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Interview with Johannes Kretz
February 16, 2011
Johannes Kretz is a composer. For information about his work, visit www.johanneskretz.com.
Tibbetts: How long have you composed, and what made you decide to become a composer?
Kretz: Since childhood my parents always took me to church choirs. When singing at home, I developed the habit of singing a second voice by improvisation, when my brother and mother were singing songs. I started playing the violin at the age of 4 and after learning to read a score I also started writing done some little tunes. When I was 13, I participated in a competition for composing a canon and actually won the competition. This encouraged my to compose a cantata in Baroque style (without any knowledge of harmony or counterpoint at that age). Since then it was clear for me that I wanted to become a composer.
Tibbetts: What inspires you?
Kretz: Books, movies, music by others, talks with interesting people, paintings, nature, science (especially biology, evolution theory, brain sciences, cognitive sciences)...
Tibbetts: Of all you have done, what do you consider your best work, and why?
Kretz: Passacaglia for orchestra, because here I showed my ideas of a sophisticated musical organism in every detail as well as in a large, extended form.
Tibbetts: What is your 'typical day' like?
Kretz: Monday and Tuesday I am teaching computer music and music theory at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna. The rest of the week is divided between composing, organizing (in the frame of the Austrian Composers Association, the Austrian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music and some other smaller composers groups) research (developing sound synthesis software) and private life. There are not many rules there; every day and every week is different.
Tibbetts: Do you have any words of wisdom to offer to aspiring composers and musicians?
Kretz:
a) It is not about how well the pig dances, but whether it can fly!
b) What matters is the balance between rationality and emotion, order and freedom, structure and its destruction.
c) Personally I think that the most important step for progress in music will be overcoming the well tempered tuning and its octave split into 12 equal steps. Finding ways of composing microtonal music in a way that sounds "right" to the audience is the biggest challenge of our days. That means establishing a melodic and harmonic language, a syntax the can be "understood" in its plausibility.
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