Compositional Obstructionist Theories of Otto Werner (1927-2008), Professor of Music at Colorado State University.
Werner shared a profound theoretical manifesto only to his students (and never to external practitioners) based on Sebastiano Timpanaro and Jeremy Benthem's Panopticon writings. I studied with him for two years.
His outstanding gifts of textual criticism took the form of adversaria and punctual annotations that eventually yielded over a thousand pages of meticulous dissection of musical passages.
Werner cites a “plurally fraught metaphysical universe,” and a refusal of an authoritative “panoptic vision” of the world, spoiled both his own attempts at composition and the efforts of music critics looking for a tidy interpretive framework through which to engage and explain him. But as students of Werner, we echo his intent of a loose definition of young composers, the so-called “speculative realists.”
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Timpanaro |
Werner's Redactionist approach to composition and performance was revolutionary and an absolute inspiration to a small, intimate group of composers.
Here is my response to my teacher/mentor...a purely Wernerian work employing all of his compositional coordinates.
This work of mine, "Organization Interpenetrate" for Obstructionist Solo Organ (Duration 1:43:34"), has been reviewed as "vexatious, galling, maddening, impossible, antagonistic, mundane, irritating, plagued, pestiferous :: subversive, insurrectionist, profound, political, extremist, 'provocateurian', hilarious, brilliant and untouched."
"Organization Interpenetrate" for Obstructionist Solo Organ on Soundcloud.
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