- Symphony No. 1 (Henze)
Hans Werner Henze 's "Symphony No. 1" was premiered inDarmstadt in1947 . The premiere was hit by Henze’s accustomed bad luck. The orchestral parts, handwritten by the composer himself, had become illegible during photocopying in Schott’s offices and despite the youngcomposer ’s best efforts to ink in the parts throughout the night, only the slow movement was performed. The wholesymphony was eventually premiered a year later, although Henze himself conducted the work only after comprehensive revision.The revision of the First Symphony was part of Henze’s first great purge on his early work during
1963 . The revisedsheet music contains a number of rhythmic, harmonic and melodic cells from the original version, and the slow movement is largely unaltered. Otherwise everything is, in the composer’s own words, ‘different and better.’ A fourth,theme and variation movement has completely disappeared, and the work was re-scored for chamber orchestra. Further revision followed in1991 .The first movement is in a contorted
sonata form , in which the few melodic and rhythmic cells upon which the work is built gradually swell up to an unnerving climax high in theorchestra ’s range, followed by a briefrecapitulation . The only music to survive Henze’s revision, the second movement reveals the heavy influence ofHindemith on the composer, especially given the lyricalviola solo. The final movement develops the same material, now with an aggressive rhythm, the texture building to a true climax before fading around eerily repeatingharp harmonics .In
2005 , a fourth version of the work was prepared, as Kammerkonzert 05, an eightieth birthday commission from theBavarian State Opera . This version had its world premiere at Munich onJuly 6 ,2006 and now has titles for the three movements:
*"Allegretto con grazia"
*"Notturno"
*"Allegro con moto".References
*Hans Werner Henze. (1998). "Bohemian Fifths: An Autobiography." London (Faber & Faber).
*Citation | last = Driver | first = Paul | title = If you think that sounds familiar... | newspaper =The Sunday Times | year = 2006 | date =2006-12-17 | url = http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article664855.ece | accessdate = 2007-11-13
*cite journal | title = New Orchestral Works | journal = Schott Aktuell The Journal | issue = 2 | pages = 7 | publisher = Schott | location = Mainz | date =2007 | url = http://www.schott-musik.de/cms/resources/1171444846efadae9b31f1bfa70b6e43dba3374a0c/aktuell_2_2007.pdf | accessdate = 2007-11-13
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