THE SYMPHONIC IMPROVISATIONS
OF
HEINRICH VON OFTERDINGEN
FIVE VIEWS OF THE MYSTERY TAPES
The Ofterdingen Gesellschaft,
Peter Ceniti, General Editor
It is as much with amazement as with pleasure that we the editors of the newly formed “Ofterdingen
Gesellschaft” find ourselves, a mere three months after the publication of our inaugural issue (devoted to that
watershed event in the annals of musicology, the unearthing of the Blue Flower” manuscript in Germany) again
offering the public a discovery of no mean interest, replete with the trappings of industrious scholarship. The
quickly becoming notorious “Ofterdingen Tapes” or “Mystery Tapes” or “Ofterdingen Mystery Tapes”
(heretofore abbreviated OMT) - or simply “The Tapes” as they are known among the cognoscenti, have
caused a stir, made a splash, raised a ruckus, in the pellucid waters of musicology; while, rather than clearing up
those issues provoked by the discovery of the “Blue Flower” they have only served to stoke the fire, to stir the
kettle, to up the ante.
The unlikely and romantic tale of the Tapes’ discovery may be briefly summarized as follows: returning to the
pleasant routine of work one fine Monday in late Spring, following a rejuvenating weekend at a local wine -
tasting event, the editors of this publication came upon a collection of audio cassette tapes strewn
haphazardly across the chief editor’s desk; these tapes bore no indication of their content, and appeared aged
and worn. Fired by the incessant flame of musicological zeal, we pounced as one, knowing not what surprise
awaited our ears, upon the mystery tapes, inserting them, one after another, into our ready hi - fi system.
A crackling, hissing sound arose, suggesting the contact a record needle with a very old LP which had
subsequently been re-recorded onto the present cassette. Our hair (including one colleague’s toupee)
virtually stood on end with anticipation; a voice emanated from the speakers:
“Ich bin Heinrich von Ofterdingen.”
In unison we gasped, unconsciously clutching at one another for support. Ofterdingen - pseudonym for the
mystery composer of the “Blue Flower” - here, live, speaking, introducing what was to follow as a set of
“Symphonic Improvisations for Piano.” Then no more words, only music - a stream of pianistic fancy, an
ambrosial delectation suited to some forgotten race of gods. (I closed my eyes: an operatic curtain opened up.
A titanic blue angel with broken wings sat pensively upon a boulder, staring down on the wreckage of Paradise;
gradually, behind him, a new Eden stirred to life, flowers formed, I heard a woman singing…) - Nay, but aesthetic
zeal must ever be held in check by the scholar, whose task it is to lay before the reader as much as possible an
objective description of his subject, trusting that each on his own will discover (unprompted and thus with
greater joy) the artistic merit therein.
****
Improvisation resists notation, and this renders a definitive analysis of the rhythmic component in the OMT
problematic. Judging with our ears by the placement of accents, it would seem our composer is partial to odd
meters such as 5/8 and 7/8, both extremely rare in the 19th century. These irregularities, I believe, are part
and parcel of a general attitude toward rhythm that eschews the symmetrical principle. Meanwhile the apparent
accelerando and ritardando passages defy by their vary nature precise notational representation.
The harmonic language of the OMT yields the impression of being familiar in its constituent parts (triads, 7th
chords, appoggiaturas) but somehow derivative from an alternative perspective. Over numerous listenings I
have arrived at the hypothesis that Ofterdingen employs a system of three (possibly four) scales, each of
which he associates with four keys, such that each tone in the chromatic spectrum possesses a single modality.
The four forms of each scale are linked through modulations (via special “gateway chords“) forming a locus of
tonalities arranged in thirds.
The first of these scales which I designate “the Heroic Mode”, is found in the keys of F, B, A flat and D. It
construction (from F): F, G, A, B, C, D, and E) is identical with our “Lydian Mode”.
The second scale, which I call “The Lyric Mode”, is found in the keys of B flat, E, D flat and G. From G its
construction is: G, A, B, C, D, E flat, and F. Here the Romantic tendency to “mix modalities” finds diatonic
expression, as laughter mingles with tears in transcendent emotional union.
The third scale, or ”Fantastic Mode”, is found on C, F sharp, E flat and A. It reads, from C: C, D flat, E
flat, F, G, A, and B (or B flat in some descending passages).
Notable in all these formations is the principle of intervallic symmetry. More striking, perhaps, is the affinity
between this musical system and the theory of “modulation of tones” espoused by the Romantic poet
Holderlin, according to which a progression of emotional states seems to energize and direct the flow of
fantasy.
A variety of textures can be found: these tend to change with each phrase, and exhibit, I would say, more
imagination than virtuosity. Meanwhile, the fluid, improvisatory forms, it hardly need be said, approach the
Romantic ideal of art mirroring existence (for what is life but a cosmic improv’?).
