Der Schönheitsmolch

Complete Work Title:

Der Schönheitsmolch (The Beauty-newt) — character study after Elias Canetti

Performance Medium:

solo bass saxophone

Duration:

5:00

Date Composed:

January – February 2001; completed October 2008

Dedication:

for Andreas van Zoelen

Additional Information:

  • This work is part of a collection of solo works based on character studies in Elias Canetti’s book Der Ohrenzeuge (Earwitness).
  • Solo works from this collection may be programmed as a set, or in conjunction with the semi-improvisational, open-form works Canetti-menagerie (for five to eight instruments) or Conversations (for two to four instruments), which use these works as source material for improvisational interplay.
  • Included on the album Improbable Encounters (innova 873, 2014).

Recordings:

Andreas van Zoelen, bass saxophone. Recorded May 2013 (Tilburg, Netherlands).
Lindsey Welp, bass saxophone. From the 41st Annual Bowling Green New Music Festival, October 2020.

Score:

Program Note:

Der Schönheitsmolch (The Beauty-newt) is the eleventh in a series of short works for solo instrument based upon characters in Der Ohrenzeuge: Fünfzig Charaktere (Earwitness: Fifty Characters), written in 1974 by the Bulgarian-born British-Austrian novelist Elias Canetti (1905-1994). Canetti’s distinctive studies incorporate poetic imagery, singular insights, and unabashed wordplay to create fifty ironic paradigms of human behavior. This collection, begun in 1997, was inspired by the vividly surreal depictions of Canetti’s characters, and comprises twenty-two solo works to date—composed for familiar instruments such as violin, guitar, piano, and trombone, as well as less common instruments such as ocarina, cimbalom, glass harmonica, and carillon.  In Canetti’s depiction of this character, the Beauty-newt “is keen on all the beautiful things that have existed, do exist, or will exist in the world, and he finds them in palaces, museums, temples, churches, and caves… it would be ungentlemanly to describe his repulsive looks. Let it be said that he never had a nose. His pop eyes, his jughandle ears, his goiter, his black, rotten teeth, the pestilential stench he exudes from his mouth, his sometimes squeaky, sometimes croaking voice, his doughy hands… he never holds them out to anyone and unerringly finds his place in front of all beauties.”

Der Schönheitsmolch was completed in October 2008 and composed for bass saxophone specialist Andreas van Zoelen. It is included on the album Improbable Encounters (innova 873, 2014).

Performance/Broadcast History:

DateVenueLocationPerformer(s)
23 March 2023Archway Gallery—Texas New Music Ensemble programHouston, TXMasahito Sugihara, bass saxophone
18 October 2020Bowling Green State University—41st Annual Bowling Green New Music FestivalBowling Green, OH (online)Lindsey Welp, bass saxophone
6 October 2014University of North TexasDenton, TXEric Nestler, bass saxophone
15 September 2014University of North TexasDenton, TXEric Nestler, bass saxophone
18 February 2014radio broadcast on WMBR-FM—"The New Edge” with Ken FieldCambridge, MAAndreas van Zoelen, bass saxophone