Reviews are sometimes strange. This was Ernst Ludwig Leitner’s thought when he read a review of his violin concerto about ten years ago.A critic was sure that Mr Leitner’s composition was definitely influenced by Leonard Bernstein’s violin concerto "Serenade". Mr Leitner, however, did not know this piece of music at all. Because at that time he hardly devoted his attention to Bernstein. The review, however, made him curious. He tried to get the score of the "Serenade", read Peter Gradenwitz`s Bernstein biography and really discovered affinities which he had not been aware of before. In the meantime it has become an intentional affinity. In 1992/93 Ernst Ludwig Leitner composed a "Requiem in memoriam Leonard Bernstein, in which the first bars of the "Chichester Psalms" and the notes A (La) and B, Bernstein´s initials, can be heard again and again. Mr Leitner himself wants to have his piece of music understood "not as much as a personal devotion to Bernstein but more to his musical variety". It is exactly this variety which appeals to him: "being open to all kinds of music".

Mr Leitner’s own development as a composer can also be seen in this respect. As an educated and internationally successful organist Mr Leitner started with the strictest polyphony. In this respect Johann Nepomuk David, whose "Wels-Bach-choir" Mr Leitner took over later on, was shaping him. Then Mr Leitner started to analyse his own development, because there was a "certain break". "Polyphony for the sake of polyphony but at the price of unbelievable harmonic hardness is something what I actually do not like. That does not mean", Mr Leitner adds, "that music should or cannot be strongly constructive. But you should not notice it!"

Under the premises of openess Mr Leitner does not want to be tied to categorizing slogans.When being asked about the "new simplicity" he answered that you could oppose it to a "new complexity". No, such restrictions would oppose to the creativity of the artist. "You try to make music and you do not think, when you start, now I am going to write something new simple or something new complex."

Ernst Ludwig Leitner who has been working as a university professor at the Mozarteum in Salzburg since 1978 has not only chosen parts of his "Bernstein Requiem" but also composed two new pieces of music for his "Komponistenportrait" in the cycle "Kontrapunkte". He was not only stimulated by Peter Keuschnig’s request for a new Kammersymphonie but also by the permanent request of the double bass players for something new. So Josef Pitzek will present a double bass concerto on February 10, 1997 in which Mr Leitner plays with a historical pattern in a witty manner."My idea was to turn the arrangement of the orchestra of Mozart´s "Gran Partita" upside down and to assign an important task to the double bass player." He included the soloist in his work, like many composers had done before. Brahms once sent his "Violinpassagen" to his friend Joseph Joachim to have them evaluated. And so did Mr Leitner – he used the more modern fax to send the one or the other double bass passage to Pitzek to have it approved. "I think it is enormously important that a soloist enjoys what he is supposed to play."That it will be enjoyable for the audience as well, can be experienced in the Brahms-Saal on Febraury 10.

Joachim Reiber

Published in MUSIKFREUNDE – Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. 1997