In two important new compositions Heinz Winbeck has paid tribute to major antecedents: Lebensstürme [Life’s storms] after Schubert and Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes” [Now in the hour of death] as a reflection on Bruckner’s 9th Symphony.
“Lebensstürme”
Lebensstürme is the title given to a piano duo from Schubert’s last year by his publisher, a large allegro movement in A minor. In Heinz Winbeck’s composition of the same name, the stormy opening cascade is quoted and virtually worked into a small piano concerto, but a series of other Schubertian themes are also transformed into small phrases rich in allusions. The composition is structured by five instrumentations of rather unknown Schubert songs, which encompass a whole range of emotional states. The listener experiences a kind of journey of remembrance through Schubert’s great work. Heinz Winbeck says: “The composition of Lebensstürme came about because the choreographer Jochen Ulrich was absolutely determined to take my Winterreise, which he heard in June 2007 in St. Florian, as the musical basis for a large, evening-length Schubert dance theatre project and needed a part to precede it. My Winterreise of 1995 had originally been a purely instrumental piece for 19 solo strings. I probably had to write it in order to be able to go further, as I had a strong affinity for Schubert from my youth onwards: this reference was necessary as a parting gesture but for me was by no means just a question of ‘adding to’. I began with seven lieder from Winterreise, arranged for the same scoring plus a horn, firstly at the request of Dennis Russell Davies for that concert in St. Florian and the singer Martin Achrainer. Now Jochen Ulrich wanted a piece of similar length as an introduction to Winterreise, which should be bright and devoted to life. After some hesitation, I said yes all the more happily when he gave me free rein – only song was to be included.
The two large-scale piano duo pieces Lebensstürme and Rondeau brillant D 823 as the musical and formal centre were possibly chosen for their common anapaestic rhythm which was crucial as a contrast with the dactylic rhythm of death in Schubert, which runs through Winterreise – an example not only for the “heavenly length” but also for the ultimate coinciding of the rhythms of life and death. The pulsing rhythm links the five lieder which I have chosen to precede Winterreise and lead into it; these are consciously less well-known, but no less splendid: ‘Im Abendroth’ – ‘Sehnsucht’ – ‘An mein Herz’ –‘Waldesnacht’ – ‘Herbst’”.
Winbeck’s music to a ballet is full of refined lighting and scene changes: “I recognised that I was set the craftsman’s attractive task of writing inspiring music for one of these outstanding dance theatre ensembles, without merely using Schubert’s music as an atmospheric backdrop or quarry – as happens often enough – but also without showing the contemporary through cheap disruptive actions. The retrospective, the melancholy ‘past’, the historical perspective should be different, should be audible through the composition itself. The piece begins almost a cappella with a fugue because, shortly before his death, Schubert suddenly believed – surrounded by his most perfect compositions – that he still had to practise writing fugues! In the web which now begins, the Schubert connoisseur will naturally still discover something well-known, not in the style of a potpourri à la ‘Dreimäderlhaus’ [the pastiche operetta Blossom Time], but as a distillation of the essential Schubertian melody and harmony into a new and quite unusual instrumentation; a drink which can quietly slightly intoxicate before the glass is thrown over the dangerously sharp rocks.”
A large part of the literature about Schubert takes “eloquent speechlessness” as its starting point, because of the emotional contact which his music brings. In response to the question whether Lebensstürme should be understood in a similar way, Winbeck answers: “It goes without saying that I cannot and do not want to grasp it, and that everything circles around this ‘eloquent speechlessness’, and I am certain that even the wealth of images which dance offers will preserve this as a mysterious centre. At the same time, I have tried to do justice to Schubert’s demonic side, which can get hidden behind earthy, happy ländler dances and finally, perhaps, only portrays the other side of the longing for death: to be tossed by the carousel of life and to want to jump off. It will perhaps be audible that Schubert was much closer to gypsy music than to the Biedermeier style (Adorno).”
“Now and in the hour of death”
“In Bruckner’s mind” was the working title of Heinz Winbeck’s almost hour-long composition Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes. In this, he put himself in the position of a kind of musical near-death experience in the last moments of Bruckner’s life, which were dominated by the realization that he could not complete the monumental 9th Symphony. The Drei Fragmente unter Verwendung von Motiven insbesondere des Finales der IX. Sinfonie von Anton Bruckner [Three Fragments using motifs particularly from the Finale of the 9th Symphony by Anton Bruckner] are not one of the many speculative attempts to complete that grandiose torso, but a musical paraphrase on material from the sketches. Without quoting bar-for-bar, Bruckner’s music is nevertheless always present. Just four bars are heard as if from afar, “religioso”, “misterioso”, in their original guise. “My music is like a dream novella. It is as if particles of music fly through the space, orderless, and come together again, but in an order, which for me, already has something of the hereafter.” The three fragments in the spirit of Bruckner also subtly use stylistic devices from contemporary music, twelve-note passages, glissando movements, percussive sound effects. Individual bell chimes stand at the beginning like meaningful blank spaces. In his composition, Winbeck imagines “the endless present of Bruckner’s death: the flow of musical thoughts, the awareness of not being able, being allowed to complete a work. In the face of eternity, elements of musical existence dissolve into phantasmagoria” (Helmut Rohm). Bruckner combined quotations from works by other composers, including Götterdämmerung, which stood on his grand piano until the end, with a grandiose formal design, which strove to merge a vocal and fugal theme and at the same time summarized his entire output: a “magnificent concept in a quite new dimension”. And Winbeck crowns this with the apotheosis of an “ascent to heaven”, of a “hallelujah”, which, as it were, projects an imaginary echo into the space.
Marie Luise Maintz
(Translation: Elizabeth Robinson)
from [t]akte 1/2011
“In my opinion Heinz Winbeck is one of the greatest composers of our time. His demands on himself, the performers and the listeners are always very high, and anyone who accompanies him on this journey reaps a wonderful musical reward for their efforts.”
Dennis Russell Davies, chief conductor of the Bruckner Orchester Linz and the Basel Symphony Orchestra
Heinz Winbeck
Lebensstürme. A quodlibet with and after music by Franz Schubert
Premiere: 26.2.2011 Linz (Landestheater, ballet production “Die Winterreise”): conductor: Dennis Russell Davies, choreography and production: Jochen Ulrich
Scoring: baritone, 2 cl, b.cl, 4 hn, perc (3), pf, str
Together with: Winterreise. Stationen für 19 Solo-streicher [Stations for 19 solo strings and horn] (1995)
Duration: c. 55 minutes
Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes. Drei Fragmente unter Verwendung von Motiven insbesondere des Finales der IX. Sinfonie von Anton Bruckner für Orchester
[Now and in the hour of death. Three Fragments using motifs particularly from the Finale of the 9th Symphony by Anton Bruckner]
Premiere: 9.3.2011 Brucknerhaus Linz, Bruckner Orchester Linz, conductor: Dennis Russell Davies
Orchestra: 3 (picc), 3,3 (3 doubling b.cl), 2 c.bsn – 8 (5.–8. also Ttuba in B flat or Btuba in F),3,3,CBtuba – 4timp, perc – str
Duration: c. 55 minutes
Publisher: Bärenreiter. Performance material available on hire