HANS WERNER HENZE: TRISTAN (1973) For Thomas Christopher Downes Hans Werner Henze: Tristan (1973) STEPHEN DOWNES University of Surrey, UK First published 2011 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2011 Stephen Downes Stephen Downes has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage orretrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Downes, Stephen C., 1962– Hans Werner Henze – Tristan (1973). – (Landmarks in music since 1950) 1. Henze, Hans Werner, 1926– Tristan. 2. Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883–Influence. I. Title II. Series 780.9’2-dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Downes, Stephen C., 1962– Hans Werner Henze : Tristan (1973) / Stephen Downes. p. cm. – (Landmarks in music since 1950) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-6655-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Henze, Hans Werner,1926- Tristan. 2. Tristan (Legendary character) I. Title. ML410.H483D69 2011 784.2’62–dc22 2011003882 ISBN 9780754666554 (hbk) Bach musicological font developed by © Yo Tomita Contents List of Figures and Music Examples vii General Editor’s Preface ix Preface xi Acknowledgements and Permissions xiii 1 Contexts: Confronting Tristan Legacies 1 2 Texts: Composition, Genre, Form, Theatre 53 3 Interpretations: Expression, Beauty, Mourning and Meaning 85 4 Epilogue: Two Works after Tristan 121 Bibliography 127 CD Track List 137 Index 139 List of Figures and Music Examples Figures 2.1 Henze, Tristan: preludes for piano, electronic tapes and orchestra; summary of form and content 78 Music Examples 1.1 Richard Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, Prelude to Act 1; opening 7 1.2 Arnold Schoenberg, Piano Piece, Op.11 No.1; opening 21 1.3 Schoenberg, Herzgewächse (Maurice Maeterlinck); opening 22 1.4 Claude Debussy, ‘Placet futile’ (Stéphane Mallarmé); introduction 25 1.5 Alban Berg, Piano Sonata, Op.1; opening 27 1.6 Kurt Weill, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra of Wind Instruments, Op.12; opening 31 1.7 Hans Werne Henze, Being Beauteous (Arthur Rimbaud); bars 187–92 47 2.1 Henze, Tristan; note row chart 62 2.2a Henze, Tristan; ‘melodic patterns’ and inversions 63 2.2b Henze, Tristan; ‘2nd melodic patterns’ 64 2.2c Henze, Tristan; ‘3rd melodic patterns’ 65 2.3 Henze, Tristan; ‘minor elements’ 65 2.4 Henze, Tristan; Epilogue, ‘melodic patterns’ 66 2.5 Henze, Tristan; motivic derivations (after Fürst) 68 2.6 Henze, Tristan; first prelude, opening 69 2.7 Henze, Tristan; piano cadenza, sketch version (opening) 72 3.1 Henze, Tristan; first prelude, closing chords 87 3.2 Schoenberg, The Book of the Hanging Gardens, Op.15 No.10 (Stefan Georg); opening 91 3.3 Henze, Sechs Stücke fur Junge Pianisten, No.1 ‘Ballade’; opening 102 3.4 Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, Act 3; closing bars 113 3.5 Henze, Tristan, fifth prelude (bar 455) 118 General Editor’s Preface Several recent volumes in this series, devoted to in-depth studies of landmark compositions, have borne titles suggestive of an historical or inter-disciplinary nature. RobertAdlington’s account of Louis Andriessen’s setting of Plato in De Staat, Kenneth Gloag’s exploration of Nicholas Maw’s epic score, Odyssey, and Jonathan Cross’ commentary on Harrison Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus are now joined by a fourth such book – this time on the theme of Tristan, probably best known to musicians via Wagner’s monumental music-drama Tristan and Isolde, which was itself based on the medieval romance by Gottfried von Strassburg (c.1210). Stephen Downes’ masterly analysis of Henze’s Tristan (subtitled ‘Preludes for piano, electronic tapes and orchestra’) deals with the origins and often traumatic gestation of a work that exploits many emotive quotations and re-workings of material from Wagner (notably the famous/eponymous chords that open Act I and Birgit Nilsson’s (much distorted) rendition of the climax of Isolde’s Liebestöd) and from other sources, such as the medieval instrumental dance Lamento di Tristano, and sentences from Thomas d’Angleterre’s Tristan (spoken by a five-year-old child). Coincidentally, the electronic tapes that form such an important ingredient in Henze’s complex score were created by Peter Zinovieff (founder of the influential EMS studio) who had also collaborated with Birtwistle (as librettist) and whose son, Kolinka, recited the lines mentioned above. However, it is beyond the scope of this general preface to list or