Editing Christian Wolff (composer)

{{Short description|American composer of experimental classical music (born 1934)}}
{{distinguish|Hellmuth Christian Wolff|Christian Wolff (baroque composer)|Christoph Wolff}}
[[File:Christian Wolff (cropped).JPG|thumb|Wolff in 2013]]
'''Christian G. Wolff''' (born March 8, 1934) is an American composer of [[experimental music|experimental classical music]] and [[Classics|classicist]].

==Biography==
Wolff was born in [[Nice]], [[France]], to the German literary publishers [[Helen Wolff|Helen]] and [[Kurt Wolff (publisher)|Kurt Wolff]], who had published works by [[Franz Kafka]], [[Robert Musil]], and [[Walter Benjamin]]. After relocating to the U.S. in 1941, they helped to found [[Pantheon Books]] with other European intellectuals who had fled Europe during the rise of [[fascism]]. The Wolffs published a series of notable English translations of European literature, mostly, as well as an edition of the ''[[I Ching]]'' that came to greatly impress [[John Cage]] after Wolff had given him a copy.

Wolff became an American citizen in 1946. When he was sixteen (in 1950) his piano teacher [[Grete Sultan]] sent him for lessons in composition to the [[Contemporary classical music|new music]] composer [[John Cage]]. Wolff soon became a close associate of Cage and his artistic circle  which was part of the [[New York School (art)|New York School]] and included the fellow composers [[Earle Brown]] and [[Morton Feldman]], the pianist [[David Tudor]], and the dancer and choreographer [[Merce Cunningham]]. Cage relates several anecdotes about Wolff in his one-minute ''[[Indeterminacy in music|Indeterminacy]]'' pieces.<ref>Cage, John. ''Indeterminacy'' [double LP]. New York, Folkways Records, 1959. Wolff is mentioned in piece numbers [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?4 4], [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?8 8], [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?n=9 9] and [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?n=14 14], as well as numbers [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?n=91 91] and [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?n=155 155], which were published after Folkways' original release.</ref>

Almost completely self-taught as composer, Wolff studied music under Sultan and Cage. Later Wolff studied classics at [[Harvard University]] (BA, PhD) and became an expert on [[Euripides]]. Wolff taught Classics at Harvard until 1970; thereafter he taught classics, [[comparative literature]], and music at [[Dartmouth College]]. After nine years, he became Strauss Professor of Music there. He retired from teaching at Dartmouth in 1999. In 2004, he received an honorary degree from the [[California Institute of the Arts]]. He was also awarded the Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award (1996).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/recipients/christian-wolff|title=Christian Wolff :: Foundation for Contemporary Arts|website=www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org|access-date=2018-04-05}}</ref>

Wolff is married and has four children.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://archive.soundamerican.org/sa_archive/sa10/sa10-christian-wolff-interviews.html |title=Interview with Christian Wolff |last=Detrick |first=Douglas |website=soundamerican.org |access-date=July 27, 2020}}</ref>

==Music==
[[File:Foc09 - 3538997353.jpg|thumb|Wolff in 2009]]
Wolff's early compositional work included a lot of silence and was based initially on complicated rhythmic [[Serialism|schema]], and later on a system of aural cues. He innovated unique notational methods in his early scores and found creative ways of dealing with improvisation in his music. During the 1960s he developed associations with the composers [[Frederic Rzewski]] and [[Cornelius Cardew]] who spurred each other on in their respective explorations of experimental composition techniques and [[musical improvisation]], and then, from the early 1970s, in their attempts to engage with political matters in their music. For Wolff this often involved the use of music and texts associated with protest and political movements such as the [[Wobblies]]. His later pieces, such as the sequence of pieces ''Exercises'' (1973-), offer some freedom to the performers. Some works, such as ''Changing the System'' (1973), ''Braverman Music'' (1978, after [[Harry Braverman]]), and the series of pieces ''Peace March'' (1983&ndash;2005) have an explicit [[politics|political]] dimension, in that they respond to contemporary world events and express political ideals.

