PETER
HÜBNER: And many of his fellow human beings are also starting
to identify themselves and their lives with the unsuccessful acts and/or
non-acts of Sysiphus and/or Diogenes, and they tell themselves after two
millennia of Christian upbringing: our whole life, too, is similar to the
fruitless efforts of Sysiphus.
We start our career in human society with great vigour, but on our way we
encounter illness and misfortune quite early on, and in the end we become
old, and dont know where the journey of our life leads us to: we die
without knowledge.
And why should we not drop this mad striving for things which have no continued
existence, which give us no continued existence either, and, as a hippy
or tramp, as a convinced unemployed person, follow in the footsteps of life
of that great wise man Diogenes, who keeps seeing the sweaty, groaning Sysiphus
arrive in vain at his feet.
Whilst Kcha-toms fellow human beings begin to waver in their religious,
dogmatic peacefulness, and by means of the visions of Sysiphus and Diogenes
recognise the inadequacy of their previous efforts, Kchatom succeeds in
recognising in his inner being, the unity of the two life roles of Sysiphus
and Diogenes which seem to be so fundamentally different which suddenly
frees him from all worries in life: he recognises the world as a product
of his own free will, and his creative imagination.
JOURNALIST: And he is aware of his personal
freedom to see a negative devil, but just as well a merciful God, as the
creator of the world.
PETER HÜBNER: And that puts him
in a position to approach the Creator as if he were a friend, and to greet
him as such that simple person, who, in this work for the stage,
is seen by the Christian congregation as a beggar who is heedlessly given
hand-outs.
JOURNALIST: In your piece for the stage
Curse or blessing: yes, you take the sort of understanding as
a starting-point that, on the basis of the immeasurable, inexplicable misfortune
in the world, only the devil can be regarded as the creator of the world.
And you finally show that, with the same right, a positive God can be seen
as the creator of the world.
PETER HÜBNER: The fact that this
positive or that negative knowledge of the world is not a matter of the
world itself, but only lies hidden in the eye of the beholder.
JOURNALIST: And beyond that, you show
the possibility of human development which exceeds this view of a bad world
as being the work of the devil, or that good world being the work of God,
and therefore leads to a higher world-view, which itself sees the great
mistake of an ignorant life in the knowledge of good and bad, in the knowledge
of space and time, in the knowledge of light and sha-dow, in the knowledge
of shape and shapelessness useful for creating suppressed educational
mechanisms: suitable for the ambitious social climb up the ladder to lead
the entire world to the edge of the abyss.
PETER HÜBNER: Yes, Kchatom grows
into the role of that blind seer, who is not really externally blind, but
who attaches more rights to the very own law of life, and to the very own
inner vision of life, and therefore trusts his own conscience and free will
more than all religions, philosophies and ideologies which cause a loss
of individuality, and in the end only leave the individual on his own, despondently
facing the great question of his personal life eye to eye opposite
the unsuccessful life role of Sysiphus or that fatalistic role of Diogenes.
JOURNALIST: You created Curse
or blessing: yes from 1958 to 1966, and drafted it for the large orchestra,
electronic music as well as choir and soloists.
It is serial, thus composed in a further developed form of twelve-tone music.
With Curse or blessing: yes you not only advance to the limits
of the so-called modern, dissonant avant-garde of the mid 20ieth century,
but you open new doors for linking orchestra music with electronic music,
in the field of direction, dramatisation, singing, ballet and mime.
In 1968, you then talk about the notational developments connected with
the creation of this piece at the Berlin Festival Weeks during the International
Week for experimental music.