Henze/Brahms Berlin Concert

Hans Werner Henze, one of the most significant German composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries, was born 100 years ago. He set new standards in music theatre in particular. The RIAS Kammerchor Berlin is honouring this anniversary with a special concert in the course of the Musikfest Berlin, performing a work by Henze which itself is celebrating an anniversary: Musen Siziliens for mixed choir, two pianos, winds and timpani was premiered precisely 60 years ago during the Berliner Festwochen 1966, by the Sing-Akademie and the Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, the precursor to the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. It is an homage in sound to Henze’s adopted country of Italy, where he settled in 1953 – first on Ischia, then in Naples and finally in Marino near Rome. The title and the text he set to music stem from the Eclogues of the Roman poet Virgil, a collection of pastoral poems. Henze himself wrote about his selection: “My Sicilian Muses are for shepherds, farmers, travelling people and workers. They sing in the siciliana dance step about sun and cold, about the melancholy vegetation of their land, sad and joyful things about love.” And truly, Henze sets the text fragments to music with a marvelous lightness, about which he said it was intended first and foremost to “be fun” for all performers and listeners.

Since we are singing about love in the first place, the RIAS Kammerchor adds the delightful Liebeslieder-Walzer op. 52 by Johannes Brahms to Henze’s Sicilian muses. Georg Friedrich Daumer compiled the texts on which they are based from international folk song literature. In his inimitable style, Brahms set them for both choir and four-hand piano, shaped throughout by waltz or ländler rhythm. Here as well, a statement of the composer has been handed down: “I will gladly risk being called an ass if our ‘Liebeslieder’ don’t give more than a few people pleasure.” Has Brahms ever been called an ass? Hardly.

The concert will be recorded by Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

An event presented by Musikfest Berlin / Berliner Festspiele in cooperation with the RIAS Chamber Choir Berlin.