Wolff collaborated with [[Merce Cunningham]] for many years and developed a style which is more common now, but was revolutionary when they began working together in the 1950s – a style where music and dance occur simultaneously, yet somewhat independently of one another.<ref>{{cite web|last=Lindholm|first=Jane|title=Composer Reflects On Legendary Dance Company: Christian Wolff's Collaboration With Merce Cunningham|url=http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/91303/composer-reflects-on-legendary-dance-company/|publisher=Vermont Public Radio|access-date=29 June 2012}}</ref> Wolff stated, of any influence or affect, the greatest influence on his music over the years was the choreography of Cunningham.<ref>{{cite web|last=Hoffer|first=Jason|title=Slowly turning yourself into a composer with Christian Wolff|url=http://www.goingthruvinyl.com/?p=2661|publisher=Going Thru Vinyl|access-date=29 June 2012|location=29:38|format=.mp3 audio}}</ref>  Wolff recently said of his work that it is motivated by his desire "to turn the making of music into a collaborative and transforming activity (performer into composer into listener into composer into performer, etc.), the cooperative character of the activity to the exact source of the music. To stir up, through the production of the music, a sense of social conditions in which we live and of how these might be changed."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ocnmh.cz/s_i.php?a=143 |title=Archived copy |access-date=2007-01-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070607030749/http://www.ocnmh.cz/s_i.php?a=143 |archive-date=2007-06-07 }}</ref>

Wolff's music reached a new audience when [[Sonic Youth]]'s [[SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century|''SYR4: Goodbye, 20th Century'']] featured works by avant-garde classical composers such as [[John Cage]], [[Yoko Ono]], [[Steve Reich]], and Christian Wolff played by Sonic Youth along with several collaborators from the modern avant-garde music scene, such as [[Christian Marclay]], [[William Winant]], [[Wharton Tiers]], [[Takehisa Kosugi]] and others, as well as Wolff himself.

== Major works ==
[[File:Christian Wolff prepared piano performance 2007 Feb.jpg|thumb|300px|Christian Wolff at his [[prepared piano]] performance, 2007.]]
*''Duo for Violins'' (1950)
*''For Prepared Piano'' (1951)
*''Duo for Pianists I'' (1957)
*''For Piano With Preparations'' (1957)
*''For Pianist'' (1959)
*''Summer'' (for string quartet) (1961)
*''For 1, 2, or 3 People'' (1964)
*''Edges'' (1968)
*''Pairs'' (1968)
*''Prose Collection'' (1968–71)
*''Tilbury 1, 2, and 3'' (for piano) (1969)
*''Snowdrop'' (for trombone, violin, and piano) (1970)
*''Burdocks'' (1970–71)
*''Exercises'' (1973- )
*''Wobbly Music'' (1975–76)
*''I Like to Think of [[Harriet Tubman]]'' (1985)
*''Piano Trio (Greenham-Seneca-Camiso)'' (1985) [[Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp]] [[The Seneca Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice]]
*''Piano Miscellany'' (1988) 
*''Percussionist Songs'' (1994–95)
*''Spring'' (for chamber orchestra) (1995)
*''Berlin Exercises'' (2000)
*''Ordinary Matter'' (2001–04)
*''[[John Heartfield]] (Peace March 10)'' (2002)
*''Long Piano (Peace March 11)'' (2004–05)
*''Microexercises'' (2006)
*''Winter Exercise'' (2013)
*''Trio IX – Accanto'' (2017)
*''Resistance'' (2017)
*''Mountain Messengers'' (2020)

