Jakob Ullmann's career can be measured by the obstacles placed in his path. It was in the teeth of these obstacles that he learnt his...

Jakob Ullmann's career can be measured by the obstacles placed in his path. It was in the teeth of these obstacles that he learnt his craft: they have left their mark on his artistic stance, and the fact that he ultimately overcame them proved the rightness of his approach. For a number of reasons, Ullmann's works failed to blend into the musical landscape of the former state of East Germany. Avoiding peremptory gestures and unalterable laws, his restrained scores seemed strange and alien. Rather than producing user's guides to the art of composition, he composed arcane texts which demanded first and formost to be deciphered - almost like a palimpsest. To a cultural establishment that viewed music as a continuation of state policy with other means, this must have appeared no less suspicious than Ullmann's love for John Cage, whose principles of composition he espoused at an early date, thereby casting his vote in favour of the liberation of sound from intentionality and social semanticism.