Such is a brief description of the musical content of the OMT. What follows is my summary of the reactions
of the five scholars at the Gesellschaft, each of whom has formulated a remarkably distinctive interpretation of
the present work and, in so doing, collectively have reinforced my conviction that, with the passage of time, art
serves scholarship as much as scholarship art.
(But first I feel constrained to add, though rather in the fashion that some great bull, of a summer’s day, might
flick his tail insouciantly at little gnats that pester him - I say I should add that we the editors give absolutely no
credence to the insinuation - itself proof of the scope and fame of the controversy - that the Mystery Tapes
are an elaborate hoax designed by those who would mock us, those same mean - spirited, untenured pseudo -
scholastics who expressed skepticism over the original find of the “Blue Flower”. “Since they want their dear
Ofterdingen to exist so badly,” they laugh, “let us give them more of a feast - on which to choke themselves!”
Unfortunately, my infinitesimal friends, you have neither the talent nor the ambition to carry off such a feat;
indeed, were such music yours, you’d not be floundering, impoverished, in obscurity. We turn our backs to you,
and bask in the warm glow of tolerant, mutually respectful scholarship.)
The eminent, senior member of the Ofterdingen Gesellschaft, Prof. Pablo Cookie, is of the opinion that the
Ofterdingen whom we hear in the recording was a genius and a recluse, and that the eccentricities we encounter
therein are less innovation and more ignorance of tradition. Prof. Cookie makes the interesting point that the
improvisatory form of the music may be accountable to the composer’s inability to notate his own ideas. Truly,
the image of the rustic visionary, the noble savage, has great appeal for us. But I must remind Prof. Cookie
that there already exists a manuscript for that earlier Ofterdingen work, “The Blue Flower”, the handwriting
of which gives evidence of a thorough theoretical background.
Prof. Pietro Kennedy, ever the upstart in our little community, has contrived, with disarming freshness, to view
the same quirks of style found in the OMT not as touches of genius but rather as signs of ineptitude. For
Kennedy, Ofterdingen is a failure, a “Bad Shepherd” whose themes refuse to obey his wishes, wandering,
desultory, in dim pastures to blurred horizons. (I paraphrase freely from a recent conversation.) Likewise those
harmonic moments Cookie finds most intriguing Kennedy explains as wrong notes, or, to use his charming
Celtic colloquialism, “clinkers”. Ofterdingen had a “tin ear”, probably “a day job as well” and at certain
moments of rhythmic unsteadiness sounds positively “stewed to the gills”.
By contrast (and contrast is what marks our group as broad - minded) the ever- serious, quietly industrious
(and darkly handsome) young Prof. Pelog Slenderoso offers a unique, ethno-musicologically inspired
interpretation of the OMT. Slenderoso detects, in certain of the sprightlier sections of the recording, an
exotic flavor, stemming from the use of pentatonic, a feature largely absent from the European common -
practice period, indicative of a certain “holistic” quality foreign to the fervid chromaticism of the era.
Slenderoso’s conjecture, admittedly based on aesthetic rather than empirical evidence, is that, at a tender age,
his artistic sensibilities but half - formed, Ofterdingen was ship-wrecked, castaway, stranded (we do not say
kidnapped, that would be irresponsible) as likely the sole survivor somewhere among the islands of Southeast
Asia. There he was raised, certainly not by wolves, but by gentle natives, and learned to sing with the plaintive
voice of his swarthy soul - mates. At a certain time, his growing renown leading him inevitably toward more
civilized parts, he encountered the Dutch, who would have afforded him the opportunity to become
reacquainted with the pianoforte. The resulting stylistic hybridization anticipates the exoticism of the
Impressionists, while happily it avoids the condescending, self - conscious snobbery of the French. So far so
good, young zealot, but may I inquire, with all due modesty, whether you have not unknowingly fallen into the
trap of using the OMT as a cultural mirror through which you can see and understand, as it were, a reversed
image of your own, equally intriguing, destiny?
Let us leave my Indonesian friend to ponder the advice of one who would be to him a help - mate, a steadying
sage, and let us turn with eagerness to that most unusual fellow, that soccer - star turned scholar, he of nimble
feet and pen, Prof. Pelle Bono Caridad, for a most peculiar insight on the Ofterdingen question. According
to Bono (as we call him at work) or Pelle (as his mother still says, fondly, over a steaming plate of beans and
rice) or Caridad (as appears on his certificate of birth - caridad, that is, “charity” - for all the unforced
“giveaways” he committed as a sportsman - I jest, dear friend, you are a king!) - Pelle Bono, then, let us say, is of
the opinion that Ofterdingen lived, worked and died long ago - but in another universe, parallel to ours. The
miraculous appearance of the tapes amounts to an incursion of one plane of reality into another, and was most
likely the result of a momentary rift in the continuum of time and space.