attempt to describe the multitude of inter-textual references that are identified and explored by the author. Downes guides the reader elegantly through this potential minefield of pluralism and allusion towards a summary of the work’s reception and a scholarly consideration of its psychological and aesthetic significance. Central to his commentary is an assured and insightful discussion of Henze’s musical language and the structural evolution of this remarkable fusion of concertante, symphonic and programmatic elements. Although, initially, Henze’s Tristan might disturb (even confuse) the listener, Stephen Downes’ revealing introduction cannot fail to enrich the experience and to inform further hearings with his enlightening study of the work’s detailed construction, its context, and its place in the composer’s output. Wyndham Thomas University of Bristol Preface Hans Werner Henze (b.1926) is one of the most prolific and internationally famous composers of the period following the Second World War. He is amongst the most frequently performed and recorded composers of his generation, and has been the subject of numerous festivals in several continents. But he is also a composer of controversial and disputed status. His music has stimulated a critical polemic of notable vigour. His compositional career has been highly eclectic, touching many of the main developments in European concert music in the second half of the twentieth century: early involvement at Darmstadt, an apparently conflicting interest in post- Stravinskian neoclassicism, a subsequent (apparently anachronistic, frequently ambivalent) engagement with the Austro-German romantic tradition (especially Wagner and Mahler) and ‘Italianate’ lyricism, and artistic projects reflecting political radicalism in the 1960s and 70s. Together, these diverse enthusiasms have led to a provocative stylistic pluralism and overt intertextuality, an ‘impure’ music, as the composer often liked to call it, after Pablo Neruda’s concept of impure poetry – passionate and daring in its flirtations with the commonplace and kitsch as well as the transcendent and esoteric. Henze’s high profile has been reflected in recent musicology by his prominent position in John Bokina’s ambitious Opera and Politics: From Monteverdi to Henze (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), Arnold Whittall’s survey Exploring Twentieth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) and in Lawrence Kramer’s exercise in hermeneutics, Opera and Modern Culture: Wagner and Strauss (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). Henze’s autobiography has been published in English translation – Bohemian Fifths, trans. Stewart Spencer (London: Faber 1998), and the same year saw a small collection of essays and interviews Henze at the RNCM: A Symposium, ed. Douglas Jarman (Todmorden: Arc, 1998). Two celebratory collections of essays in German appeared, to commemorate the composer’s eightieth birthday: ‘Hans Werner Henze: Musik und Sprache’, a Festschrift edition of Musik-Konzepte (April 2006) and Michael Kerstan and Clemens Wolken (eds), Hans Werner Henze: Komponist der Gegenwart (Leipzig: Henschel, 2006). The work of the German scholar Peter Petersen has been especially important. A monograph in English devoted to Henze has, however, yet to appear. This contribution to the ‘Landmark’ series therefore represents a significant step towards filling a notable empty space. Amongst Henze’s diverse and manifold works there are many excellent candidates for a focused and representative study. Tristan (1973) has been selected because it directly invokes the majority of the contexts and styles most characteristic of the composer, and does so in an impressive and grand manner. Stephen Walsh, xii Hans Werner Henze: Tristan (1973) for example, considers it to be ‘one of the most ambitious and complex of all Henze’s concert works without voices’.1 A large-scale work for piano, orchestra and electronic tape, it explicitly explores Henze’s creative and wider psychological stance with regard to Wagner. Thus the work represents a powerful contribution to that ‘tradition’ of Tristan-alluding twentieth-century works. A work of multiple generic characteristics, it evokes and critiques romantic and modernist narratives while also suggesting the intertextuality characteristic of much so-called ‘postmodernist’ art. Thus the work is a fine example of how a single piece can interrogate the styles, expressions, genres and aesthetics