2023-09-12 08:26:00
GEORG HÜBNER aka “GURU” is known from GURUS ŠRÂMŁ KVAȚET or the BILLY RUBIN TRIO. He stands for original music between blues, jazz and Viennese songs and composes German-language songs with a subtle grin. It goes without saying that sooner or later you’ll stumble across Georg Kreisler’s songs. The fact that it became a project for the old master’s 101st birthday is strange, but Kreisler would have liked it all the more for that reason. In a conversation with Markus Deisenberger, he explains how he came from metal to Viennese songs and what the similarities between hippie and punk culture are.
Although you started with heavy metal, today you are into jazz, blues and Viennese songs. Right there, between all those chairs, is the one Price Records published homage “Kreisler 101”. When one deals with the Viennese song, is it a logical development to stumble upon Georg Kreisler’s songs sooner or later?
Georg Hübner: I think so. Some Kreisler songs are very close to the Viennese song. “Vienna without Viennese” is actually a classic Viennese song. “Death, that must be a Viennese” is also a classic Viennese song. Or “On the Deathbed”. He’s never been in the classic Viennese song scene. It blossomed just before him with Moser and Hörbiger and just following him or following he had his heyday, with Qualtinger and Heller, who revived the Viennese song. In terms of the audience’s perception, but not in terms of its quality, it was right in between.
How did the project come regarding? What is the origin story?
Georg Hübner: I was looking for songs for my Schrammel Quartet, which presents Viennese songs in an oriental guise, in an oriental style, so to speak. Then “Vienna without Viennese” came to mind. If a Turk, a Persian and half a Canadian sang “Vienna without Viennese” together, I thought it would be pretty cynical. And the more I dealt with Kreisler, the more I collided head-on with him. Then I discovered that it would be his hundredth birthday next year. It would be a great idea to honor him with a homage, wouldn’t it? So I wrote to a few people from the Viennese song scene and related areas to get the idea: Great, everyone is taking part, but we won’t be able to do it in time for the anniversary. The solution was: I simply declared the year from his hundredth birthday on July 18, 2022 to July 18, 2023 to be the Georg Kreisler Year and published a song every month. 101 is also more Kreisler than 100.
The result is the on Price Records released CD with all these songs. What still fascinates regarding Kreisler more than a hundred years following his birth?
Georg Hübner: That he is incredibly pointed and accurate with his formulations. There are a few people who wrote lyrics by flipping a switch and just opening the floodgates. Georg Danzer might do that or Gert Steinbäcker might do that STS. They sat down and wrote a text in half an hour that is simply brilliant. To put it pathetically, it is a state of grace. You have this gift or you don’t have it. You can only practice allowing it.
Hans Weigel once wrote that Kreisler was “an expert and an oddball at the same time” and “sublimely playful.” Would you agree with him?
Georg Hübner: Absolutely. I really, really like the sublime playfulness. That’s pretty much what defines him. The wooden hammer is only rarely used; a lot of things take place on the intermediate level, which always shines through.
I met Georgs Kreisler in 2009 when he was a guest at Daniel Kehlmann’s invitation Salzburg Festival was, interviewed. My first Question “Are you actually still an anarchist?” the then 87-year-old said angrily “What else?” acknowledged. And he once wrote regarding his service in the US Army that he had the experience that nothing would happen to you if you consistently disobeyed. Is it also this resistance – following the war and his exile in the USA that he did not allow himself to be taken over by the Austrian state or by Israel – something that appeals to Kreisler?
Georg Hübner: I can only speak for myself, but: Yes! I don’t know how the more well-adjusted individuals in our society feel regarding this, but I’m discovering myself once more. The subversive is what defines him. That he answered your question “What else?” answers. I might have said: “Of course I still am.” But he says “What else?” and has hit another point. I’m an anarchist too, but I’m afraid we’re all not there yet.
He told me back then that he actually leads a middle-class life. Villa in Salzburg’s most expensive area and a large Mercedes in front of the door. What had the explosive power were his thoughts, right?
Georg Hübner: I don’t know whether driving around the world in a Mercedes is enough to be civil. On the other hand, in his time there was hardly anything more subversive than leading a middle-class life.
Kreisler openly sympathized with the 1968 movement and was one of the first to hold discussions with the audience. He had a little bell on the piano. When he rang the bell in the middle of the evening, the hall lights would go out and he would invite people to talk to him regarding politics. Chairs sometimes flew, he says in his biography. On the other hand, he wrote at the time: “There is no point in choosing words anymore, those days are over.” That sounded more like Ulrike Meynhof than hippie culture. Was he more of a hippie or more of a punk?
Georg Hübner: It’s not difficult to be both, because both – both the old hippies and the late punks will want to stone me – are basically two sides of the same coin. Being once morest what is perceived as the establishment and wanting to realize oneself is inherent in both movements, and neither was materially polarized. The fact that both movements ultimately became a hedonistic, ruthless ego thing is a bitter joke of history. So: Maybe not in terms of hairstyle, but in terms of heart it all goes together.
Because of his songs, Kreisler felt unfairly reduced to black humor. He wanted to be loved for his operas and his novels rather than his songs. The pop stuck to him, if you will. Isn’t it strange to rework something from which the author has repeatedly distanced himself?