While the objections one may raise to Bono’s theory are obvious, it must be admitted that, once his premise is
accepted, much falls into place. Another Earth, another Europe, another Age of Romanticism, where people
chose differently, resulting in another reality - what child, nay, what man, has not mused a hundred times, “Had I
but done that instead of this…”?
A musical world then, without sonata form (spared its tedious developments), a musical world of rhythmic
elasticity to replace our dull, mechanistic periods and pulsations, a musical world of evanescent textures and
iridescent forms… Indeed, Bono’s theory resolves all the apparent stylistic incongruities we find; for example, in
our world the harmonic language of the OMT seems late Romantic, at times positively Bruknerian, while the
sentiment it conveys has all the innocence and of the very dawn of the era; it is somehow both too advanced
for 1825 and too naïve for 1885, as if, by some act of angelic will, nostalgia had been transcended, as if with a
fond gaze the wisdom of age could reach back and embrace lost innocence while yet remaining wise - a veritable
“Fruhling in Sommer” (to invoke the title of an especially lovely lied by that nearly forgotten genius, Peter
Cornelius). But this is to reason from the wrong end, according to our scholar. We must begin with a proper
image of Ofterdingen’s world, and this we find by accepting the stylistic elements of his sound as compatible
parts of an aesthetically consistent whole. Bono, while avoiding particulars, suggests that this parallel
Romantic universe was a gentler place than ours, a world less heavy with memory and history, an era populated
by men and women for whom life was less a storm to struggle through, more a river to ride along. To such an un-
self-conscious, “natural” world - view the pernicious idea of industrialization with its attendant alienation
probably never occurred; daily contact with nature helped avoid the dangers of misty idealism and
sentimentality that grew to plague our less fortunate cosmos.
As for the supposed rift in the time - space continuum through which the OMT materialized we can say
nothing except that, lacking an explanation as to its cause, we cannot rule out the possibility of more material,
one fine day, “passing through” again! For that matter we cannot be sure that certain musical works (or books,
or vegetables) from our universe have not leaked into Ofterdingen’s; while if there is in fact more than one
universe in existence simultaneous with ours, the total number may be very large (perhaps infinite, with infinite
permutations of choices occurring endlessly forever, a divine improvisation). But this is enough about that.
Lastly ( for modesty’s sake) I briefly present my own humble peregrinations on the Ofterdingen issue. The
motivations of man, dear readers, are multitudinous. The body speaks and we listen: hungry, we seek food;
cold, shelter. The mundane is the domain of the obvious. But what of those subtler senses, those voices that
whisper in our heads, those inexplicable urges that draw us towards career, life - work, destiny? What makes a
painter paint, a pianist play?
What if a man, all the years of his life, felt ill at ease in the modern world, and out of tune with its acerbic,
heartless music? As a youth perhaps he wrote enthusiastically, in the grand Romantic vein, but coming of age
was chastised for his backwardness, his sentimentality, until he despaired even of aspiring to greatness, to
beauty, to the expression of love. Modest by nature, he would seek solace in the quiet obscurity of
scholarship, passing his days in nostalgic reverie, dreaming of his Homeland in the Past. Then a magnanimous
desire to share with mankind what is bursting from his fecund heart would lead him to publish some trifle, some
vignette - and he would be dashed to earth, cajoled to silence, put in his proper place, the sterile domain of the
professor, whose allowance it is to speak learnedly on the greatness of the Brahmses and the Wagners but
who must remain a little person, a servant, not a master, of his art.
Could we blame him, then, were he to exclaim to himself, “I am born out of my time, and will never be appreciated
for what I truly am. Let me put on, then, the persona, the mask, the guise, of a Romantic genius, let me weave
about my work a garment of mystery; then we shall see how they jump and take notice and applaud! Indeed,”
our hypothetical musicologist might continue, “who can say but that this deep inner compulsion that drives me is
not an earnest of my soul’s awakening - behold: I am Ofterdingen come back to complete my unfinished work!”
I do not say this has occurred; I do not deny it. I know full well the meaning of your sly winks, oh night security
watchman, since I tumbled noisily in the dark through our office window on a certain evening. I know as well the
indulgent smiles of those whose professional jealousy for my position causes them to cry out for an
investigation as to my whereabouts during a certain portion of that notorious wine - tasting weekend.
Besieged by critics and doubters I neither admit to their accusations nor condescend to refute them. And so
a haze of ambiguity descends upon the OMT, thanks to which, like so much of the best in Romantic art, it
becomes the richer by raising more questions than it answers.
Peter Ceniti
June, 2005.