Hans Werner Henze (1926-2012)

[gingerjon]

Very sad to hear.

I was lucky to see Boulevard Solitude at the ROH a few years ago. They were so desperate for customers at the time (negative press) that my £25 got me in the stalls.

[Boilk]

Clearly a towering figure in 20th century music though.
RIP.

Some might say the musical giant of the German post-War generation, if not gimmicky/avant garde enough to be as influential and easy to write about as enfant terrible Stockhausen.

I'm wondering if there's a characteristic "Henze soundworld", or whether his technical mastery and the diverse interests which informed his musical philosophy (e.g. literature/politics) made him perhaps too much of a musical magpie for him to be put into the pigeon holes so beloved of musicologists?

[mercia]

embarrassingly I don't know any Henze

can anyone recommend an easy way in, so to speak ?

Mr Trelawney finished breakfast this morning with part of a Henze choral piece which sounded very much like Stravinsky to me, I don't know whether it was representative of a particular period - but it sounded easily approachable

[gingerjon]

it sounded easily approachable

Typical, dumbing down morning music programming ...

[heliocentric]

Some might say the musical giant of the German post-War generation, if not gimmicky/avant garde enough to be as influential and easy to write about as enfant terrible Stockhausen.

They might, but it really isn't necessary to disparage Stockhausen in order to appreciate Henze. Besides which, in Henze's 1970s works you find electronic music, improvisatory features and (especially) innovative uses of theatrical possibilities which are a far cry from the amalgam of postromantic and neoclassical features (to name only these) which are more characteristic of his work as a whole.

There's certainly something eclectic about Henze's work but as far as I'm concerned this is almost always outweighed by a very particular and instantly recognisable sonic and expressive character. I don't know about mentioning anything as particularly "approachable" since I really can't imagine what "unapproachable" music might be, but one of the first pieces of Henze that I fell immediately in love with was the Cantata della fiaba estrema of 1963, a twenty-odd-minute setting of an Elsa Morante poem for high soprano, chorus and chamber ensemble. Its mood (like that of a great deal of Henze's music) is of a certain nostalgia and longing, while its structure, mostly alternating soprano, choir and instrumental interludes, is fluent and dramatic; most of all, though, it displays Henze's distinctive way with melody - nobody IMO (not even Alban Berg) could spin such a range of expressive and memorable melody out of a twelve-tone-based compositional concept; I hesitate even to mention the latter, although I think it gives an idea of what kind of harmonies to expect, since "composition technique" is never in the foreground of what you hear.

[gurnemanz]

I'm glad we made it to the Barbican for Phaedra, one of the performances as part of the Total Immersion event in 2010. It is a fascinating piece with strong reference to his on "death" and rebirth, when he went into a mysterious coma for several months and then recovered. Now he really is dead. The maestro was sitting not far from us and rose unsteadily at the end to take an ovation.

The only other performance I can remember attending was The Raft of Medusa nearly 40 years ago in Germany. It made big impression at the time.

[ahinton]

They might, but it really isn't necessary to disparage Stockhausen in order to appreciate Henze. Besides which, in Henze's 1970s works you find electronic music, improvisatory features and (especially) innovative uses of theatrical possibilities which are a far cry from the amalgam of postromantic and neoclassical features (to name only these) which are more characteristic of his work as a whole.

There's certainly something eclectic about Henze's work but as far as I'm concerned this is almost always outweighed by a very particular and instantly recognisable sonic and expressive character. I don't know about mentioning anything as particularly "approachable" since I really can't imagine what "unapproachable" music might be, but one of the first pieces of Henze that I fell immediately in love with was the Cantata della fiaba estrema of 1963, a twenty-odd-minute setting of an Elsa Morante poem for high soprano, chorus and chamber ensemble. Its mood (like that of a great deal of Henze's music) is of a certain nostalgia and longing, while its structure, mostly alternating soprano, choir and instrumental interludes, is fluent and dramatic; most of all, though, it displays Henze's distinctive way with melody - nobody IMO (not even Alban Berg) could spin such a range of expressive and memorable melody out of a twelve-tone-based compositional concept; I hesitate even to mention the latter, although I think it gives an idea of what kind of harmonies to expect, since "composition technique" is never in the foreground of what you hear.

Very pertinent points all, for which many thanks. Henze's output is so large and so varied that anyone not yet familiar with his work might find it hard to decide on the best entry points. There can be no doubt that his importance as a stage composer was at least as great as (albeit very different to) that of Britten and it might be argued that the ten symphonies, which span half of his life, represent a kind of backbone of his work; for me, the 7th and 10th symphonies are particular high spots in his output. I don't know enough about what brought on the major crisis that befell him in the early part of this century after his symphonic cycle had reached its conclusion, but the fact that he recovered from it so well is testament to a determination and inexhaustible creativity that is a lesson to us all. That said, I am dismayed that more of his work is not more widely known than appears to be the case but then he was not alone among major composers in being rather more talked about than performed.

