Der Demutsahne

Complete Work Title:

Der Demutsahne (The Humility-forbear) — character study after Elias Canetti

Performance Medium:

solo guitar

Duration:

6:00

Date Composed:

September – October 2008; edited January 2013 by Joseph Mirandilla

Dedication:

for Matthew Elgart

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).

Recording:

Joseph Mirandilla, guitar. Recorded 6 April 2013 at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music (Chengdu, China).

Score:

Program Note:

Der Demutsahne (“The Humility-forebear”) is the tenth 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 Humility-forbear “twists from one submission to another… He knows that a person who is eager to die will practice submission early on, and the trick is to live in the teeth of this insight…. [He] practices bearing up under his hardship… [and] does it so well that he is sometimes pricked by malice; then he succeeds in intercepting a hardship before it properly arrives.”

Der Demutsahne was composed in September of 2008 for guitarist Matthew Elgart, and first performed on 26 May 2012 at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music (Chengdu, China) by guitarist Joseph Mirandilla. It is included on the album Improbable Encounters (innova 873, 2014).

Performance/Broadcast History:

DateVenueLocationPerformer(s)
11 April 2019University of California, Los AngelesLos Angeles, CAAaron Dozal, guitar
19 September 2016University of North TexasDenton, TXChaz Underriner, guitar
27 April 2014Tarrant County College NortheastHurst, TXMichael Morey, guitar
22 April 2014Texas Christian UniversityFort Worth, TXMichael Morey, guitar
22 April 2013University of North TexasDenton, TXArmin Abdihodžić, guitar
26 May 2012Sichaun Conservatory of MusicChengdu, ChinaJoseph Mirandilla, guitar

With guitarist Joseph Mirandilla, Sichuan Conservatory of Music (2012)