In this work, I had wanted completely to submit to the traditional rules of the classical symphony so as to mould my musical expression as if in a furnace and enable it to reach the listener as directly and clearly as possible.
The first movement is a kind of German dance, an Allemande, so to speak; the second one a Lied. The third, in strict scherzoform, is a representation of the sufferings of the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin, in Dr Autenriedth’s mental institution in Tübingen. The last movement is a setting of Hölderlin’s poem “Half of Live”.

Hans Werner Henze