JOURNALIST:
Herr Huebner, could we say that your musical commitment to nature has gone
through different phases?
PETER HUEBNER: Yes, you could say
that. In the beginning, there were harmonical compositions, which, in their
structure, followed those laws of harmony that also find their expression
in the work of the classical composers.
Then, following my registration at the music academy in Cologne, and there
being clearly influenced by the universally dominating expert opinion that
the classical music of the great tone creators would find its logical development
in the atonal music of the “International Avant-Garde”, it took
the shape of sharp and dissonant musical social criticism.
In one of my first musical pieces of work for the stage, in “Curse
or Blessing: Yes”, I gave very serious thought to the natural, individual,
social and ecological possibilities for development, and particularly to
the obstacles that stand in the way of a free and natural development.
And there a dissonant shape matches the musical description of such a disharmonious
world view.
JOURNALIST: Perhaps it is safest if
we open up your revolutionary musical path from dissonant social criticism
to musical harmony with the laws of nature through your first great piece
for the stage “Curse or Blessing: Yes”, in which, from the point
of view of content, you concern yourself “with God and the world”.
PETER HUEBNER: Yes, Kchatom, the
main character of the “opera” regards the misery he sees all over
the world as the work of the devil.
And he goes so far as to regard the devil as the creator of the world, in
which so much misery is created according to his rules.
His friend Herax warns him of such a radical view of the world, and is himself
struck dead by nature’s forces.
In Kchatom’s mind’s eye, the devil creates the world, and lays
down the laws.
Thereupon, he teaches all those who strive for higher positions in the world
to respect his laws in the world, and particularly to apply them in education.
JOURNALIST: In the large-scale ballet
in mime, you investigate the fundamental mechanisms of such devilish education,
where the individual is forced into a loss of individuality and consumption
– into hidden slavery, and you also show, how outsiders are usually
dealt with: with those who oppose such educational mechanisms.
PETER HUEBNER: According to these
modern ideals of education of individual suppression, the developments of
the great spiritual movements of mankind: the religions, are shown in front
of Kchatom’s mind’s eye during the action.
During all ages, innovators have been expelled, murdered or declared insane
– right up to this very day.