Re: Hans Werner Henze

["Derek Howl" <derekhowl@xxxxxxxx>]

Henze's leftist period was relatively short, and reflected the sort of
Maoist inflected politics that were common at the time.  I think the best of
the compositions from that period is "El Cimmaron" - a monodrama about the
memorioes of a Cuban ex-slave.  I've only seen a part of it done live - and
it was a gripping experience.  i've not listened to his leftist opers "We
come to the River" which was done at Covent Garden in about 1976, although
this can be obtained on an "unofficial" CD recording.

In fact much of Henze's music is worth a listen.  I personally prefer his
midddle operas; "Der junge lord  (The Young Milord)" - a sour comedy of
social manners, "The Bassarids" - from the greek story, and "Elegy for Young
Lovers" - the story of a cynical elder writer destroying the people he uses
in his work.  None of these is really a leftist work - but I think they work
better dramatically.

more recently the 9th symphony, about the experience of nazism is pretty
grim stuff - it couls be a companion piece to Schoenberg's "Survivor from
Warsaw".

I'll post more details if anyone's interested, though you'll find loads on
the internet.


----- Original Message ----- > Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 13:52:24 -0400
> From: Les Schaffer <schaffer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Hans Werner Henze: "classical" composer
>
> Last night i found myself drawn for the first time in a long while to
> my classical music collection.
>
> While shuffling thru the stack of records, i suddenly remembered liner
> notes which i had always liked reading from an album of music from
> German composer Hans Werner Henze. In particular, a poem quoted on the
> liner notes has always stuck in my mind for the 30 years since i
> bought the album and last listened to it and read the notes.
>
> Below are the liner notes written by Henze to his Symphony Number 6
> for Two Chamber Orchestras, Deutsche Grammophon recording. A couple
> bios of Henze from the web:
>
>    http://www.findarticles.com/m0FQP/n4289_v125/18524229/p1/article.jhtml
>
>    http://www.gema.de/engl/communication/news/n164/werner_henze.shtml
>
> i'll have to listen to the piece tonite after work. But if anyone has
> any pointers to similar poetry, i'd be much obliged. The poem reads to
> me -- even in English -- like music itself.
>
> I was not too surprised when i read in the web bios that Henze had
> turned to Marxism in mid-life.
>
> Les Schaffer
>
>
>
> - ---
> the liner notes:
> - ---
>
> Two orchestras, both with approximately equal resources, play together
> and in opposition, create echoes, multiple canons, mirror images,
> variants and contrasts. Each instrument (or each group) of one
> orchestra is associated with a particular instrument (or group) in the
> other; for example, electrically amplified guitar in Orchestra I with
> electrically amplified violin in Orchestra II, piano in I with Hammond
> organ in II, trombones in I with trumpets in II, tuba in I with
> piccolo trumpet in II, and so on. A network of relationships is thus
> created throughout the entire orchestra. All the instruments are
> treated in a solo manner.
>
> The composition consists of three parts, which follow each other
> without a break. The first part is based on sonata form with its
> contrasting elements (the second of which, calm and tender, is
> governed by the opening notes of "Stars in the Night", a song of the
> National Liberation Front in Vietnam -- it is first played by the
> banjo, and is then developed by the orchestra), followed by a
> development section and recapitulation. In the second part nine
> different musical conditions are presented, and each, in accordance
> with its character, is transformed into its opposite or into something
> else: brightness becomes dark, paleness becomes colourful,
> tranquillity becomes excited, beauty becomes death. This concept is
> derived from a poem by the Cuban writer Miguel Barnet entitled "Fe de
> erratas"
>
> Donde dice un gran barco blanco
> debe decir nube
> donde dice gris
> debe decir un pais lejano y olvidado
> donde dice aroma
> debe decir madre mia querida
> donde dice Cesar
> debe decir muerto ya reventando
> donde dice Abril
> puede decir arbol o columna o fuego
> pero donde dice espalda
> donde dice idioma
> donde dice extrano amor aquel
> debe decir naufragio
> en letras grandes
>
> (
> Where it says a great white ship
> it should say cloud
> where it says grey
> it should say
> a land distant and forgotten
> where it says aroma
> it should say my beloved mother
> where it says Caesar
> it should say dead and already rotting.
> Where it says April
> it could say tree or column or fire
> but where it says shoulder
> where it says language
> where it says this strange love
> it should say shipwreck
> in large letters
> )
>
> At "un pais lejano y olvidado" there is a quotation from the Hymn to
> Freedom which Mikis Theodorakis wrote in Athens Prison in 1968. It is
> first heard played on the guitar.  The third part is a fugato, with
> interludes.  Here, too, the material takes on a different significance
> whenever it appears: its meaning becomes so transformed that it
> arrives at a different identity, and the completion of this process
> marks the end of the Symphony.
>
> The entire piece is based, as regards rhythm, on a isometrical
> transcription of elements from Latin-American folk music. Towards the
> end of the third part these rhythms twice, in succession, break into
> improvisations on the Cuban "son", as though the music had been aiming
> all along at this directness, this merging into something else.
>
> On the 24th November 1969 the National Symphony Orchestra and I gave
> the world premiere of this piece in the Garcia Lorca Theatre, Havana.
>
> Hans Werner Henze
>
>



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