Wolfgang Florey
*18 March 1945
Works by Wolfgang Florey
Biography
Wolfgang Florey, born in Salzburg in 1945, studied violoncello at the Salzburg Mozarteum (with Prof. Georg Weigl), the Vienna Music Academy and the Hamburg Musikhochschule (with Prof. Wilfried Boettcher). In 1961 he initiated a church music concert series in his hometown of Salzburg, which he also directed until 1965. The programmatic focus was on the work of J.S. Bach and works of contemporary music. In 1968, together with the composers Jens Peter Ostendorf and Thomas Jahn, among others, he founded the group "Hinz&Kunst" in Hamburg, which was initially concerned with forms of free improvisation, but soon began to explore the possibilities of collective composing and, as an instrumental ensemble, set itself the task of testing new forms of communicating music and the abolition of the division of labour between composer and interpreter in its own practice. In addition to their attempts to compose together, the ensemble soon developed an active international concert schedule, was a guest at numerous festivals and received the German Record Prize in 1976 and the Prize of the Jury of the International Composers' Seminar in Boswil (Switzerland) in 1979. Hans Werner Henze wrote several works for Hinz&Kunst and invited the ensemble to his festival in Montepulciano, Tuscany, to set up his "Cantiere internazionale d'arte". Since 1968, however, Florey has also been involved in student politics and in 1972 was elected secretary of the project area of culture in the Association of German Student Bodies and in this capacity was involved in the formulation of cultural-political objectives and the coordination of concrete artistic projects. After completing his studies, he received a teaching assignment at the Hamburg Academy of Music for the subjects violoncello, methodology and didactics of instrumental teaching and carried out a model experiment over several years on project-oriented studies within the framework of school music education, which was connected with the objective of orienting the musical theoretical subjects more strongly towards their own practical school compositional activity. In addition to collaborative compositions within the framework of the group Hinz&Kunst, the first independent compositions emerged. From 1980 to 2002 Florey worked continuously for the small Viennese theatre "Gruppe 80" and in 1983 became musical director of the newly founded ensemble of the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, with which he remained associated until 1991. In total, he wrote about 100 pieces of stage music for various German-language stages and music for more than 40 radio play productions. In addition, he wrote a number of songs, chamber music, orchestral works and works for music theatre.
About the music
My artistic development, like that of many of my generation, is at the crossroads of music and politics. That is why I feel particularly committed to the word and the performing arts in my musical work. My musical-aesthetic considerations are influenced not least by my experiences as an instrumentalist and the insight that the musical work of art is not already fulfilled in its texture, but only in its performative sound form. For me, music is an expression of life that is unique to the human being, in which not only his or her individual feelings are expressed. I am convinced that music in its artistic form should aim to inspire both rational and dreamlike thinking. Music that suffices itself in the narcissistic reflection of its selfhood is not my thing. Questions of musical material interest me only with regard to its semantic binding. My work is about bringing music as language and language as music into a new unity. At the centre of my endeavours is a musical performance in which the human - no more, but also no less - serves as a standard. Sound experiments and acoustic laboratory work are of little interest to me. My work needs neither electro-acoustic prosthetics nor loudspeakers and mixing desks in the concert hall. My whole hope is to bring meaning into the world with my compositions. In this sense, I see myself as having a special moral responsibility towards all people for whom I am allowed to work.