JONATHAN ELLIOTT FOR THE SAINT ANN’S REVIEW: You were born in Germany and studied there, and you have lived in Paris since 1985. Do you consider yourself a German composer? Or a French composer? Do these categories even have meaning for you?

ANNETTE MENGEL: My music is certainly more German than French and certain expressive qualities may come directly from German heritage, I suppose. On the other hand my choice of living in Paris is based on the impression that today contemporary music is more advanced in France than in Germany. A third element is the influence of Turkish classical music (or Ottoman music) on all of my work since 2000. The reason for this very strong interest is partly due to my personal history and partly to the general historical situation we are living at the moment—globalisation. The attempt to achieve an integration of these two musical cultures, contemporary and Ottoman, has particularly marked Fantasievariationen, a recent piece for nine musicians which premiered last October. I aspire to obtain a new musical language able to find points of connection between these different musical languages, for example, in the use of heterophony and microtones. My interest is neither in “cheap orientalism” nor in collage techniques which simply mix elements of different traditions without searching for a connection between them.

TSAR:  In the U.S. currently, young composers seem to approach their work with an extremely open yet ironic stance. All sounds seem to coexist as equally valid, from the esoteric language of high modernism to the primal scream of heavy metal. Is anything like this happening in Europe? I am thinking perhaps of the “school” of Louis Andriessen, who has been a big influence on the “Bang On a Can” group.

ANNETTE MENGEL:  I am living in Paris, where Louis Andriessen has not been a big influence. As a matter of fact, postmodernism has been discussed, but there is only one place in Paris where it is performed, Théâtre de la Ville. Kronos Quartet, for example, is regularly invited there. However, it is not considered a place for contemporary music and most of their programming presents dance or world music. The powerful aesthetic streams in Paris are represented by IRCAM (for modernist plus technological) and France Musique’s radio station (for neoclassical). Concerning my generation of composers, Gérard Grisey in France as well as Helmut Lachenmann in Germany have been very influential. Both of these strong musical personalities have influenced us as teachers. They represent two different rather opposed national identities. The younger generation of composers is probably less concerned with these aesthetic oppositions and noise, in addition to technology, seems to be an important element of their creation. Less sophisticated, they are closer to popular or underground musical culture, I suppose....

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Annette Mengel’s REIGEN can be heard at Interviews.

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