Henze: Symphony No. 10 / La Selva Incantata / Quattro Poemi

Hans Werner Henze (1926-2012) composed his Symphony No. 10 in the late 1990s as a double commission for Paul Sacher and Simon Rattle. He completed it in 2000, and Rattle and his City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra performed the premiere in August 2002 at the Lucerne Festival. These live recordings are from February (the symphony) and September (the other two pieces) 2004 -- Friedemann Layer leads the Orchestre National de Montpellier. This is a great set of instrumental Henze, released by the French Accord label in 2005.The Tenth Symphony is very energetic and engaging, with hummable melodic passages. It is a mystery why it has not been reviewed until now. I would characterize it as falling somewhere between  Symphony No. 7 , which is quite dire, full of violence and tragedy, and  Symphony No. 8 , based on Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream," which is much lighter and more cheerful in tone. Approximately 38 minutes long, its structure is the traditional four movements, with the slow movement second and the scherzo third, and each movement has a name: 1) a storm, 2) a hymn, 3) a dance, and 4) a dream. While evocative, it is not clear that it is actually program music. I believe this symphony would be a great introduction for anyone not familiar with Henze's music. While more modern and challenging than the 19th century classics, it follows the traditional form and contains enough drama and beauty for any open-eared lover of symphonies. Henze's late symphonies -- the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th -- are among his finest accomplishments.The two shorter works are fine as well. The "Quattro poemi" (1955), about 11 minutes long, incorporates quotations from "Konig Hirsch (The Stag King)," Henze's opera, which premiered in 1956. This is a lovely, introspective piece which provides a contrast to the lively symphony. "La Selva incantata: aria and rondo for orchestra" (1991), also 11 minutes long, also draws on "Konig Hirsch." Henze combined music of three scenes from the opera's Act II, an evocation of "the enchanted forest." This is lyrical Italianate music reflecting Henze's long immmersion in "the arioso South," and makes a rousing finish for the album.*** *** ***Marek Janowski and the RSB (Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin) recorded  Symphony No. 10  in 2013 as part of their integral cycle of Henze's symphonies. While technically impeccable, it sounds prosaic, and does not capture the dark, mysterious, and swinging spirit of the work like Layer and his French orchestra. This is the one to hear!

As as former musician, I freely profess that I hate the music of Stockhousen, Boulez, Berio et al. composers who are acolytes of the Darmstadt school - a city in which the connection between composers, musicians and audiences was arrogantly and intentionally destroyed.No need to expound the philosophy of those misguided composers any further than they deserve. Henze was once an acolyte of the Darmstadt school, yet he very publicly broke with its sacred scripts in 1953 (is there an analogy to Stalin's death that year and Krustchev's subsequent repudiation of him here?). This was courageous, since at that time and almost up until today, breaking with the tenets of the Darmstadt school's sacred initiates could earn a composer the denial of performances of his/her symphonic works in public and earn him/her the ostracism by the academic community (in many cases, working as professors of composition is the only way composers can earn a decent income these days).At present, I am developing my taste and understanding for contemporary and 20th century music. I am not speaking of composers like Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Bartok, all of whom I already admire, but of composers who take their music just a tad further than the previously mentioned without descending into mindless serialism and atonality. I have hitherto been very positively surprised by  Kokkonen: Symphony No. 1 (1958-60); Symphony No. 2 (1960-61); Symphony No. 3 (1967); Symphony No. 4 (1971); Opus sonorum (1965); Requiem (1981) , Sallinen  Complete Symphonies & Concertos  and  Rautavaara: The 8 Symphonies ; now I add Henze to that list of positive surprises.The works on this CD are by no means the kind of easy listening that you'd want to have playing in your local grocery store while shopping for groceries, but they are not mindless cacophony for discord's own sake either. One senses an intelligence and purpose behind Henze's compositions, which makes them interesting. I do not profess to know his oeuvre well enough yet to claim perfect understanding of the development of his style, except that after flirting with Boulez in Darmstadt in the 50's, Henze dumped their "ideas," moved to Italy and thereafter continued to compose works which were far better than what he'd ever written before. All I know is that the works on this CD stimulate my brain, do not offend my senses with discord for discord's own sake, and do not enervate me like some pot-inspired trips full of Balinese gongs, interminable tone clusters and violins playing the same note in quarter tone harmonies for 5 minutes at a time. In short, if you love Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du printemps," the works on this CD should not stretch you too far beyond your limits.I can only give the highest praise to the orchestra and conductor, who impart a genuine atmosphere to the works in the recording, which makes this CD rise above the epithet of mere "canned music," and the recording technicians, who have done a superb job at making the music sound coherent and resonant, while also making each instrument audible within the greater scheme of things. Bien fait, Montpellier!If you are someone who already knows Henzes music or an exploring listener like me, I can strongly recommend this CD. Not all contemporary or modern music is mindless serialism and discord because Dear Leader Boulez declared harmony dead based on his compositional Juche philosophy; Henze proves that a composer can be true to him/herself while developing a unique personal style which is stimulating both mentally and aurally through a synthesis of tonality, modality, atonality and other -ities (the latter in judicious moderation).Strongly recommended at 5 stars.

As always, Henze's music is maddeningly uneven. When it's good - as in the SECOND movement of the 10th Symphony (IMO one of his most ravishing single movements) and the engaging and spirited romp that is La selva incantata, it's VERY good. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with other reviewers about the quality the rest of the 10th, which seem to show Henze at his unselfcritical worst, ill-defined material (if it can be called that) wasteful overscoring and would-be exotic orchestral colours unable to mask the overall greyness of the notes. Complication masquerading as richness. The Quattro Poemi are much better, brief and modestly scored, if not especially memorable. All wonderful performances, but there are much better Henze pieces than this.

Henze is feeling his age

This disc is full of vibrant music and includes (especially in the closing La Selva Incantata) a good taste of Henze's vivid orchestral writing. The Tenth Symphony breaks some new ground, with middle movements devoted to strings and then mainly percussion. I am an even bigger fan of its three precursors but the romantic lyricism that always formed a key part of Henze's rare genius is in good evidence here.The remaining five pieces are rooted from his mid-fifties opera Koenig Hirsch, a period when Henze's imagination was wonderfully rich, so it is very good to see him revisit the material here and refashion it so effectively. The conclusion of La Selva Incantata, the Enchanted Wood, is a bacchanale that bears comparison with Ravel's wonderful conclusion to Daphnis and Chloe.My only reservation here is that the recording is a bit hazy and the orchestral playing is not quite in the same league as the composing. You will want this for the Tenth Symphony, which I don't think is available commercially elsewhere, but there are some crisper accounts of the other pieces. But don't let me discourage you - I have had a lot of pleasure from this disc.

安定のヘンツェ。言う事なし、身を委ねれば良し。