1977 Bonn

May 14, 1977 – May 21, 1977
Bonn

Festival info

Start: May 14, 1977

End: May 21, 1977

Locations: Bonn

Hosting member(s)

Description
Description

(presented in connection with the XXIX. Beethovenfest)

From contemporaneous reviews

“Die Weltmusikfeste der IGNM sind nur mehr bedingt avantgardistisch im wörtlichen Sinn: hier preschen nicht mehr Stoßtrupps in unbekanntes Neuland vor, sondern es wird mehr oder weniger das präsentiert, was die vielen anderen Festivals auch bieten. Die Weltmusiktage sind eine musikalische Fachmesse für Insider und Einkäufer geworden, und nicht einmal die beste.

…

“[E]in Hörer, der mit der Erduldung eines Dutzends schwacher, uninteressanter Stücke bestraft wird, bis er einmal etwas Gelungenes hört, verfällt zwangsläufig in Frustration. Das Argument, neue Musik sei eben riskant, verlange Aufgeschlossenheit und den Mut zum Unbekannten von ihrem Publikum, zieht deswegen nicht, weil die meisten Stückeschon anderswo gespielt wurden und strenger hätten gesiebt werden können.”

(“The ISCM’s world music festivals are no longer avant-garde in the literal sense of the word: they no longer push forward into uncharted territory, but rather present more or less what has been but more or less what the many other festivals also offer. The World Music Days have become a musical trade fair for insiders and buyers, and not even the best.

[A] listener who is punished by enduring a dozen weak, uninteresting pieces until he hears something successful is bound to fall into frustration. The argument that new music is risky and demands an open mind and the courage to face the unknown from its audience does not hold water, because most of the pieces have already been and could have been more rigorously screened.”)

–Dietmar Polaczek, “Bonn, Beethoven und die Neue Musik,”
Österreichische Musikzeitschrift, Volume 32 Issue JG (1 December 1977), pp. 354-355
[in German; translated into English with help from www.DeepL.com).

“It was disappointing that the experimental works on which the organizers had tried to place special emphasis, environments and music for children, were so unsuccessful. Many of the environmental works were presented either as ordinary works in concerts or while people were standing around talking and not paying attention to the music.”

–Hubert S. Howe, “The 1977 ISCM World Music Days,”
The World of Music, Vol. 19, No. 3/4 (1977), p. 190.

Programme information
Locations