April 2002
Closer to Heaven
Unorthodox would be a good way to describe Eckart Rahn and his recording
company, Celestial Harmonies. Yet
this unorthodoxy stems not from any personal eccentricity, nor from
a contrived 'alternative' agenda. Rahn's is a peculiarly unorthodox
unorthodoxy: his concern is for principles that are almost entirely
forgotten in the modern world of the recording industry. Rahn actively
goes against the flow, seeing what he does as what's genuinely right
and good for a world that has lost much of its variety - one in which
culture is almost entirely determined by the bottomline.
"Believe, express and defend your responsibility towards society
of not producing cultural trash." Massimo Vignelli's strong words,
especially for this day and age, appear in bold red against black when
you log onto the Celestial Harmonies website. You can be in no doubt
that the man and his company have an idea of how things should be. But
this is not a one–eyed assay of a world entirely under his control.
Inclusion and variety is the key. Rahn wants to open up the world—and
importantly, not just a Westernised version of it—for his listeners,
so they are then free to decide for themselves what they like. As a
result, Celestial Harmonies produces an unexpectedly large range of
carefully selected and often exhaustively detailed bouquets of diverse
music—from Schubert's posthumous fortepiano works (played on a
instrument contemporary to the composer), to collections of 20th
century American orchestral music and a comprehensive collection
of music associated with Islam.
Not to mention diversions through contemporary Australian percussion
works, Gregorian
chant and traditional Buddhist
devotional music.
Such an extraordinary array of subjects has kept Rahn on his toes,
not least when involved in projects such as the recent request to supply
music for the popular Buddha: Radiant Awakening exhibition at
the Art Gallery of NSW. Projects like this require more dedication than
some would realise, with Rahn's perfectionism coming to the fore when
collecting the many chants and instrumental pieces from the diverse
cultures of Asia where Buddhism has blossomed over many centuries. Quite
far ranging in style, he chose chant from Tibet,
Thailand, Japan,
China and the practice's
homeland of India to
name a few. Within these countries often lie regional forms of Buddhism
that have given rise to whole other languages and musical styles.
When it came time to put the CD booklet together, Rahn wanted to reproduce
the various chant texts. This ended up involving nine scholars, whose
job it was to edit and translate all the texts, from the commonest Mandarin
to the obscure selections from Laos and Myanmar. As always, the original
text and English translation were to appear side–by–side.
But to achieve this required the creation of non–Western scripts,
ultimately involving many hours of pain–staking trial and error.
"When it was finished, people looked at it and said 'it looks fine,'"
Rahn recalls. "Fine! Didn't they know how long that took us?!"
Not so easy when there's no Times New Tibetan!
With Rahn's infectious enthusiasm for Australia and his broad knowledge
of the traditional music scene, it is little wonder that Celestial Harmonies
was invited to work on the Buddha: Radiant Awakening exhibition.
Australia's musicians and the concentration of talent from the surrounding
regions have led Rahn here time and again, choosing our country over
the US (where he lives) and Europe. He believes that in Australia we
have an almost untapped resource of musical talent—and not just
those involved in European art music. Like all but the indigenous music
of this country, Asian, European and other traditions have made their
way to Australia and it
is here that some of their best practitioners can be found.
A firm belief that Australia is a worthwhile contributor to the world's
music scene—confidence this nation often lacks—was behind
Rahn's recent comments on ABC Classic–FM's Classic 100. When it
is mentioned, Rahn seems perplexed. "Why should Australia want
to be measured by European standards or, heaven forbid, try to compete
with what the Germans themselves can't repeat?" he asks. That the
Classic 100 may be less than representative of people's actual taste
is one of the more vexing issues for Rahn. "If you went by sales
alone—a more telling figure—you would most likely find it
is Beethoven's Symphony No.5 or the Tchaikovsky first Piano Concerto
that comes out on top."
While this may be true, what can a list such as the Classic 100 tell
us? To Rahn's mind, very little. "Why do we need a classic hit
parade?" For Australia in 2002, perhaps this is a fair comment.
Instead of compiling lists, Rahn extols us to seek out the variety this
country can offer. While within that 300–year stretch—"Schütz
to Stravinsky"—there are probably dozens of works to our liking,
discovering what we didn't already know may ultimately be more thrilling.
An unorthodox approach, but it just might work….
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