Nicolaus A Huber

Education

Huber was born in Passau. From 1958 to 1962 he studied music education at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and subsequently composition with Franz Xaver Lehner and Günter Bialas. He pursued his education further with Josef Anton Riedl, Karlheinz Stockhausen and, above all, with Luigi Nono. From 1974 until his retirement in 2003 Huber was Professor of Composition at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen (Orgass 2001).

Style and influences

Riedl and Schnebel inspired Huber's vocal and linguistic experiments. Riedl in particular encouraged Huber's radical tendencies (Warnaby 2003, 23). His treatment of musical material was most strongly formed by his contact with Stockhausen, while Nono inspired in him an acute historical and political (Marxist) awareness, particularly evident in his second compositional phase, beginning around 1969 (Orgass 2001). Huber took part in Stockhausen's composition project Ensemble at the 1967 Darmstädter Ferienkurse, an experience that gave him an appreciation of the potential for improvisation—a factor that marks not only his compositions for conventional forces, but also his mixed- and multi-media experiments. Stockhausen's influence can also be seen in Huber's exploitation of space and the incorporation of extraneous elements, such as vocal utterances in instrumental music, as a means of heightening expression. His period of study with Luigi Nono in 1967–68 was even more influential on Huber. Nono encouraged Huber to seek a more thorough-going means of eradicating tonality, through a study of psychology in order better to understand human responses (Warnaby 2003, 23).

Selected compositions

Political revues

Prizes

Writings