Classical Composer: | Henze, Hans Werner |
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Work: | Neue Volkslieder und Hirtengesänge (New Folk Songs and Shepherd's Melodies) |
Year Composed: | 1996 |
Instrumentation: | bn, gtr, str trio |
Publisher: | Schott Music |
Duration: | 00:15:00 |
Period: | Contemporary |
Work Category: | Chamber Music |
Work Information
Available Recording(s)
Henze uses Styrian (Austrian) peasant songs as the creative source for his Neue Volkslieder und Hirtengesänge (New Folk Songs and Shepherds' Melodies), scoring for a folk-like combination of bassoon (shepherd's shawm), guitar and string trio. These seven movements from 1996 are derived from his musical play Oedipus der Tyrann (King Oedipus) of 1983 that was later withdrawn.
In the opening, 'Pastorale' bassoon and guitar take on the rôles of the peasant musicians and play a total of five varied verses, each one concluding with a quietly echoing dialogue between the two instruments, with the string trio providing an energetic accompaniment. The Styrian folk material is suggested through rhythmic and melodic fragments. After the brief and melancholy 'Morgenlied', there follows a more energetic 'Ballade' in which constantly changing meter(heard first in the guitar) provides a rhythmic landscape to the melodic counterpoint that unfolds as each instrument enters. There is an extended cadenza and a concluding reminiscence of the opening. The rustic 'Tanz' gives prominence to bassoon and guitar in another lively peasant dance which gives way (as does the tonality) to a 'Rezitativ', featuring just guitar and strings, now of more expressionistic character. A darker mood with dense string textures is found in 'Abendlied' where, once again, the bassoon has a prominent rôle. Henze concludes his suite with an epilogue - 'Ausklang' - where warm thirds from the strings frame a brief bassoon solo before fading to pianissimo.
Writer: David Truslove
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