German composer Hans Werner Henze’s (1926–2012) admiration for the great masters of the Baroque and musical Classicism manifested in compositions born from a desire to transcribe, rework and transform 17th- and 18th-century masterpieces into new orchestral textures. The project Travestimenti (Disguises), managed by conductor Marco Angius and the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, from which this CD was created, makes reference to Henze’s ‘reinventions’ of masterpieces by Mozart, C.P.E. Bach and Vitali, clothed in new, modern fashion.

For the Drei Mozart’sche Orgelsonaten, Henze takes up three of Mozart’s one-movement Kirchensonaten (church sonatas or trio sonatas). Sonatas 17 and 15 are in an Allegro tempo, whereas the Sonata K.67 is marked Andantino, so Henze, in his transcription, places the latter between the two livelier tempos, thus reconstructing the tripartite structure of a classical three-movement sonata. Scored for an ensemble of 14 players that includes the less common, softer variants oboe d’amore and viola d’amore, it aims to underline the darker instrumental timbres, favouring the sombre sonorities of the alto flute in G, the bass flute in C, the bass clarinet and the bassoon. During the last year of his life, in 1787, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composed a Fantasia libera per tastiera sola (Free Fantasia for keyboard alone) which he expanded into the Clavier-Fantasie mit Begleitung einer Violine (Fantasy for harpsichord with violin accompaniment), one of his most personal and expressive works.

Henze transcribed it for solo flute, harp and strings, aiming to project the extremely interesting and expressive harmonic material of the composition into a larger instrumental apparatus, thus making its future-oriented harmonic structures more manifest and moulded. He proposed two options for division of the: string quartet + string quintet or string quartet + tutti (the latter version is recorded here).

Although it was probably composed in the early 18th century, Vitali’s Ciaccona ‘Il Vitalino’ – whose musical form is inspired by dance and consists of variations on a ground bass – was only rediscovered in 1867, published by the German virtuoso violinist Ferdinand David. Henze’s Il Vitalino raddoppiato – called “raddoppiato” (“doubled”) because of his extension of the composition by means of interpolated variations of each original section in the style of 18th-century doubles – retains Vitali’s bass almost throughout the entire composition. It alternates Vitali’s variations on his chaconne theme with Henze’s variations of Vitali’s variations, in an ever-changing dialogue between the 18th-century past and Henze’s present.

‘I find myself increasingly occupied with matters of the human soul, its sublimation and spiritual abyss. Certainly my opera The Ocean Betrayed betrays this preoccupation. This music has been to Hades and back, with Monteverdi and myself.’ Hans-Werner Henze. Henze originated this storyline by following his fascination that he had of the work of the enfant terrible of post-war Japanese literature, Yukio Mishima (1925 - 1970), whose novel “Gogo no Eiko” forms the basis of the opera. This novel, like almost all of the author's creations, sketches a suffocating scenario of hopelessness in which the struggle for normality is doomed to failure. Henzes free-tonal score ties in with musically-dramatic principles of composition following the tradition of Richard Strauss. In symphonic interludes, the luxurious orchestra gives the eponymous hero a voice: the angry “betrayed sea.”

REVIEW:

Despite his stylistic adventurousness and position as a political outsider, Henze was the last composer in the German operatic tradition (think of it as Late, Late German Romanticism), and his score beautifully exploits the lush forces of the Vienna Philharmonic. Since, as he noted, “Mishima’s novel is teeming with references to all things French”, he adopts a French musical style, mixed with Japanese elements of rhythm and exotic percussion. The vocal lines are compelling, and conductor Simone Young reveals both the work’s dense beauty and the sustained, gut-wrenching brutality of the final scenes.

Josh Lovell’s sweetly smooth lyric tenor establishes a chilling contrast between Noboru’s youth and his malevolent nature and explains Ryuji’s easy affinity with the boy. Erik Van Heyningen’s powerful bass voice is a bit mature for the gang leader (“Number One”), but Henze’s writing demands it, and his vocal authority reflects his power over the others. Vera-Lotte Boecker is a magnificent singing actress; her lean and supple sound is perfect for the sensuous Fusako, and she glides effortlessly through the coloratura of the 13th scene, as Fusako imagines a happy future for the newly formed family. Bo Skovhus shouts a bit on fortes, but his singing in the gentler sections is appropriately ingratiating.

-- American Record Guide

“But tell me, who could have written a better libretto than my friend Heinrich von Kleist. When I was searching for a language in combination with which my music could produce something new, a diction targeted by my music, I hit on the Prince. . […] The tension between the life of the individual and raison d’état, issues as to the disregard of law and order, man’s quivering before the might of ruling authorities and the courage to resist it, all of that might happen today or might have occurred one or two thousand years ago. […]Many of my endeavors in works of recent years appear through this drama to have reached a new point, i.e. a new polyphony and its concomitant, freely chosen rigor.” (Hans-Werner Henze) This production of The Prince of Homburg is presented by the Staatsorchester Stuttgart and Cornelius Meister.

