"Edition of 500 copies Double-CD of Hermann Nitsch’s Sixth Symphony for large orchestra performed and recorded November 1, 1980 at Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Vienna. Packaged in big 2CD jewel-case with 12 page booklet.

“Hermann Nitsch is looked upon as the true successor of the great masters of symphony: Beethoven, Bruckner, and Mahler. He draws from Scriabin’s, Schoenberg’s, and Webern’s experience, however, comes up with different conclusions than their (sanctioned) successors. That is to say: Nitsch disregards Webern’s analysis of music. Unlike others he does not attempt to advance atonal music with methods that since long should be handed over to science and technical realms (e.g. Stockhausen). Nitsch ignores any attempt to investigate the core of the construction of Webern’s music. He does know it well though and starts where others don’t react at all; at lust, rot (disintegration) and death, poison and madness, fragrance and temperature, the fluid, the excess. To him the intricate structure of a symphony is not accidental play with traditional forms, it’s necessity. A symphony is s o u n d (and complete). Nitsch draws material from a number of epochs, mostly though from late romanticism and expressionism. Unlike those who don’t want to let go of the past, Nitsch uses material that pertains to today’s interests rather than adhering to structures established before. Theater and music cannot be left in the hands of specialists only. A new generation has to grow. Nothing is gained by performances of some puny imbeciles. These warmed-up-versions of dadaistic rage are no good if the goal is to leave the current stagnation in theater and music behind. The staging of a Nitsch performance requires something that is completely missing in today’s Karajans and Bernsteins: What is called for is rather exact knowledge of where liberation and expansion (really) takes place. Maybe they struggle all the way to the primal scream (which should be given a chance to erupt) but get stuck midways as the expressionists whimpering with clammy (inhibited) souls.“ – Günter Brus."

Tochnit Aleph, 2015