Karl Amadeus Hartmann: Indeed...?! (Fürwahr...?!)

World premiere 29. may 1988

München · 1. Münchener Biennale

Members of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Piano Dirk Keilhack
Soprano Adelheid Hansen-Jarmado
Tenor Johannes Preissinger
Baritone Rolf Mertens
Baritone Rüdiger Trebes

Production Ian Strasfogel
Stage design Hans Hoffer
Costume design Elisabeth Seiringer
Conductor Georg Schmöhe

In the short score sketches of “Indeed...?!” the instrumentation has been meticulously laid down. It is clear from this instrumentation that Hartmann considered the sketched music to be more or less the final version. Actually there was no need for additions. But being a friend and well acquainted with Hartmann and his music (this is why I often think that he would agree with the following) I still intensified the harmonic picture a little, just as Hartmann would have done had he worked again on this little comic scene after his studies with Webern (a scene which he himself had perhaps already forgotten). I did not, however, introduce foreign notes. I could manage Hartmann’s notes. Sometimes I made a note sound longer than is indicated in the short score or doubled it at the octave above to brighten a certain chord, and I sometimes made an octave transposition of individual notes from a sequence. But whatever I did was done to give a faithful version of Hartmann’s original tonal conception and to revive the wit and humour that are contained in this short opus.

Hans Werner Henze