Col Legno has recently
undergone something of a transformation,
and I must say I find their new look
very distinguished. This comprehensive
survey of the piano music by one of
Europe’s foremost composers is especially
to be welcomed in that it contains world
premiere recordings of the Präludien
zu «Tristan», Toccata mistica
and Henze’s early Sonatina 1947.
Hans Werner Henze has
never been a concert pianist, but always
works with the piano when composing:
"Composing without a piano nearby
is like a hotel room without a toilet,
if you know what I mean" was once
his dry way of summing up this relationship.
Anecdote also plays a part in the performance
of these pieces, as Henze and the pianist
Jan Philip Schulze until fairly recently
appeared on stage together, the composer
reading from his autobiography, while
the pianist provided musical intermezzi.
Henze is of course
better known for his larger scale works,
symphonies, concerti, theatrical pieces
and opera. The general impression from
this programme is in fact of the piano
used as a relatively introvert means
of expression. There are plenty of moments
of impact and drama, but they tend to
have a quicksilver character – interrupting
a flow of lyrical expressiveness, punctuating,
or throwing in serious stridence or
possibly cynical stride-piano.
Working through chronologically,
the Sonatina 1947 has the sense
of a composer flexing themselves beyond
the established conventions of Hindemith
and the like, exploring the relationships
between a Straussian waltz, gruff Beethovenian
block chords and the quirky jazz touch
adopted by pre-war Parisian Stravinsky.
The second movement has an almost pastoral
lyricism which extends into the final
movement, actually called Pastorale,
presaging the composer’s interest in
the unity contained in variation forms.
The Variations Op.13 illustrate
this well, but sometimes in an almost
entirely different idiom. The abstract
nature of the later Sonata is
almost hinted at in some of the angularity
of the melodic lines and counterpoint
– the gentler variations sketching more
tender lines while never losing grip
of the intellectual rigour of the whole.
The Sonata per pianoforte
of 1959 has, as its title would
suggest, a grander scale in every way
when compared with the Sonatina.
Still quite compact at around 16 minutes,
it was written at the time his first
operas were founding his European reputation,
and while conflict with elements of
Darmstadt and the avant-garde where
also ongoing. Drawing to a certain extent
on classical models and abstraction,
Henze might well have been taking a
break from all that theatre work. The
lyricism is quite austere, and the lines
and harmonies, if not strictly serial,
certainly take on the restlessness of
atonality.
The Lucy Escott
Variations are based on the Bellini
aria Come a me sereno from La
sonnambula. The juxtaposition of
this serene melody and Henze’s deft
way of dismantling and disorientating
the music make this one of the most
interesting pieces on the disc for me
– I say ‘disorientating the music’ rather
than ‘the listener’, as the logic of
his handling and development of the
material is a journey in which to revel,
rather than one of regret at the distances
one travels from the original. The Cherubino
miniatures are also variations of
a kind, but with almost a 20 year gap
the change in character with the music
is also clear. Henze’s language matures
to include a kind of romanticism which
allows for a certain amount of the semantics
of pianism, and in the final part a
quite literal ‘Cherubino goes to war’
complete with the rattling of spears
and tearful farewells.
The later works have
an attractive sense of harmonic resolution.
Une petite phrase has a kind
of melodic nostalgia which even allows
for a certain amount of wit – the composer
poking himself with a blunt left-hand-held
stick for his own sentimentality. Toccata
mistica is described in the booklet
notes as nature piece, illustrating
the movement of the sea and its turbulent
moods, ‘the concert grand as a raft
on the sea and as the power of the sea.’
The Preludes for
Tristan make up the most substantial
piece on this disc, and emotionally
the furthest reaching. The fingerprint
of Wagner is of course an important
unifying force, a deeply ingrained and
spectral presence whose 19th
century avant-garde unites with Henze’s
contemporary chromaticism, linking it
to an unalterable past, but a malleable
tradition. A strange stride bass appears,
serialism and sleaze, intellectual crystals
of creativity and the grim gobs of ghoulish
perversity which remain in our imaginations
after the images of death and despair
have left our television screens. We’re
left with more questions than answers,
but an urge to keep on asking.
As with so many of
Col legno’s contemporary releases, you
may not find this to be easy listening,
but in the right frame of mind there
are worlds to be discovered which are
as colourful and fascinating as anything.
Jan Philip Schulze’s playing shows a
deep empathy with Henze’s creative voice,
and with a richly powerful piano recording
there are no barriers between the listener
and the message. Henze shows that he
was and is uncompromisingly a man of
his times, and one to which, as passionate
music fans, we owe a duty to hear.
Dominy Clements
for details
Jan Philip Schulze (piano) 
