Barbara Kozelj | Ensemble Musikfabrik | Bas Wiegers

Hans Werner Henze was one of the most important and musically cosmopolitan composers of the 20th century. He wrote grand operas and experimental music theatre. He also explored twelve-tone music, jazz and old masters such as Monteverdi. On the occasion of his 100th birthday, the Ensemble Musikfabrik commemorates this composer of the century, who died in Dresden in 1992 at the age of 86.

The three selected Henze works span four decades. Based on a text by his beloved poet Trakl, he wrote »Apollo et Hyazinthus«, a kind of neo-baroque harpsichord concerto with vocals. Henze's passion for film is reflected in the music he composed for a film by Alain Resnais. And in 1979, the lifelong homo politicus addressed the oppression of the New York proletariat in El Rey de Harlem. In between, works by two of Henze's pupils can be heard, including one by Olga Neuwirth, who only became a composer through him.

Sponsored by Kuratorium KölnMusik e. V.