Ode to an Aeolian Harp (Ode an eine Äolsharfe)

List of works

1943 to 2012

Music for solo guitar and 15 solo instruments
Commissioned by the Internationale Musikfestwochen Luzern

Period of composition 1985-86
Duration 20 minutes

For David and Julie Tanenbaum

ITo an aeolian harp
II Question and answer
III To Philomene
IV To Hermann

World premiere 27. august 1986

Luzern · Internationale Musikfestwochen

Ensemble Modern
Guitar David Tanenbaum

Conductor Bernhard Klee

Four poems by Eduard Mörike generate the emotional climate for this composition. The poems were originally set to music as if they were Lieder texts, and then, in a process of gradual sublimation, transformed into instrumental music. The formal structures of the original poems have been recreated in the music. Each image, and connection between images, whether subliminal or merely subjective, has become a musical metapher or symbol.

Hans Werner Henze

1 Flauto contralto
1 Flauto basso
1 Oboe d’amore
1 Corno inglese
1 Clarinetto basso
1 Fagotto

Percussione	2 Piatti sospesi 3 Bongos Tomtom Tumba Maracas Sistri Vibrafono Crotali [per 1]
Arpa

1 Viola d’amore
2 Viole
1 Viola da gamba
2 Violoncelli
1 Contrabbasso