Georg Hübner: It’s like that for many people. If you become mega famous with one trick or just one song. Bowie managed to reinvent himself once more and once more, but Deep Purple are now a cover band of their own songs. This is a path that you can follow, including them Stones are quite successful as such a company. But if you know Kreisler, it’s only logical that he wasn’t happy with this attribution. He didn’t want to commit himself and he wanted to be much more than just a composer of darkly humorous songs. But once you’re so strong in something, it’s hard to get away from it.
In interviews during his lifetime, Kreisler often let it be known that he felt that he and his art were not sufficiently valued and seemed bitter regarding it. His label Price Records he refers to as “a small company that actually specializes in carpet imports” and Kip Recordshis Swiss label, as “lover’s project”. Statements like these always contained a fair amount of bitterness. Do you also sense this bitterness in his art?
Georg Hübner: I don’t know whether you feel it, but you definitely feel that Vienna must have rejected him somehow, even though he still had a connection to the city.
As far as I know, the Austrian state only offered him Austrian citizenship in 1974. He understandably declined.
Georg Hübner: But I think he saw himself more as a Viennese than an Austrian.
He said regarding Viennese that he accepted it, but he didn’t necessarily like the rudeness and mendaciousness. A classic love-hate relationship?
Georg Hübner: To me it sounds more like he was disappointed.
Is the project Viennese, do you think?
Georg Hübner: Whenever Kreisler used dialect, it was always with a Yiddish touch. In the “Non-Aryan Arias” for example. He deliberately incorporated his knowledge of Jewish humor. His songs aren’t actually Viennese in terms of dialect, but they are in terms of the words he uses and the way he uses them. The political things later cannot be assigned to a specific location.
How did you select the people for the project?
Georg Hübner: I contacted Agnes Palmisano and Tini Kainrath, who are clearly associated with the Viennese song. I came to Wolfgang Bachofner (who we know from TV series like “Commissioner Rex” and “Quickly Investigated”, note) through Timna Brauer, who I really wanted to be there, but who was so busy with her father’s estate at the time that she told me Had to cancel, but recommended her stage partner Wolf Bachofner to me. That’s how I came to Wolf, with whom I got along great from the start. Same year, same shame, same love for music. We sang the song two or three times and that was it. Beautiful. Maria Frodl, on the other hand, is not a Viennese song musician, but plays the cello on the combined stages. I just wanted to do something with a singing saw for once in my life. “On the Deathbed” was ideal for this. Complaining like the instrument is and complaining like the song is, it just fit. I wanted Hans Zinkl because I’ve been playing with this exceptional talent for a long time Billy Rubin Trio For example, I did a Charles Bukowski project with him and Cornelius Obonya. And Guru’s Schrammel Quartet was allowed of course not missing either. I can’t exclude myself.
How did you come up with the idea of decorating the videos with an old-school television frame?
Georg Hübner: If you don’t have a video you’re up Youtube not present. Then the song doesn’t exist. I wanted to shoot something without needing a professional director, an editor, etc., which I can’t pay anyway. That’s why I did it myself first. My video camera is good enough. I recorded it “One Shot” and then adapted it a bit to Georg Kreisler’s time.
He himself hated television. “I don’t look at it anymore,” he said to me then. And: “Occasionally I still convince myself that it really isn’t good. And then I’ll leave it once more.” Would he have liked what he saw if he had turned on “your” TV?
Georg Hübner: [lacht] I have no idea. Maybe he wouldn’t have liked the interpretations, maybe he would have found them great.
I found it strange and impressive at the same time how contemporary many of the texts still are today.
Georg Hübner: Especially the political, yes. All you have to do is replace the cabbage with the short one, word it a little more contemporary, and it’s fine. I have with Mrs. Peters [seiner Witwe und Erbin, Anm.] called to get the OK and had a really nice conversation with her. I asked her if it was okay if I changed some parts slightly. She gave me the green light in principle, but said she just didn’t want me to change the songs so that people no longer knew them. She was okay with just updating.
Thank you for the interview.
Markus Deisenberger
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Georg Hübner: From metal to Viennese songs
Georg Hübner was born as SWhen he was six, his parents “kicked him to play the piano” and he wanted to play it, but not the way he wanted. Therefore, in protest and in order to impress the ladies who were still impressed by guitars at the time, he switched to the guitar when he was in early puberty and thus stayed with music. A band was quickly formed (style: loud and distorted), and following no bassist might be found, he took on this role. Today he plays both guitar and bass in different projects, composes and performs in many changing formations.
Although he mercilessly failed at jazz when he was young, as he says, because he simply didn’t understand it, later, when he realized “that it wasn’t all that difficult,” he founded a jazz band, and even later to end up with the Viennese song.
Not only the Kreisler homage “Kreisler 101” was recently released, but also the first and only album by his band “St. Marx”. 25 years too late. The story behind it: “Our label Spray Records was sold to BMG and they in turn sold it to Sony. They had to make an album with us, but didn’t know what to do with us. So they didn’t do anything. The finished album remained lying there. Exactly 25 years later we decided to release this album. “Just so it’s there.” This was essentially a celebration of the album’s 25-year non-release. Parallel to the Kreisler project: “The texts haven’t lost much, they are still shockingly relevant.”
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Link:
Georg Hübner / GURU
Price Records
1694683928
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