557344 bk Henze US 4/28/06 9:47 AM Page 5 Gottfried Schneider Born at Badgastein into a German-Austrian family of musicians, the violinist Gottfried Schneider made his first Royal Winter Music appearance as a soloist at the age of eleven. He studied in Salzburg, and then in Munich, Berne and New York, with – Second Sonata on Shakespearean Characters for Guitar (1978-79) HENZE Otto Büchner, Max Rostal and Ivan Galamian respectively. He won prizes in major international competitions, including the Carl Flesch in London and Jeunesses musicales in Belgrade, and after winning the Busch Brothers 1 Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Marcia, non troppo funebre – Sempre incalzando) 5:49 Prize he was invited by Rudolf Serkin to his Marlboro Festival. He has continued to enjoy a career of great 2 Bottom’s Dream (Adagietto, con comodo – Adagio) 4:26 Guitar Music • 1 distinction and has done much to bring to light, in his recordings, unjustly forgotten works and the compositions of 3 Mad Lady Macbeth (Fiercely – Meno mosso – Più mosso – Tempo 1 – contemporary composers. Allegretto – Andante con moto – Gavotta – Molto irrequieto – Gavotta – Franz Halász, Guitar Sophia Reuter Largo – Con pathos – With noisy vulgarity) 8:38 Sophia Reuter, born in Dresden, comes from a family with a long musical tradition. Her father Rolf Reuter is a Colin Balzer, Tenor • Débora Halász, Piano conductor and grandfather Fritz Reuter was a composer. At the age of five she began taking violin lessons from Drei Fragmente nach Hölderlin Klaus Hertel at the Leipzig Mendelssohn Musikhochschule, and later studied with Peter Tietze in Berlin. At the age (Three Fragments from Hölderlin) for Voice and Guitar (1958) of ten she was the youngest participant and prize winner at the Leipzig Johann Sebastian Bach Competition, and in Gottfried Schneider, Violin • Sophia Reuter, Viola 1988 won first prize at the music competition in Weimar. From 1989 to 1993 she studied with Alberto Lysy and 4 I. In lieblicher Bläue 4:07 Yehudi Menuhin at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad. Since then she has performed in many of 5 II. Möcht ich ein Komet sein? 3:26 Sebastian Hess, Cello • Karsten Nagel, Bassoon the major music centres in the world. Playing both the violin and viola, she has participated in various chamber 6 III. Wenn einer in den Spiegel siehet 2:50 music festivals in Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Argentina and the Far East, often together with colleagues of the highest distinction. Since 1997 she has held a position as professor at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad, also teaching at the Salzburg Mozarteum. She has on several occasions played as a Drei Tentos für Gitarre (Three Attempts) (1958) member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. From 2003-2004 she led the viola section of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, and from January 2006 has served as principal viola with the 7 I. Tranquillamente 2:10 Duisburger Philharmoniker (Deutsche Oper am Rhein). 8 II. Allegro rubato 1:17 9 III. Lento 2:07 Sebastian Hess Born in Munich in 1971, the cellist Sebastian Hess studied at the music academies in Würzburg and Munich with Selbst- und Zwiegespräche (Monologues and Dialogues) (1984-85) Julius Berger and Helmar Steihler, before studying musicology at Munich University. From 1990 to 1994 he was – Trio for Viola, Guitar and Piano among the pupils of William Pleeth in London and in 1997 was one of the few pupils of Mstislav Rostropovich. His musical career has ranged from historical performance on the baroque cello to the major elements of the classical 0 Andante cantabile 12:22 and romantic repertoire, and collaboration with contemporary composers and leading colleagues. He has appeared as a soloist and recitalist in festivals and other engagements throughout Europe and in the Far East. Neue Volkslieder und Hirtengesänge (New Folk Songs and Shepherd’s Melodies) Karsten Nagel for Bassoon, Guitar and String Trio (1983-96) Karsten Nagel was born in Vilseck in 1964 and began his study of the bassoon at the age of fifteen with Walter Urbach at the Nuremberg Meistersinger Conservatory. Three years later he was appointed first bassoon in the ! Pastorale 2:32 Nuremberg Philharmonic Orchestra, completing his training at the Herbert von Karajan Foundation in Berlin. In @ Morgenlied 0:54 1990 he moved to the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, where he has served for some eleven years as principal # Ballade 2:43 bassoon in the Bavarian State Orchestra. Since 1994 he has taught at the Munich Musikhochschule and since 1996 $ Tanz 1:14 at the Nuremberg Meistersinger Conservatory, becoming professor of bassoon in 2001 at the Nuremberg-Augsburg % Rezitativ 0:44 Musikhochschule. He has been the recipient of a number of prizes and awards at home and abroad, gives regular ^ master-classes, and serves as woodwind adviser to the Bavarian Youth Orchestra. Abendlied 3:06 & Ausklang 1:29 8.557344 5 6 8.557344 557344 bk Henze US 4/28/06 9:47 AM Page 2 Hans Werner Henze (b. 1926) Henze draws us into her unstable state of mind, bringing between the instruments