Symposium "Music, Networks, Self-Testimonies: Current Research on Hans Werner Henze"

The contributions in the following section dealt with various aspects of Henze's early work. Adrian Kuhl (Frankfurt a. M.) focused in his lecture on the version of the world premiere of Tatjana Gsovsky's and Henze's Der Idiot (1952). The study of Gsovsky's dance-theatrical concepts and their interaction with the music suggests the interpretation of the piece as a ballet experiment. Zafer Özgen (Oslo) explored aspects of the language of sound using the example of the early operas - König Hirsch (1956), Der Prinz von Homburg (1959) and Die Bassariden (1965). In addition to an analysis of different means of sound design, he also offered an insight into relevant artistic influences, conditions of creation as well as personal events in Henze's life. The lecture by Alexander Lotzow (Kiel) was dedicated to Drei Tentos (1958). He vividly sketched the genesis and release of the movements for solo guitar taken from the Kammermusik 1958. He also elaborated on the almost pastiche-like character of the pieces, the artistic networks and contacts essential for the genesis of the work as well as the performance history and went into details of the composition on the basis of Tento I.

In the next block of lectures, Benedikt Leßmann (Vienna) presented reflections on Henze's film music using the example of Un Amour de Swann (1984). He then explained the history of its creation and stated that Henze's film music had not only received little attention from researchers but had also not been seen by Henze himself as part of his œuvre in the narrower sense. In this context, Leßmann first elaborated on Henze's position in relation to Hollywood and the status of film music among avant-garde composers before focusing on Un Amour de Swann. The music, which is psychologically significant for the depiction of the main characters, has a central position in the film, which is also reflected in its creation and mode of working, namely in the "composing in variations" of Henze and three of his composer students (David Graham, Gerd Kühr, Marcel Wengler), which makes the film music a production from the "Henze workshop". Federica Marsico (Teramo) then addressed queer readings of duets in Henze's operas Venus und Adonis (1995) and The Bassarids. She examined the representation of the figures Dionysus, Pentheus, Mars and Adonis in Henze's operas before reflecting on the "queer related messages". Using the selected duets and contextualising them with other "same sex" duets in opera history, she finally traced a possible queer subtext in the music. The simultaneous scenes in Henze's We Come to the River (1976) - also in comparison with Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Die Soldaten (1965) - were the subject of Milan Schomber (Detmold/Paderborn), who began by outlining the state of research and expert discourse. He then traced the history of the concept of the simultaneous scene and, against this background, compared the facture of the libretti, the theatrical conception and the fundamental musical realisation of the simultaneous in Zimmermann's and Henze's operas. This not only revealed the differences in the underlying concepts, but also in the concrete design of the simultaneous scenes.

The concluding roundtable, chaired by Antje Tumat, brought together Henze's companions Gastón Fournier-Facio (Rome) and Michael Kerstan (Nuremberg) on the one hand, and Simon Obert (Basel) from the Paul Sacher Foundation, the custodian of the "Hans Werner Henze" collection, and Peter Petersen (Hamburg) as representative of early musicological Henze research on the other. In the personal memories, reports and thoughts, numerous aspects of Henze research became clear: among other things, Henze's self-presentation and political positioning, his musical activities (for example in Montepulciano), his estate and its state of indexing were discussed and many further research questions were formulated. The day, full of lectures and inspiration, which would have offered discussion material for considerably more time, thus provided a meaningful insight into current research on Henze, but also into desiderata and potentials.

The symposium was completed musically on the following day with a concert and reading under the motto "'Music remembers words' - compositions by Hans Werner Henze in words and music". Students from the Detmold University of Music offered diverse excerpts from Henze's compositional work: a trio for mandolin, guitar and harp, Carillon, Récitatif, Masque (1974), followed by excerpts from El Cimarrón (1970) and by the cantata Being Beauteous (1963). The musical contributions were contextualised by readings from letters to and from Henze, which were made accessible for the first time in the project. All in all, the two days showed how diverse, productive and active international Henze research is, and what perspectives this offers for the coming years.

Translated from German by Michael Kerstan