Heinz Holliger - Glühende Rätsel

• published: 03 Mar 2015
• views: 86

Glühende Rätsel, for alto and ensemble (1964) Hedwig Fassbender, alto Ensemble Contrechamps The cycle Glühende Rätsel (Burning Riddles), a setting of poems by Nelly Sachs, was first performed in 1964 at the Donaueschingen Festival, with Jeanne Deroubaix, alto, and the Domaine musical ensemble conducted by Pierre Boulez. The work, for alto, flute, viola, bass clarinet (contra-bass clarinet), cymbalom, harp, celesta and percussion, was commissioned by the Suedwestfunk. It is dedicated to Nelly Sachs (1891-1970), one of the most important German-language poets. She escaped from the Nazis to Stockholm, and was awarded the Nobel prize in 1966. After working for a long time on a staged version of one of her poems, Der magische Taenzer, for choir and several orchestral groups, I wanted to condense and crystallize my experiments during this work. At the same time, I tried to differentiate my language from the point of view of form, expression and colour. Glühende Rätsel is in five parts. In parts I to III, the structural elements, very clearly differentiated from one another, are tated. Part IV repeats the types of structure from the two previous movements, in the reverse order. Simultaneously, the note values become more imprecise, leaving greater latitude to the performers. Part V, subdivided into five periods, synthesizes and develops all the earlier parts. The inner thematic construction of Glühende Rätsel is similar to that of my earliest chamber music, for example Erde und Himmel and Elis, but the musical material is treated more flexibly and the fields of sound and form are more clearly differentiated. In composing this piece, I gave priority to effects of multiple layers between the words and the sound, and their mutual influences. This led me to new solutions for my composition. --Heinz Holliger Art by Bo Bartlett