in the manner of its title. In his Franz Halász Guitar Music • 1 motivic ideas back a half step higher to depict Lady performance directions Henze stipulates that each of the The American-born German guitarist Franz Halász is among the most outstanding artists in his field. He began his Macbeth’s rising hysteria. three instrumentalists may play their part as a solo as career in 1993, winning first prizes at the Andrés Segovia Competition in Spain and the Seto Ohashi Competition in There can be few other living composers who have had 1970s for a number of more private projects, including This second sonata was first performed in Brussels well as in combination with one another. In this Japan. A guest performer at major festivals and events such as the Rose Augustine Series in New York, the Toru such remarkable success with an extraordinary quantity three string quartets, and his two Shakespearean themed in 1980 by Reinbert Evers. performance there are six sections: piano, viola and Takemitsu Memorial Concert in Tokyo, and in Germany the Kissinger Sommer, Brandenburgische of music in all genres. A brief glance at Henze’s guitar sonatas. The three Hölderlin settings form part of what may guitar alone, followed by two duets and a final trio. In Sommerkonzerte and Mecklenburg Vorpommern, and in England, Portugal, Brazil and elsewhere, he has also catalogue outlines a formidable series of symphonies, This Second Sonata on Shakespearean Characters be likened to an extended song-cycle that Henze called returning to goal-orientated harmony Henze allies shared the stage with well known artists such as Siegfried Jerusalem, Patrick Gallois, Robert Aitken, Alban Gerhard stage works (both opera and ballet), concertos and dates from 1978-79 and, like the first from three years Kammermusik 1958, a work for tenor and guitar soloists himself with German romanticism in this work’s and Boris Pergamenschikov among others. He is professor at the Nuremberg Musikhochschule and offers master- quartets, and it is on these large-scale and solidly earlier, was prompted by the distinguished guitarist with eight other instruments setting Friedrich rhapsodic style and rich textures. classes at prestigious institutes all over the world, including the Manhattan School of Music, the San Francisco Teutonic structures, often unconventional in formal Julian Bream. The three character studies from the Hölderlin’s In lieblicher Bläue (In lovely blueness). Henze uses Styrian (Austrian) peasant songs as the Conservatory, the Academy of Music in Oslo, and São Paulo University. His many recordings for BIS include design and personal in their approach, that his stature as second group complete a cycle of nine solo guitar pieces Written following a visit to Greece (the inspiration also creative source for his Neue Volkslieder und among others the complete guitar music by Joaquín Turina and Toru Takemitsu. one of Europe’s foremost composers rests. (six in the first set) that begin with a mad king and end for Hölderlin’s poem), the work was commissioned by Hirtengesänge (New Folk Songs and Shepherds’ Born in Westphalia in 1926 Henze received his with a mad queen. Henze makes virtuosic demands in North German Radio. Its virtuosic vocal writing, Melodies), scoring for a folk-like combination of Colin Balzer earliest musical training against the background of all of these works, extending the boundaries of guitar covering a range of two octaves, is largely atonal and bassoon (shepherd’s shawm), guitar and string trio. The gifted young Canadian lyric tenor Colin Balzer is fast becoming one of the most sought-after concert soloists of Nazism, becoming a reluctant recruit into the Hitler technique in a comprehensive survey that brings to expressionistic; its musical language recalling his brief These seven movements from 1996 are derived from his his generation, with a busy schedule of international engagements. Now based in Germany and with a repertoire Youth movement and, in 1944, serving as a radio mind, on a different level, the great keyboard works by preoccupation with serialism at Darmstadt. By musical play Oedipus der Tyrann (King Oedipus) of ranging from Monteverdi to Penderecki, he has enjoyed critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, working with operator with a Panzer division. After the war he Bach or Beethoven. Indeed, when Julian Bream first deliberate contrast (Henze musically illustrates the 1983 that was later withdrawn. such conductors as Helmuth Rilling, Simone Young, Simon Preston, Yoav Talmi, Gabriel Chmura and Christof returned to his formal education, studying first with approached Henze for a solo guitar work he had polarity between the world of ancient Greece and the In the opening Pastorale bassoon and guitar take on Perick, performing with the Hungarian and Polish National Radio Orchestras, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Oregon, Wolfgang Fortner, and later with René Leibowitz in jokingly suggested a piece on the scale of Beethoven’s modern world), the writing for the guitar is far less the rôles of the peasant musicians and play a total of five Vancouver and Québec Symphonies, among many others.