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CREATIVITY YESTERDAY AND TODAY
IN ECCE Homo (1889) Nietzsche wrote: "A thought flashes up like lightning, with necessity, unfalteringly formed-I have never had any choice" (Nietzsche 1979, 102-3). This description of how his thoughts emerge corresponds to a popular idea of the creative process that has persisted until the present day: The striking artistic idea appears suddenly; it is unexpected and obsessional. Creativity is considered to be a miracle that cannot be understood or predicted. Composers such as Mahler, Pfitzner and Schonberg enforced the authority of this "romantic" image by destroying their sketches and thus preventing others from insights into their creative processes (cf. Danuser 1991 and Neumann 1993).
Because rational explanations of the creative process could not be found, metaphysical reasons filled in the explanatory gap: Since antiquity, the ability to create artistically and scientifically has been considered a fortunate gift from God, a daemon, or a muse; since the seventeenth century, a person who has the ability to create has been named a genius.1 Within the discourse about genius, newness, originality and uniqueness were defined as indispensable criteria of the creative product. The mode of production (creativity) and the character of the resulting product (newness, originality, and uniqueness) became thus two sides of the same phenomenon. Within these parameters-the creative product is new, original, and unique, and emerges unpredictably-musicologists such as Dahlhaus called into question the idea of improvisation in music, like the cadenza in the traditional solo concert, and improvisation in jazz. Their objections rose from the observation that the improvised parts in compositions claim to spontaneously create music ex improvise, a term whose direct translation means "unforeseeable," while simultaneously they purport to be derived from a creative act. Thus, the paradox emerges that the inspiration must be ready on cue, at a particular moment, although the creative performance of musical inventions is per definitionem a random, uncontrolled event which cannot be produced on demand (cf. Dahlhaus 1979, 10). In the 1960s and 1970s certain types of indeterminate compositions were conceptualized which rely completely on the improvisation of the performers. Thus, the success of the piece depends solely on the paradoxical concept that is inherent in improvisation. In order to produce new, original, and unique sounds, creativity must appear in improvisation. However,...