Commission to Gerhard E. Winkler

The composer Gerhard E. Winkler creates a work for a symphony concert of the Hessisches Staatsorchester Wiesbaden that establishes references to the two framing works of the evening: Franz Schubert's 1st Symphony and Robert Schumann's 3rd Symphony “Rheinische”. Winkler's work enters into a musical and thematic dialogue with the two works in order to create an intellectual approach to Winkler's work on the one hand and, on the other, to allow the works of Schubert and Schumann to be experienced in a contemporary perspective.

Russia's attack on Ukraine occurred during the composition. Gerhard E. Winkler, whose allusive style is always a reference to contemporary events, felt it impossible not to let such a formative turn of events flow into his composition. As a result, he changed his concept: "The title is Zwielicht (Anamorph XIX) for orchestra. Whereby Zwielicht (twilight) here also means the double exposure that arises from the overlapping of the Rhenish with the Danube element, or in general also the twilight of my meta-stylistic work conception, in which a style is no longer a fixed enclosure in which a piece moves, but many styles are mutually open and partly also overlap. But the world has changed since the first conception, and of necessity my concept for my work, Four Pieces for Orchestra, has changed too:

Die gescheiterte Hoffnung: Alongside the Danube Waltz and Rheingold, with the DSCH motif I invoke an important contemporary witness against dictatorial madness, violent suppression of free opinion and against inflammatory propaganda: Dmitri Shostakovich, the great musical anti-Stalin witness. In Zwielicht nach Schumann, Silcher's Loreley and Schubert's 1st Symphony are quoted alongside Schumann's famous Eichendorff song Was soll dieses Graun bedeuten?. Memorial Mariupol (den Kindern der Ukraine) is a short piece for strings and solo recorder. Brahms-Charleston – a possible answer ... (or: life goes on)."

The commission to Gerhard E. Winkler for the Hessisches Staatsorchester Wiesbaden is made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Further information:
staatstheater-wiesbaden.de

Date

September 20, 2023
Friedrich-von-Thiersch-Saal at the Kurhaus Wiesbaden