Hans Werner Henze

[rostasi]

This will probably get as many comments as the obit announcement

of the great Jacques Barzun (none), but Henze has died. I've had some

interesting conversations with people about Henze over the years -

especially with European friends - concerning his political/social ideas.

His music and ideas definitely made a lasting impression.

BBC announcement

BBC obit

Edited October 27, 2012 by rostasi

[David Ayers]

Sorry to hear this. I knew his work from performances and recordings, met him, and know people who knew him well. The last premiere of his I heard was Elogium Musicum, a choral work themed on the death of his partner Fausto. Better thought of as a stage composer perhaps, though one who wrote many compelling concert works.

[StarThrower]

Sorry to hear the news. I've been enjoying a number of his works over the past year.

[brownie]

I was impressed with the score he wrote for the Alain Resnais film 'Muriel'.

[David Gitin]

A lesser known work is the Guitar work played by Timo Korhonen on an album featuring other works by Magnus Lindberg and Toru Takemitsu. Recommended.

[Rooster_Ties]

In all honesty, for a good 15+ years, Henze has been one of my very favorite 20th Century composers (top 5, easily).

I discovered his Requiem for trumpet, piano, and large chamber orchestra shortly after I graduated college (early 90's), and have given away well more than a dozen copies over the years (having bought used copies whenever I found them).

I just checked, and I have close to 30 CD's of Henze material (the only other composers that I have as many CD's by are Ives and Hindemith), including a 13-disc Henze box set on DG.

Needless to say, I'll be spinning a lot of Henze this week (will probably take a whole month to listen to everything). RIP.

[Rooster_Ties]

Some bits of the Requiem...

And I really love this next clip, the 2nd movement (especially starting around 0:50)

[Rooster_Ties]

Probably the best obit I've yet seen online, from his publisher...

www.schott-music.com

[David Ayers]

Thanks for that link. You can also conveniently order scores from that website.

I second your recommendation of the Requiem. I don't think Henze is a composer where a novice should just go to the symphonies, in the traditional model of symphonies as repository of best ideas. I do think people might want to sample Sym. 9 though, preferably with text to hand. Where to start with the operas? I have no idea, really, I have only seen one (shame on me!). I've heard a few more on record but still don't really have the measure of them. The ballet Undine is marvelous though still has a little too much Stravinsky in it. Of the stage works El Cimarrón is basically a small-scale classic and a work that people on this board with an interest in avant-garde protest works might respond to. I guess those folks will also investigate - or will have already investigated - Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung der Natascha Ungeheuer (with Gunther Hampel) and Das Floß der Medusa. There's a lot of quite contrasting things there and you need to take along run at it!

[Rooster_Ties]

I get the "Stravinsky"-esque charge against Undine, but I love it none the less (and like it as much or more than a lot of real Stravinky).

"Undine" is probably my 2nd favorite Henze work, after the Requiem.

[David Ayers]

I get the "Stravinsky"-esque charge against Undine, but I love it none the less (and like it as much or more than a lot of real Stravinky).

"Undine" is probably my 2nd favorite Henze work, after the Requiem.

Have you any other favorites?

[Rooster_Ties]

Have you any other favorites?

Off the top of my head, two Henze works also recorded by the Ensemble Modern (they also recorded the Requiem) are right up there for me. "Le Miracle de la Rose" (1981) for clarinet soloist and a 13-piece chamber group. Also, on the same disc is "An eine Aolsharfe" (1985/86) for classial guitar and 15 instruments.

Several of his numberous concerti are great, but I'll have to review my collection to mention those that I like best (I have to confess, I get some of the works with similar instrumentation mixed up if I haven't listened to them recently).

[Larry Kart]

I don't like much of Henze and am even repelled/baffled by the IMO note-to-note near arbitrariness (as in, "Why these pitches"?) of some of the later works (e.g. the "Six Arabian Songs" that Ian Bostridge recorded for EMI), but I was quite taken with this middle-period work:

HENZE. Chamber Music 1958 (rev. 1963). Neil * Jenkins (ten); Timothy Walker (gtr); Berlin Scharoun Ensemble / Brynmoor Llewellyn Jones. Koch Schwann

[David Ayers]

I don't like much of Henze and am even repelled/baffled by the IMO note-to-note near arbitrariness (as in, "Why these pitches"?) of some of the later works (e.g. the "Six Arabian Songs" that Ian Bostridge recorded for EMI), but I was quite taken with this middle-period work:

HENZE. Chamber Music 1958 (rev. 1963). Neil * Jenkins (ten); Timothy Walker (gtr); Berlin Scharoun Ensemble / Brynmoor Llewellyn Jones. Koch Schwann

A valid point on pitch choices. Echoes of Strauss, though Henze would have certainly balked at such a parallel.

[David Ayers]

That said, this is an obituary thread...

[king ubu]

Seems this is the only Henze thread we've got here ... I know it's the obit thread, but ...

Glue alert on the DG box!

Just got mine and one disc had glue stuck on it that could just about be removed without damage - and several of the cardboard covers made me feel there might be more damage eventually - so I took out all the discs and stuck them into paper sleeves. The box luckily is large enough to hold them even without having to adjust/cut the sleeves and stick them back into the slots, instead I just placed them inside the foldouts.