Memoirs of an Outsider · Requiem

The composer portrait was produced by Dennis Marks for RM Associates in collaboration with Hessischer Rundfunk. Hans Werner Henze wrote in his autobiography "Reiselieder mit böhmischen Quinten" about the premiere of his Requiem, which is available here in a live recording: "The heart-moving Ensemble Modern played under the direction of the highly talented firebrand and musical expert Ingo Metzmacher."

The work consists of nine 'sacred concertos' for solo piano, concertante trumpet and large chamber orchestra. One part was premiered in May 1990 in Convent Garden at a memorial concert for Henze's friend Michael Vyner, the artistic director of the London Sinfonietta for decades, and further movements were performed in Tokyo in 1992. The piece as a whole is also dedicated to Vyner.

The dramatic, moving Requiem begins in a gentle, tender mood and ends with a radiant, hymn-like Sanctus. It contains grim, satirical passages, but also some that express barely suppressed grief.