News
Henze Immolazione in Rome January 2010
16 Feb 2010
Antonio Pappano and the Accademia di Santa Cecilia premiere Hans Werner Henze’s major new orchestral work Immolazione in Rome on 10 January 2010 at the Auditorium Parco della Musica.
Hans Werner Henze, the German-born composer resident outside Rome, completes his first commission for Italy, a major 45-minute orchestral work entitled Immolazione (Opfergang) for the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra and its Anglo-Italian conductor Antonio Pappano.
Immolazione (Opfergang) will be premiered on 10 January 2010 (repeated on 11 and 12 January), at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome by the Accademia di Santa Cecilia with Antonio Pappano conducting from the piano, tenor Ian Bostridge and bass John Tomlinson as soloists. The concert programme also includes Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with soloist Simon O’Neill.
Immolazione, literally meaning ‘sacrifice’, is based on Das Opfer – Dramatisches Gedicht, a German poem by Austrian-Jewish writer Franz Werfel written in 1913, which recounts the story of a little white dog who makes friends with a man running away from and tormented by his past. The well-brought-up dog, which is perhaps lost or has ran away from its home, has an unconditional affection for the Stranger, who ultimately kills the dog so as not to impede his escape. The role of the dog will be taken by tenor Ian Bostridge, for whom Henze wrote Six Songs from the Arabian song-cycle in 1999, which was released on CD with EMI Classics. John Tomlinson will sing the role of the Stranger.
As Henze explains,
“I am very honoured that this prestigious Italian orchestra the Academia di Santa Cecilia, with whom I have had a long relationship, has commissioned me to write such a lengthy work. For 50 years, I have been fascinated by this poem by Werfel and I have always been inspired by its uniqueness and dramatic potential. I am delighted to be able finally to set it to music. ”
Born in 1926 in Gütersloh, Westphalia, Hans Werner Henze is one of the most prolific contemporary composers. His music and character has been shaped by a century of political turmoil and conflict, living through Nazi Germany, the communist movement in Italy and Cuba and the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s. From his villa in Marino on the Albani Hills above Rome, Henze at the age of 82 continues to create large-scale compositions. Most recently, he completed ‘Elogium musicum’ for a performance by Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester and the mdr choir in October 2008 and at present he is writing a new opera commissioned by RUHR.2010 with and for the young people for the European Capital of Culture year.
Of Henze’s prolific catalogue of works, the earliest acknowledged composition dates from 1946: the Kammerkonzert for piano, flute and strings, and the sonata for violin and piano. The following year brought the first string quartet, violin concerto and symphony. In 1944 he was sent to a training unit in Poland. Henze described this period with the following description: “While square-bashing and digging trenches, I first learn to live in a world of my own devising, concentrating on my art, hearing progressions of dissonant chords in my head, creating tension and delaying its resolution. It was here that I really began to compose.” In 1948 he produced his first opera, the one-act ‘Das Wundertheater’, premiered in Heidelberg, and in 1949 his first acknowledged ballet, ‘Ballett-Variationen’.
A member of the progressive Darmstadt circle of composers after World War II, Henze broke decisively with the avant-garde in the mid-’50s and associates doctrinaire serialism with ‘utter boredom’. As a homosexual, he reacted against the repressive political climate of his post-war country and in 1953 left to live in Italy, where he has remained ever since. He joined the Italian Communist Party and explains that “politics has become so much a part of my thinking and feeling that it is difficult to say where politics ends and my music begins.“
Henze’s operatic career reached a pitch of boldness and acclaim with ‘The Bassarids’, a two-hour single act conceived as a four-movement symphony, premiered in Salzburg in 1966; while his 45-minute second piano concerto of 1967 was a peak of his more abstract writing. In 1968 the premiere of his oratorio The Raft of Medusa, which was dedicated to Che Guevara, had to be aborted when Hamburg police burst into the theatre to quell a political demonstration. His Sixth Symphony was premiered in Cuba the following year, quoting a National Liberation Front song in the score.
In 1976, he establish the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte, a “people’s art festival” in the Tuscan town of Montepulciano. As Henze explains, it is the artist’s responsibility to ‘fight the reactionary forces in the world—any sort of racist, enemy of peace, any person who threatens the freedom of others, anybody who wants to suppress the young in the striving toward new experiences and knowledge.’
To date, the Henze catalogue stretches to a dozen stage works, operas, music dramas, theatre pieces, ballets, ten symphonies, a similar number of concertos, and countless other orchestral and chamber works. However, the leitmotif of his work has always been his enduring connection with Italy. In his own words, Henze has described himself as having ‘a north German contrapuntal temperament projected into the arioso south’.
www.santacecilia.it
For further information, please contact:
Nicky Thomas, Tel: 0044 7768 566530
Email: nickycathomas@btinternet.com
Or
Accademia Santa Cecilia Press Office
Largo Luciano Berio, 3
00196 Roma
Paola Fontecedro
Tel. + 39 0680242330
p.fontecedro@santacecilia.it
Daniele Battaglia
d.battaglia@santacecilia.it
+ 39 06 80242325
Additional upcoming Henze events:
Henze Weekend at Barbican Centre on 16th and 17th January 2010
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is staging a Total Immersion Day devoted to the life and work of Henze on Saturday 16th January, followed by the UK premiere of Henze’s opera Phaedra by Ensemble Modern on Sunday 17th January, which launches the Barbican’s series Present Voices.
For further information, please contact:
Victoria Bevan at the BBC Symphony on 020 7765 4714, Victoria.bevan@bbc.co.uk. Annikaisa Vainio at the Barbican Centre on 0207 382 7090, avainio@barbican.org.uk
Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers at ENO from 24th April 2010
ENO will present 7 performances of Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers in a new production by Fiona Shaw from 24th April.
