Funding tool: Basic research projects
Project-ID: FTI17-003
Project start: 01. April 2019
Project end: will follow
Runtime: 24 months / finished
Funding amount: € 166.000,00

Brief summary:

The bequest of the most important living Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha (born 1926) has been housed at the Archives of Contemporary Arts at the Danube University Krems since 2010. The particularity of the archives is the processing of the legacy of living artists (besides F. Cerha e.g. K. Schwertsik and P. Turrini) which enables authenticity and credibility of the unique sources through personal contact and mutual cooperation with the artists.

The planned interactive online database under the title "Cerha Online" shall be available for research as well as to the non-professional public. More than 20,358 pages of drafts, scores, libretti and revised versions of Cerha´s own compositions, 1,434 pages of lectures and notes (including different editions), almost 1,532 pages of correspondence, 480 photos, posters, concert programmes and reviews, critical reports, hundreds of recordings, videos and DVD´s are waiting for processing. The majority of them are among the most important and basic sources and documents for musicologist research in the field of contemporary music. Along with his considerable musical oeuvre, Cerha has also created an extensive array of works of visual art. A total of 900 works of art are still in his possession, stored in the artist´s residences in Vienna and Maria Langegg. A complete catalogue of these works is provided by the Archives of Contemporary Arts.

As former visiting professor of the archive Univ.-Prof. Dr. Matthias Henke created a classification system for the works by Friedrich Cerha that is oriented along issues of Cultural Studies. This issue based classification system provides the methodological basis of structuring the content.

"Cerha Online" is designed as a free online portal in German and English to offer access to a rich pool of first-hand information and archival material concerning the life and work of the composer. The portal is research based, authorized by the composer himself and should address scholars as well as students, pupils, teachers, professional musicians, but also people who are generally interested in music. The main focus lies on

• the public presentation of the papers and further material (“Vorlass”) of Cerha in combination with digital access to expert knowledge (target group: scholars, researchers, musicians)
• the increase of public awareness of personalities such as Cerha as part of our cultural heritage (target group: teachers and students).

As an innovative, attractive way of making archival work and material - with regard to legal and preservatoric implications – visible, "Cerha Online" shall also serve as a prototype for the bequests of other artists represented by the Archives of Contemporary Arts.