Cause and Curiosity
Walter Zimmermann in Conversation with Richard Toop
Edited by Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer
312 pp, pb.
Cause and Curiosity points to an attitude driven by curiosity on the part of the composer Walter Zimmermann, whose work is examined from its beginnings to the present day in conversations with Richard Toop. In the years 2002-2008, the two met for several conversations, resulting in a multifaceted kaleidoscope of this composer whose versatility is still to be discovered. Richard Toop, who became known as an exegete of Brian Ferneyhough’s work, was always fascinated by Walter Zimmermann’s independent composing and emphasized its originality in the lecture Shadows of Ideas, which concludes this book. Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer took on the transcription and publication of the conversations, completing them after Richard Toop’s death in 2017 and providing the volume with a wealth of visual material. The result is an adventurous book that meanders through the works and mindset of the composer, whose life motto Beginner’s Mind becomes tangible in it.
“Walter Zimmermann’s music seem more like the kinds of categories one invents for things that don’t fit any- where else. Maybe this is the key to ‘locating’ Zimmermann’s work. Where does it ‘fit’? Perhaps it simply doesn’t. I have often wondered why his compositions seemed to be neglected in favour of works by undeniably less talented and individual German composers. And increasingly, I believe the answer is that his work has always been too independent – that it has never been easy to accommodate within current cultural agendas. But this is precisely one of the things about his music that I treasure: it shows that nonconformism does not always have to mean protest, and that one can be affirmative without resorting to trumpets and drums. This, for me, is ‘free music’ in the truest sense – may it ever remain so!” (Richard Toop, from Shadows of Ideas)
Since 1975 Richard had been based in Australia, where he taught at the Sydney Conservatorium, but he was born born on 1 August 1945 in England, in Chichester, and studied at Hull University. In the late 60s and early 70s he was active as a contemporary music pianist – he gave in a 24-hour marathon in London the first documented solo performance of Vexations by Erik Satie – and in the mid-70s became part of the Cologne music scene, working as Stockhausen‘s Teaching Assistant at the Cologne Staatliche Musikhochschule from 1973 until his move to Australia. But his most significant contribution to new music was as a writer. His 1999 book on the life and work of Ligeti is a superb introduction to the composer‘s work, and in 2005 it was followed by his book of lectures on Stockhausen, Six Lectures from the Stockhausen Courses Kürten 2002; he also co-edited the collected writings of Ferneyhough with James Boros. (Christopher Fox)
After Richard Toop’s untimely death on 19th of June 2017, Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer, editor of the loose-leaf encyclopedia Komponisten der Gegenwart, took over the edition of the conversations, structured and annotated them.
TOC (PDF)
