A song recital against silence

»Sah ein Knab ein Röslein steh’n« (»A boy saw a little rose standing there«) – is that harmless? Not necessarily. On 13 September, Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg will present a recital addressing violence and abuse (of power) in the cultural sector, both musically and discursively.

Sexualised violence and abuse have been widely discussed topics in society for several years. But what can artists and musicians contribute to this debate?

Daniel A. Gerzenberg: In my view, media reports often fail to give sufficient consideration to the perspective of those affected. This perspective is primarily based on knowledge of the violence experienced. Art has the ability to make emotional experiences tangible, and that is precisely what we aim to achieve with this project. Public debate often fails to achieve this, and may not even be capable of doing so. In our case, we use the power of music and poetry to gain access to the complexity and ambivalence inherent in this topic. An artistic approach is important here.

The concert will also feature a discussion with experts on the topic. What would you like to gain from this meeting of stakeholders from the fields of medicine, politics, music, and music education?

The interdisciplinary perspective is important to me — the expertise that comes from different areas. In our panel discussion, Lydia Grün will represent the music academy’s perspective as a leading educational institution for classical music. She had to deal with the fact that her predecessor as president of the Munich Academy of Music was a convicted sex offender. Prof. Jörg Fegert is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who has been researching this issue since the 1980s, and he will bring a wealth of expertise to the discussion as a university lecturer. Kerstin Claus is the Independent Federal Commissioner for Child Sexual Abuse Issues and is familiar with the challenges of political work. I, in turn, will speak as a poet and pianist who has been affected by this issue and deals with it artistically. In this discussion, we will build on the concert and consider abuse as a societal issue. At the same time, we will focus on the cultural sector because art and culture can be both the scene of the crime and a place for processing, confronting and healing the issue.

You are staging the concert as a song recital. How does the power of this form of music-making, combining the human voice and piano, relate to the theme?

Art song combines language and music. This combination intensifies the meaning of the lyrics. It allows us to delve even deeper into the emotional world of the lyrical self. The concert will feature songs by Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf that have implications in the context of sexualised violence. Soprano Sophia Burgos will accompany a recitation from my poetry collection »wiedergutmachungsjude« (»Reparation Jew«), in which I process the abuse I experienced, with her voice and live electronics. Composer Hector Docx has set a central text from the collection to music, which will be premiered at the concert. Through language and sound, we generalise my experience. Unfortunately, my story is just one of many.

Perhaps it’s not something people often think about, but some art songs deal with violence. Take the well-known »Heidenröslein« by Goethe and Schubert, for example, which is on the programme. How should the recital’s potentially disturbing nature be addressed?

We are dealing with a disturbing topic, but within the context of art. This enables us to generate empathy and understanding rather than causing disturbance. It is important to us to create an emotional framework in which confrontation is possible. This is essential for change to happen. As artists, our job is to design this concert so that the audience does not feel overwhelmed, but rather is guided – so that we can look into the abyss together without falling into it.

The concert was organised as a thematic follow-up to the »Inside Artists« project, which was funded last year by the Liz Mohn Foundation and »tuned – Netzwerk für zeitgenössische Klassik« of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.