The Austrian section of the organisation was established in 1949, and supported among other things important ensembles specialised in contemporary music like “die reihe” (ensemble initiated by Friedrich Cerha and Kurt Schwertsik taking Paris “Domaine Musical” as a model) and “Ensemble Kontrapunkte”, whom Jeunesse offered to organise own concert cycles respectively from 1959 and 1965 on. In addition, numerous young composers like Cerha, György Ligeti, Gerhard Rühm, Dieter Kaufmann and others were given their first prestigious performance opportunities in front of a wider audience. 

Austrian Jeunesse’s relationships with the medium of LP records is a long lasting one: before starting their own cycle of concerts in 1952, they provided to their members free of charge accessible “Schallplattenkonzerte”; in the years 1960–1969 they cooperated with Austrian labels to create “Schallplattenklubs” in Vienna, where the Jeunesse members had access to around 4.000 LPs to listen at and borrow.

In the 1970s, the Jeunesse management endeavoured to promote young artists. A group of composers active in Vienna signed on November 19th, 1974 a contract with Jeunesse, initiating the production of monographic LPs with their works. The agreement, still preserved in the archive of Austrian Jeunesse, was stipulated between the organisation and the Viennese composer Dieter Kaufmann, acting also as representative of the colleagues Heinz Karl Gruber, Anestis Logothetis, Kurt Schwertsik, Wilhelm Zobl and Otto M. Zykan.

Seven LPs have been released during the concert season 1975–1976 using the head “Jeunesses Musicales präsentiert” as a common trademark. Kaufmann was represented by a double LP, and one of its compositions was also recorded in another Jeunesse release of the same year, the first release of the Arnold Schoenberg Chor. Sponsored with a fixed endowed fund, the LPs have been pressed in a number of 300 copies, 180 of them went to the composers and 120 remained to Jeunesse which supposed to reinvest the profits of the sales in new record projects. In fact this happened in the concert season 1981–1982, releasing a monographic record dedicated to Martin Bjelik.

The first wave of portrayed young composers was strongly interconnected, as the common contract shows. But even the fact that some of them acted as performers in the LPs of the colleagues witness this existing network: Gunda König, married to Dieter Kaufmann, is the narrating voice in Logothetis’ “Hör!-spiel”; Zykan, Schwertsik and his wife Christa perform in Gruber compositions; Gruber plays double bass and sings in Zykan’s portrait. Some of them gravitated around the 1959 constituted “Institut für Elektroakustik der Musikhochschule Wien”, where some of the recorded tracks of the LPs have been produced. Others experimented with pop music, world music, dada, and the cabaret traditions of the 1920s.

Unfortunately, the “Jeunesses Musicales präsentiert” LP’s project ended after releasing eight monographic records. Not enjoying broad distribution, they mostly remained into the Austrian market and were sold at the concerts or in presentation sessions called “Platten-Vernissagen” which took place at the still existing Café Sperl in Vienna’s city centre. Only Logothetis’ LP was reprinted by Austrian label Preiser Records and commercially promoted. Since this reprint was also quickly sold out, it was repressed as bootleg (like some other of the rare recordings of the “Jeunesses Musicales präsentiert” series).

“Jeunesses Musicales präsentiert” recordings represent a peculiar experiment in the Austrian musical landscape of the 1970s. Not only do they show the stylistic diversity of a younger generation of composers and musicians, they also demonstrate a pronounced need for communication with the audience. This could occasionally take on humorous traits. Some copies the Gruber LPs, for example, came with an attached postcard, asking the buyers (apostrophised as ‘Dear Home Listeners’) what young musicians could else do for the well-being of the audiences. The postcard was intended to find out which delights the record could not offer: 1. Perplexity, 2. Sensory ecstasy, 3. Perspiration, 4. Loss of consciousness. Taking the joke out of guessing games, it was added that the correct answers were “favourably acknowledged by the composer himself”.

Juri Giannini | Institut für Musikwissenschaft und Interpretationsforschung (IMI)