends his book. we must not impose our design upon him; we must not try to make him conform his will to ours.’

surely pieter hurst has a following, even a cult(ish) one; evidently nowadays his name start to be dropped in the same sentence with words like avant-garde and jarrell, adès, post-post-modernism, minimalist cum maximalist, etc. the fact is that he always was reticent in becoming, at least, a known face (thus the very few photographs of himself) much less a legend or a figure of the established art circuit and elite. ultimately, if his written and musical work becomes widely known or appreciated, his stuff would be the ones of legend. i guess, that happening, he would be horrified. like with others that may happen, and i am guilty in the first degree, and the testimonies here collected will clarify and explain the man and his contradictions, much more, i hope, will call for the merit he deserves. because he always tried to cloaked himself, but not his written work, he was less worried with his sound travails, as he used to say, his life is still covered in a certain mist of mystery and little lies and incorrect factoids. he seemed to be afraid of communications but at the same time took advantage of all that came to his hands; he invented all the pretexts possible not to conduct his own work but was sad because others wouldn’t. nevertheless he refused prizes and academic positions, rejected commissions for both written and musical works. never belonged to any particular art movement but he was embraced by the intelligentsia and personalities, up and down crafts and arts and circles and squares… he was singular. singular; in the most plural ways possible.

the essential elements, components, gears, inspiration and elevation on hurst’s oeuvre was/is/are the diverse forms he found to assimilate and describe the compelling mistakes and misadventures of simple or even vulgar, degrading materials and of contemporary peoples/characters. what his admirers and detractors are attracted to are the compelling perplexity of errors, misjudgements, prejudices and ecstasies he found in repetition, simplicity, mechanisation of human behaviours, i.e. sex, human body (and its scatology, in a way very similar to juan goytisolo), loneliness, madness, depression, eccentricity and, above all, death and love (that meant a myriad of things in different shapes and descriptions and metaphors and peoples). as stephen barber put it, hurst found in pasolini and marquis de sade guides descending the hell of contemporary common existence, a ladder to the excellences of heavens and paradises like swedenborg and william blake, but nothing or anything found under or up was what we were expecting, at all. his writing was always furious, his music mainly ethereal and melancholy. if both of them burn, and, yes, they all burn, is in delirium of a lucidity ingrained in a perilous observation of the raw materials (mainly himself), re-invented in delicate phrasing in the most lugubrious of situations, brutal in the maelstrom of hypocrisy and apparent peacefulness. the invention of these worlds, musical, whether on the writing page on in musical notation, is a voyage that is a mirror of his life and contemporary fellows and world, but presented in smithereens – his constant travelling in europe is a simple easy example of this.

this is not a normal biography, it couldn’t have been at all. when i finished it i even didn’t have an editor much less a publisher! this is a sketch of puzzle (and puzzled) pieces about someone, put together without the main preoccupation of a chronology. obviously i did the research i could, but i believe this may be just the beginning of an actual writing about the personality and the person pieter hurst was.

the fact that i had such an abundance of personal and given materials of and about him made me, i am sure, a bit lazy. nevertheless this is a project in development. customary nowadays is to enlist an endless chore of names and thank yous, very polite as they may be, but boring to the reader, they want to know about the man and not the biographer-writer and the process of producing a biography. other fact is, and important in excelsis, that i was luck enough to have access to materials usually guarded for a quantity of time after the subject has died.

what i am very sure is that without the help of olga putsykayavitz and mauricio kagel, with whom i had endless conversations and provided me with manuscripts and anecdotes, this volume wouldn’t be as interesting. this vain project allowed me to contact and to be very welcome to several meetings with the late alain robbe-grillet that informed me of some intricacies and points of view about hurst’s writings that otherwise would have escaped me surreptitiously. as they say, being very close to something or someone sometimes makes one blind. the use of french poetry and poets in hurst’s music and writing was deliciously put plain by robbe-grillet – i thought i was being lectured by the most candid and voracious professor ever, not scaring, but daunting and intriguing, entrancing - and eye opener.

alex ross, the introducer of hurst’s music in the states elucidated me profusely and enchantedly about the views of contemporary music on the other side of the atlantic and where he positions the work of hurst in the twentieth century (he was the first musicologist to write in book form about him.) another adventurer and champion of new music and admirer of hurst, david osmond-smith, even though he was in very delicate health and was very difficult to concentrate and work for him, read the manuscript twice and amended several facts and musical comments that would have made me very ashamed, if printed. < [introduction to ‘the screeching of a phonograph needle’ by william b. heinz, in preparation to be published in 2012] <