Hans Werner Henze was initially an avant-garde composer but Nachtstücke und Arien symbolised his departure from dodecaphonic writing, to the annoyance of his contemporaries Boulez, Nono and Stockhausen at Darmstadt. With this new direction Henze’s music became highly rhapsodic, as heard in the challenging but lyrical solo cello that suggests the intimate texts of the Englische Liebeslieder. Referring to Goya, Los Caprichos captures the strangeness of this artist’s visions with long-breathed melodic lines and fleeting changes of texture, from military-sounding bustle to moments of profound stillness. Marin Alsop is chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, which she leads at Vienna’s Konzerthaus and Musikverein, and on recordings, broadcasts and tours. Her discography includes acclaimed Naxos recordings of symphonies by Brahms with the London Philharmonic, Dvořák with the Baltimore Symphony, and Prokofiev with the São Paulo Symphony. The first and only conductor to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, Alsop received the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award and was the first woman to conduct the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms. She is director of graduate conducting at the Peabody Institute and holds honorary doctorates from Yale University and The Juilliard School.

REVIEW:

Hans Werner Henze's rigorously constructed and orchestrated works require careful and well-prepared performances, and that’s just what they get here from conductor Marin Alsop and the Vienna Radio Symphony. This might, in fact, make a good initial Henze album, for it leads the listener into his music in a logical way. All three pieces respond to extramusical models in different ways. He is not everybody’s cup of tea, but this release realizes his ideas exceptionally well.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

Until well into the second half of the eighteenth century it was the harpsichord which served at the very forefront as a sounding body for experimental and avant-garde. At the latest with the generation around Beethoven, the “modern” fortepiano had become the key instrument for this task. With the renaissance of the harpsichord toward the end of the 19th century, the interest of living composers in this instrument gradually awoke. A first peak was reached in the 1920s, when Manuel de Falla and Francis Poulenc created the first significant works with their respective concert pieces. Fortunately, music continues to be diligently composed for this “old” instrument. The performance of a recital on this release in 2004 is intended to document the liveliness and timeliness of new harpsichord music, even if the most recent piece from 1999 was written at that time.

The sonatas recorded here encompass almost the entirety of Hans Werner Henze’s creative life. Composed in difficult conditions just after WWII, the Violin Sonata covers the broadest range of human emotions, and is in some ways a study for the extraordinary First Violin Concerto. Steeped in Italian mythology, the Solo Violin Sonata is ‘a real piece of theatre,’ as is the emotionally shattering Viola Sonata, written straight after the completion of the ballet Orpheus. The Violin Sonatina is drawn from Henze’s children’s opera Pollicino, and the two remaining miniatures are memorials for lost colleagues. Internationally acclaimed violin virtuoso Peter Sheppard Skaerved’s close connection with Hans Werner Henze is well recognized, and this release follows on from his recordings of Henze’s First and Third Violin Concertos “having some seriously emotional meat on the bones of this traditional form” (MusicWeb International), and the Second Violin Concerto summed up as “a superb [album]… highly recommended” by Gramophone. This is the first recording to bring together Henze’s solo sonatas for violin and viola, as well as the early Violin Sonata and later Violin Sonatina. Peter Sheppard Skaerved recorded the composers revised 1992 version of the Solo Violin Sonata on the Metier label in 2000, but returns to the 1977 original for this recording, completing a deal with the composer to “see who is right!”

Founded in 1841 under the participation of Constanze Mozart, the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg today enjoys the highest reputation worldwide for its lively and style-conscious Mozart interpretations. In numerous ways it connects the Viennese Classical period to the music of the 19th/20th and 21st centuries. The orchestras constant preoccupation with his core repertoire also shapes its approach to the music of later periods. Thus chamber-musical transparency, articulatory clarity and nuanced sonority are a trademark that makes the Mozarteum Orchestra special and recognizable, also when playing the music of other composers. The Mozarteumorchester Salzburg proves once again its unrivaled position as interpreters of the Mozart stylistic and uses the organ sonatas as a departure into other stylistic periods. It Includes two world premiere recordings of Henze‘s "Konzertmusik" and "Three Mozart Organ Sonatas".

Théodore Géricault’s larger-than-life painting The Raft of the Medusa has stimulated a great many artists ever since its creation in 1819. Hans Werner Henze and his Librettist Ernst Schnabel were inspired by Géricault and wrote a political oratorio on the painting’s tragic historical subject in 1967. Notable for its harsh and bright sounds, tender depiction of suffering, scathing irony, and gripping dramaturgy, the agitation at the failed premiere lifted the work into the canon of great classical scandals.