RIP.

[heliocentric]

I'm glad we made it to the Barbican for Phaedra, one of the performances as part of the Total Immersion event in 2010. It is a fascinating piece with strong reference to his on "death" and rebirth, when he went into a mysterious coma for several months and then recovered. Now he really is dead. The maestro was sitting not far from us and rose unsteadily at the end to take an ovation.

The only other performance I can remember attending was The Raft of Medusa nearly 40 years ago in Germany. It made big impression at the time.

Medusa is a highly powerful work I think. What I'm not at all familiar with is his later work, from his last twenty years or so, which I look forward to catching up with eventually, given the opportunity. A few years ago I saw two performances of El Cimarrón performed by Ensemble Son, a Swedish ensemble; this is a work from Henze's period of most intensive involvement with revolutionary politics (1970), so you might expect such music not to have survived the intervening decades without looking outdated, but no, it was as focused, direct and shot through with moments of beauty as I'd ever found it back in the day, and its underlying sense of elegy for the destruction of Third World societies by successive waves of colonialism, as told by an old ex-slave who has seen it all, hasn't lost any of its immediacy.

[BBMmk2]

Very remiss of me not to pout in my tribute of this great composer!

Such a prolific composer too!

I dont think there is anymore I can say about this great man! Apart from thye fact that i have played his Ragtimes & Habeneras for brass band, before the premiere of the prom that year(1975, I think).

[mercia]

Typical, dumbing down morning music programming

I shall take from that that the work played in Breakfast [Muses of Sicily] was untypical Henze. Shame, I enjoyed it.

[teamsaint]

I shall take from that that the work played in Breakfast [Muses of Sicily] was untypical Henze. Shame, I enjoyed it.

Me too !
don't know his stuff at all, so it was at least an introduction. "Breakfast" actually doing something useful?

[3rd Viennese School]

I've only come across this news. Totally unexpected!
Also didn't know he was 86 years old.

Such a shame. It’s like ending an era in music.

I'm sometimes think "I wonder what Henze's symphony no.11 will be like..." . Now we'll never know.

I went to his talk in 2000 followed by the UK premiere of Symphony no.9.
One question put to him was "do you find it easier or harder to compose as you get older?”
Henze replied “ Well, you get tired easier!”

Started playing his symphonies no. 7 and 10 on the way home from beer festivals and started getting into them! Bought the double CD set symphonys no. 1-6 and started exploring those. Then, only this year in March , heard my finale Henze symphony , no.8.

Hans Werner Henze will be sadly missed.

R.I.P.


P.S. for readers wanting to start somewhere, why nott buy the Double CD of the first 6 symphonies. They are very good and very varied! ( No.3 even has jazz music in it.)

[bluestateprommer]

David Patrick Stearns of the Philadelphia Inquirer had this blog post, in tribute to Henze, talking about a "relay" interview that he had with HWH:

http://www.artsjournal.com/condemned/2012/10/hans-werner-henze-the-last-interview/

It's touching to read this at the end, after asking if travel is a possibility (I'm sure DPS knew the general answer in advance):

"I am old now. Travelling has become difficult, yet I would like to see Philadelphia one day. For the time being, I’m asking you to communicate to my friends and colleagues in the Opera Company of Philadelphia my very best thanks and good wishes."

I'll admit that I haven't listened to a great amount of HWH's music, although I do have the Knussen DG set of Ondine that I heard several years back. I think that I've heard only one or two chamber works live; certainly none of his operas or orchestral music in live performance. The Telegraph and Guardian tributes seemed to do HWH proud:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/oct/27/hans-werner-henze

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9637856/Hans-Werner-Henze.html

[Tony Halstead]

He was a wonderful conductor of his own music...I had the pleasure of playing the ( electronic) organ on the DGG recording of his 6th Symphony with the LSO in 1972. This took place in an acoustically superb wood-panelled hall in Brent Town Hall, a recording venue that was popular in the 1970s.
He knew EXACTLY what he wanted and he was ( quite rightly) very critical and dismissive of the horrible 'Hammond' organ that was hired for the recording.
In the end we discussed - amicably - the organ 'stops' / registration etc and he didn't seem too displeased at the final result.

[Serial_Apologist]

He was a wonderful conductor of his own music...I had the pleasure of playing the ( electronic) organ on the DGG recording of his 6th Symphony with the LSO in 1972. This took place in an acoustically superb wood-panelled hall in Brent Town Hall, a recording venue that was popular in the 1970s.
He knew EXACTLY what he wanted and he was ( quite rightly) very critical and dismissive of the horrible 'Hammond' organ that was hired for the recording.
In the end we discussed - amicably - the organ 'stops' / registration etc and he didn't seem too displeased at the final result.

So that's YOU globbing up out of the texture, waldhorn! Welcome to my record collection - some 30 years ago!