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
*(1993) Gagne, Cole. ''Soundpieces 2: Interviews with American Composers''. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press. {{ISBN| 0-8108-2710-7}}
*(1995) [[William Duckworth (composer)|Duckworth, William]]. ''Talking Music''. New York: Schirmer Books. {{ISBN| 0-02-870823-7}}
*(1998) Wolff, Christian, [http://www.musiktexte.de/contents/en-us/d129.html Cues: Writings & Conversations/Hinweise: Schriften und Gespräche], Köln: Musiktexte (eds.) G. Gronemeyer & R. Oehlschagel.
*(2001) Robert Carl, Christian Wolff: On tunes, politics, and mystery, in Contemporary Music Review. Issue 4, pp. 61–69.
*{{NewMusicBox|id=a-chance-encounter-with-christian-wolff|title=A Chance Encounter with Christian Wolff|composer=Christian Wolff|author=[[Frank J. Oteri]]|conducted=January 11, 2002|published=March 1, 2002}}
*(2004) Stephen Chase & Clemens Gresser, 'Ordinary Matters: Christian Wolff on his Recent Music', in Tempo 58/229 (July), pp. 19–27.
*(2006) Rzewski, Frederic [http://www.dramonline.org/albums/christian-wolff-ten-exercises/notes "The Algebra of Everyday Life"]. Liner note essay on Christian Wolff. [[New World Records]].
*(2009)  Steenhuisen, Paul.  "Interview with Christian Wolff".  In [https://web.archive.org/web/20141015151345/http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=687 ''Sonic Mosaics: Conversations with Composers''].  Edmonton:  University of Alberta Press, 2009.  {{ISBN|978-0-88864-474-9}}
* (2009) Tilbury, John [http://www.dramonline.org/albums/christian-wolff-long-piano/notes "Christian Wolff and the Politics of Music"]. Liner note essay. New World Records.
* (2010) Chase, Stephen & Thomas, Philip (editors), [https://web.archive.org/web/20100829211338/http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754666806 "Changing the System: the Music of Christian Wolff"] Ashgate, 2010
* (2012) Bredow, Moritz von, "Rebellische Pianistin. Das Leben der Grete Sultan zwischen Berlin und New York." (Biography). [[Schott Music]], Mainz, Germany. {{ISBN|978-3-7957-0800-9}} (Detailed account of the life of pianist [[Grete Sultan]], Christian Wolff's piano teacher who eventually acquainted him with Cage. Contains many references to the New York Avant-garde).
* (2017) Wolff, Christian, Occasional Pieces – Writings and Interviews, 1952–2013, New York: Oxford University Press
* (2018) Jim Igor Kallenberg, "Intergalactic mutant music: The music of Christian Wolff and the politics of 1968. Christian Wolff in conversation with Jim Igor Kallenberg", Wien Modern 31: Sicherheit. 28.10.-30.11.2018. Essays (Festivalkatalog Band 2), pp. 90–95.
*(2018) Lucier, Alvin, ed. ''Eight Lectures on Experimental Music''. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. {{ISBN| 9780819577634}}
* (2020) Zimmerman, Walter, ''Desert Plants – Conversations with 23 American Musicians'', Berlin: Beginner Press in cooperation with Mode Records (originally published in 1976 by A.R.C., Vancouver). The 2020 edition includes a cd featuring the original interview recordings with [[Larry Austin]], [[Robert Ashley]], Jim Burton, [[John Cage]], [[Philip Corner]], [[Morton Feldman]], [[Philip Glass]], [[Joan La Barbara]], [[Garrett List]], [[Alvin Lucier]], John McGuire, Charles Morrow, J.B. Floyd (on [[Conlon Nancarrow]]), [[Pauline Oliveros]], [[Charlemagne Palestine]], [[Ben Johnston (composer)|Ben Johnston]] (on [[Harry Partch]]), [[Steve Reich]], [[David Rosenboom]], [[Frederic Rzewski]], [[Richard Teitelbaum]], [[James Tenney]], Christian Wolff, and [[La Monte Young]].

== External links ==
{{wikiquote}}
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20041103151937/http://www.artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/composer.pl?comp=150 Art of the States: Christian Wolff]}}
* [http://www.christianwolffmusic.com/Works.html Works]
* [http://www.furious.com/perfect/christianwolff.html Interview]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060909104022/http://eamusic.dartmouth.edu/general/soundgallery/gallery.html Two pieces]
* [http://eamusic.dartmouth.edu/~larry/trio/trio_sounds.html Improvisations] with [[Kui Dong]] and [[Larry Polansky]]
* [https://e42a8.bandcamp.com/album/stones-1968-christian-wolff 19 interpretations of the piece "Stones" (1968)]
*[http://archives.nypl.org/mus/24591 Christian Wolff papers, 1947-2017] Music Division, [[New York Public Library for the Performing Arts]]

{{New York School composers}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolff, Christian}}
[[Category:1934 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:20th-century American classical composers]]
[[Category:21st-century American classical composers]]
[[Category:American male classical composers]]
[[Category:French emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:Harvard College alumni]]
[[Category:French people of German descent]]
[[Category:American people of German descent]]
[[Category:Dartmouth College faculty]]
[[Category:American experimental composers]]
[[Category:Tzadik Records artists]]
[[Category:20th-century American male musicians]]
[[Category:21st-century American male musicians]]
[[Category:Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:Webern scholars]]