Conversation on the Edge #2

The program included works by Furrer as well as compositions by Franco Donatoni and Claudio Monteverdi. Furrer, who also conducted the concert, created sound spaces and images, opening up new auditory dimensions: pulsating intensity and harmonic mellifluousness expanded with sometimes competing tones to create new worlds of sound, which in turn were complemented or counteracted by voices, screams, other sounds or even silence.

The concert was followed by a moderated discussion between the composer Beat Furrer and the sociologist Gisèle Sapiro—a special edition of the interdisciplinary discussion format Conversation on the Edge.

Furrer gave insights into how he thinks in sounds, collects them, reflects on them and in turn conceives a new language from them. He described how form and space develop (dis)continuously in his sound world, how, for example, the motif of snow—which sonically stands for silence, stillness and noiselessness—also has a voice on closer listening, which he integrates into his soundscapes, or how the words of Pythagoras, Ovid, Schnitzler and Bachmann become the starting point for the sound and text fragments he creates.

About the speakers

Beat Furrer
Beat Furrer, born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland in 1954, received his first musical training on the piano at the local music school. In 1975, he moved to Vienna to study conducting with Otmar Suitner and composition with Roman Haubenstock-Ramati at the University of Music and Performing Arts. In 1985, he founded Klangforum Wien, which he led until 1992 and with which he is still associated as a conductor. He wrote his first opera “Die Blinden”, commissioned by the Vienna State Opera. This was followed by “Narcissus”, premiered in 1994 at the Graz Opera as part of the steirischer herbst festival. In 1996 he was “Composer in Residence” at the Lucerne Music Festival. Other important works include the music theater “Begehren” (2001 in Graz), the opera “invocation” (2003 in Zurich) and the audio theater “FAMA” (2005 in Donaueschingen). Furrer has been a professor of composition in Graz since 1991 and founded the “impuls” academy with Ernst Kovacic at the end of the 1990s. He held a guest professorship for composition at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts from 2006 to 2009. He has received numerous awards, including the Music Prize of the City of Vienna (2004), the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale (2006), the Grand Austrian State Prize (2014) and the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (2018). His opera “Violetter Schnee” premiered in Berlin in 2019. “Das große Feuer” will be premiered in Zurich, in 2025. Furrer's work includes solo and chamber music as well as ensemble, choral, orchestral and operatic compositions.

Gisèle Sapiro
Gisèle Sapiro is a French sociologist and historian, research director at the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique), member of the Academia Europaea and professor at the EHESS (Ecole des hautes etudes en Sciences sociales). Her work is in the tradition of Pierre Bourdieu's thinking. After researching French writers during the Vichy regime and the occupation during the Second World War, she turned her attention to globalization and the circulation of texts. In 2024 she received the Humboldt Research Award. She has worked on cultural sociological issues in several books. Among other things, she has questioned the concept of the author's responsibility towards the work and society. Her current project deals with world authorship and the role of mediators and translators.