Con tutta forza: Bernd Alois Zimmermann; Ein persönliches Portrait; Dokumente, Briefe, Fotos, Zeitzeugen by Bettina Zimmermann (review)

Bernd Alois Zimmermann was born in 1918, contributed a number of ambitious and impactful works to the canon of postwar modernism, and died by suicide in 1970. The centennial of Zimmermann's birth in 2018 proved a fruitful moment to revisit his legacy, with various journalistic retrospectives, a scholarly symposium, three productions of his opera Die Soldaten, and numerous performances of large-scale works such as the trumpet concerto (subtitled "Nobody knows de trouble I see"), the orchestral piece Photopsis, and the "ecclesiastical action" completed just before his death, Ich wandte mich und sah an alles Unrecht, das geschah unter der Sonne. The volume under review is another artifact in this centennial ritual of remembering but is singularly, intensely personal. The composer's daughter, Bettina Zimmermann, worked with editor Rainer Peters to compile a "personal portrait" (as one subtitle reads, indicating that it is not, strictly speaking, a biography), drawing on a rich array of historical documents, letters, visual materials, and, especially, lengthy interviews Bettina Zimmermann conducted with people who knew her father throughout his life and collaborated with him on some of his most significant projects. Bettina Zimmermann was just eighteen years old when her father died, and this project is a loving excavation of his character: she may not have been able to fully know him in life, but she comes now to better understand his journey and his legacy through the memories of others.

In contrast to the purported authority or objectivity of a single-author, third-person biography, this book is forthcoming—and charmingly reflective—about its own making. Bettina Zimmermann's curious voice comes through in interview transcriptions and explanatory prefaces, and her curatorial work is both visible and relatable. Nodding to traditional functions of biographical monographs, she does include a bibliography of published research and a list of Zimmermann's most important works, with short commentaries by Peters; biographical sketches of key figures help to place Bettina Zimmermann's principal sources and interlocutors. But relatively little of the volume's prose is rewritten or paraphrased into an omniscient authorial voice, instead appearing as long passages of transcribed conversations. At the beginning of the book, she recalls the project's initial inspiration, a colloquium and series of concerts in honor of the composer at the 2010 Strasbourg festival called "musica." At that event, newly reconnected with many of her father's friends, students, and collaborators, Bettina Zimmermann realized that those who had best known Zimmermann were themselves aging, such that there was some urgency to capture their recollections of him. (She was right to act on this insight, as two of the conductors she interviewed, Hans Zender and Michael Gielen, have since died.) While primarily invested in the composer and his legacy, the book's rich testimony regarding a multigenerational experience with musical modernism also turns it into a kind of group portrait.

Beautifully designed, dense with photographs and finely reproduced primary documents, this investigation into Zimmermann's life and works gives the impression of a scrapbook interleaved with essays. It is organized chronologically and illustrated with such artifacts as his boarding school admissions invitation and a report card from 1934–35 ("Religion: very good; gym: adequate"). There are eminently legible facsimiles of concert programs, newspaper articles, and handwritten letters. Many of the photographs show images of the Zimmermann family and their private life, though these intersect with the composer's professional trajectory at many points. For example, chapters that highlight his artistically crucial residencies at the Villa Massimo (the German Academy in Rome) also feature tourist snapshots of the ancient ruins at Paestum, taken on holiday during the same years. A wealth of photographs taken by Zimmermann himself—of family and friends but also of landscapes, shadows, birds, and urban spaces—are a reminder of his visual intelligence. The...