Monday, March 14, 2011

Hans Werner Henze
"Un Amour de Swann"
12 Variations pour sextuor à corde et harpe autour de la petite phrase de la sonate de Vinteuil

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Otherwise, there'd be a cute lil' streaming audio player on the left, rather than this message.

I first heard the music of Hans Werner Henze on our local PBS radio state late at night. I turned on the radio, and something really cool was playing. Cool enough that I stayed awake until it was done, so I could write down the composer's name. I started buying CDs of his music not long after, and he quickly became one of my two favorite composers; the other is Allan Pettersson.

Today's selection takes up side one of the LP pictured above. Side two is the 1975 piece Katharina Blum, in case you're interested. It's also quite good.

I flagged this West Germany, btw, as Henze was born in Germany in 1929, and this piece was written after WWII but prior to the Wiedervereinigung. Henze left Germany for Italy in 1953, however, and also lived in Cuba for a time, before becoming disillusioned with Castro (that took long?), so I could potentially flag it Italy. I suppose I could also tag it France, as the music is from a French film. But I won't. Sue me.

:-P

3 biased opinions:

Biki Honko said...

listened to the entire piece, and i liked it. thanks!

VirginiaM said...

That must have been *very* late at night on public radio.

Anonymous said...

Many, many thanks for posting this! I see it's available as an mp3 download in the UK and Australia, but not here in the U.S., so I'm very thankful to be able to hear some of this wonderful soundtrack.

~pemory