Life

Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf was born in Mannheim

Mannheim

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, and studied composition with Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough

Brian John Peter Ferneyhough is an English composer. His music is characterized by the extensive use of complex rhythmic tuplet notation which features in all his works...

, Klaus Huber und Emanuel Nunes and music theory at the music academy in Freiburg

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

, where he graduated in 1992. At the same time, he studied musicology, philosophy with Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...

 and sociology at university. In 1993 he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy for his dissertation on Arnold Schönberg. For his compositions Mahnkopf has won numerous international prizes, among them the Gaudeamus Prize in 1990, the composition prize of the city Stuttgart and the Composers Award of the Ernst-von-Siemens Music Foundation in 1998. Mahnkopf went to Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 (Villa Massimo), Italy, Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 (Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani), Italy, and Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

 (Paul-Sacher-Stiftung), Swiss, on scholarships.
In 1995 he was one the founders of the Gesellschaft für Musik und Ästhetik (society for music and aesthetics) and he is also one of the editors of the society’s magazine. Mahnkopf worked as music theory teacher and as consultant for opera houses and he published many essays in musicological magazines.
In 1999 he married professor doctor Francesca Yardenit Albertini, a Jewish philosopher of religion.
From 2001 until 2005 Mahnkopf worked regularly at the experimental studio of the SWR

SWR

SWR may refer to:Technology:* Standing wave ratio, a wave and antenna concept* Steel Wire ropeRadio stations:* Südwestrundfunk, a public broadcasting company for the southwest of Germany...

.
Since 2005 Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf teaches composition at the University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

.
His music is being performed by many ensembles, like SurPlus

Surplus

Surplus means when there is more supply than demand, as in extra resources.Surplus may refer to: dumd* "The Surplus", an episode of The Office* Surplus: Terrorized into Being Consumers, a documentary film...

 or ensemble recherche on international festivals, for example on the Salzburger Festspiele or the Flandern Festival. Among the artists to perform his works regularly are oboist Peter Veale, Sophie-Mayuko Vetter, Carin Levine, James Avery

James Avery

James Avery may refer to:*James Avery , American TV actor*James Avery , Connecticut colonist, legislator, and military commander*James Avery Canadian baseball player...

 and Frank Cox

Frank Cox

Frank Cox was a British film director from the 1960s to the 1980s.Cox studied English at the University of Leeds from which he graduated in 1962. He did not get into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , but took a job as a floor assistant at the BBC. He was then offered a position on the BBC's...

.

Style

Mahnkopf is associated with the New Complexity

New Complexity

In music, the New Complexity is a term dating from the 1980s, principally applied to composers seeking a "complex, multi-layered interplay of evolutionary processes occurring simultaneously within every dimension of the musical material" ....

 movement which, in 1997, he proposed should be designated the Second Darmstadt School (Fox 2001). his music has its roots in the German-Austrian music tradition; he frequently falls back on Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

 and Alban Berg

Alban Berg

Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...

. The modern avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 has a great influence on his works, which are of exceeding complexity. Mahnkopf is working frequently with multiphonics for all kinds of instruments (e.g., the oboe), quarter and eighth tones and harmonic

Harmonic

A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...

s. In “Mon Coeur mis a nu”, for example, he uses just differently articulated vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

s and consonant

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...

s for the singers. Mahnkopf is convinced of the autonomy of art, but believes that art also has to be considered in context of culture and the modern democratic society.

Stage Works

• Angelus novus (1997/2000)

musical theatre by Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf after Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...

, soloists : Soprano, Flute, Piccolo Oboe, Violoncello, Piano, Percussion (variable), written for the Munich Biennale

Munich Biennale

The Munich Biennale is an opera festival in the city of Munich. The full German name is Internationales Festival für neues Musiktheater, literally: International Festival for New Music Theater. The biennial festival was created in 1988 by Hans Werner Henze and is held in even-numbered years over...

Orchestra

• Prospero’s Epilogue (2004)

for piano and orchestra, written for Salzburger Festspiele

• humanized void (2003–2007)

for large orchestra, written for Bayerischer Rundfunk

Bayerischer Rundfunk

Bayerischer Rundfunk [Bavarian Broadcasting] is the public broadcasting authority for the German Freistaat of Bavaria, with its main offices located in Munich. BR is a member of ARD.- Legal foundation :...

Chamber Orchestra

• Chorismos (1986/1987)
• Medusa (1990–1992)

for oboe/English horn and chamber orchestra

• Meta Medeian (1994)

serenade for strings

• Kammersymphonie 1,2, & 3 (1993/94, 1997/99 & 2007)

Ensemble Works

• »il faut continuer« Requiem for Samuel Beckett
  Samuel Beckett
  Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
  
  (1990–92)

for chamber ensemble

• Solitude-Sérénade (1997)

for piccolo oboe and ensemble

• Angela Nova (1999/2000)

for soprano and ensemble

• Todesmusik I & II (2001, “Music of Death”)

for ensemble

Chamber music

• Krebs-Zyklus (1985, “Cancer Cycle”)

for violoncello and piano

• Die Schlangen der Medusa (1991, „Medusa’s Snakes“)

for (4) clarinet(s)

• Illuminations du brouillard (1992/1993)

for oboe and piano, written for the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Arts

• Mon coeur mis à nu (1986/1996/1997)

for four voices (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), written for the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Arts

• Trio basso for viola, cello and double bass (1995)
• resquiescant in pace (2000)

in memoriam victimarum christianitatis, for four players (violin, viola, violoncello and percussion), written for ensemble recherche

• Hommage à Frank Cox (2006)

for three players (electric guitar, quarter-tone vibraphone and piano), written for ensemble asamisimasa

Solo Works

• Monade (1985/1986)

for oboe

• memor sum (1989)

for viola

• Stheno und Euryale (1992)

for harp or for harp with a second, scordated harp

• La terreur d’ange nouveau (1997–99)

for flute

• deconstructing accordion (2000/2001)

for accordion, written for Südwestrundfunk

• Beethoven-Kommentar (2004)

for piano

With Electronic Media

• D.E.A.T.H (2001/2002)

for eight-track tape

• W.A.S.T.E (2001/2002)

for oboe and live electronics

• void – mal d’archive (2002/2003)

space and sound composition, for eight-track tape

Literature

• Mahnkopf, Claus-Steffen, Veale Peter. The Techniques of Oboe Playing. A Compendium with Additional Remarks on the Oboe D’amore and Cor Anglais. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1994.
• Since 1997 editor of the magazine Musik und Ästhetik. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
• Since 2002 editor of the book series New Music and Aesthetics in the 21st Century. Hofheim: Wolke-Verlag in collaboration with the Gesellschaft für Musik und Ästhetik
• Editor of the study series sinefonia. Hofheim: Wolkeverlag.
• Klein, Richard, Mahnkopf, Claus-Steffen. Mit den Ohren denken. Suhrkamp 1998.
• Mahnkopf, Claus-Steffen. Kritische Theorie der Musik. Velbrück 2006.
• Huber, Klaus, Mahnkopf, Claus-Steffen. Von Zeit zu Zeit. Hofheim: Wolke-Verlag 2009.

External links

• http://www.claussteffenmahnkopf.de/main.php