For further information, please contact:
Rebecca Driver at the ENO on 020 7845 9261, rdriver@eno.org
Hans Werner Henze, the German-born composer resident outside Rome, completes his first commission for Italy, a major 45-minute orchestral work entitled Immolazione (Opfergang) for the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra and its Anglo-Italian conductor Antonio Pappano.
Immolazione (Opfergang) will be premiered on 10 January 2010 (repeated on 11 and 12 January), at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome by the Accademia di Santa Cecilia with Antonio Pappano conducting from the piano, tenor Ian Bostridge and bass John Tomlinson as soloists. The concert programme also includes Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with soloist Simon O’Neill.
Immolazione, literally meaning ‘sacrifice’, is based on Das Opfer – Dramatisches Gedicht, a German poem by Austrian-Jewish writer Franz Werfel written in 1913, which recounts the story of a little white dog who makes friends with a man running away from and tormented by his past. The well-brought-up dog, which is perhaps lost or has ran away from its home, has an unconditional affection for the Stranger, who ultimately kills the dog so as not to impede his escape. The role of the dog will be taken by tenor Ian Bostridge, for whom Henze wrote Six Songs from the Arabian song-cycle in 1999, which was released on CD with EMI Classics. John Tomlinson will sing the role of the Stranger.
As Henze explains,
“I am very honoured that this prestigious Italian orchestra the Academia di Santa Cecilia, with whom I have had a long relationship, has commissioned me to write such a lengthy work. For 50 years, I have been fascinated by this poem by Werfel and I have always been inspired by its uniqueness and dramatic potential. I am delighted to be able finally to set it to music. ”
Born in 1926 in Gütersloh, Westphalia, Hans Werner Henze is one of the most prolific contemporary composers. His music and character has been shaped by a century of political turmoil and conflict, living through Nazi Germany, the communist movement in Italy and Cuba and the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s. From his villa in Marino on the Albani Hills above Rome, Henze at the age of 82 continues to create large-scale compositions. Most recently, he completed ‘Elogium musicum’ for a performance by Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester and the mdr choir in October 2008 and at present he is writing a new opera commissioned by RUHR.2010 with and for the young people for the European Capital of Culture year.
Of Henze’s prolific catalogue of works, the earliest acknowledged composition dates from 1946: the Kammerkonzert for piano, flute and strings, and the sonata for violin and piano. The following year brought the first string quartet, violin concerto and symphony. In 1944 he was sent to a training unit in Poland. Henze described this period with the following description: “While square-bashing and digging trenches, I first learn to live in a world of my own devising, concentrating on my art, hearing progressions of dissonant chords in my head, creating tension and delaying its resolution. It was here that I really began to compose.” In 1948 he produced his first opera, the one-act ‘Das Wundertheater’, premiered in Heidelberg, and in 1949 his first acknowledged ballet, ‘Ballett-Variationen’.
A member of the progressive Darmstadt circle of composers after World War II, Henze broke decisively with the avant-garde in the mid-’50s and associates doctrinaire serialism with ‘utter boredom’. As a homosexual, he reacted against the repressive political climate of his post-war country and in 1953 left to live in Italy, where he has remained ever since. He joined the Italian Communist Party and explains that “politics has become so much a part of my thinking and feeling that it is difficult to say where politics ends and my music begins.“
Henze’s operatic career reached a pitch of boldness and acclaim with ‘The Bassarids’, a two-hour single act conceived as a four-movement symphony, premiered in Salzburg in 1966; while his 45-minute second piano concerto of 1967 was a peak of his more abstract writing. In 1968 the premiere of his oratorio The Raft of Medusa, which was dedicated to Che Guevara, had to be aborted when Hamburg police burst into the theatre to quell a political demonstration. His Sixth Symphony was premiered in Cuba the following year, quoting a National Liberation Front song in the score.
In 1976, he establish the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte, a “people’s art festival” in the Tuscan town of Montepulciano. As Henze explains, it is the artist’s responsibility to ‘fight the reactionary forces in the world—any sort of racist, enemy of peace, any person who threatens the freedom of others, anybody who wants to suppress the young in the striving toward new experiences and knowledge.’
To date, the Henze catalogue stretches to a dozen stage works, operas, music dramas, theatre pieces, ballets, ten symphonies, a similar number of concertos, and countless other orchestral and chamber works. However, the leitmotif of his work has always been his enduring connection with Italy. In his own words, Henze has described himself as having ‘a north German contrapuntal temperament projected into the arioso south’.
www.santacecilia.it
For further information, please contact:
Nicky Thomas, Tel: 0044 7768 566530
Email: nickycathomas@btinternet.com
Or
Accademia Santa Cecilia Press Office
Largo Luciano Berio, 3
00196 Roma
Paola Fontecedro
Tel. + 39 0680242330
p.fontecedro@santacecilia.it
Daniele Battaglia
d.battaglia@santacecilia.it
+ 39 06 80242325
Additional upcoming Henze events:
Henze Weekend at Barbican Centre on 16th and 17th January 2010
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is staging a Total Immersion Day devoted to the life and work of Henze on Saturday 16th January, followed by the UK premiere of Henze’s opera Phaedra by Ensemble Modern on Sunday 17th January, which launches the Barbican’s series Present Voices.
For further information, please contact:
Victoria Bevan at the BBC Symphony on 020 7765 4714, Victoria.bevan@bbc.co.uk. Annikaisa Vainio at the Barbican Centre on 0207 382 7090, avainio@barbican.org.uk
Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers at ENO from 24th April 2010
ENO will present 7 performances of Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers in a new production by Fiona Shaw from 24th April.
For further information, please contact:
Rebecca Driver at the ENO on 020 7845 9261, rdriver@eno.org