Sebastian im Traum

Last updated

Sebastian im Traum (The Dream of Sebastian) is an orchestral composition by the German composer Hans Werner Henze.

Based on the poem of the same name by Georg Trakl, it is a fifteen-minute composition for large orchestra. Composed in 2004, it was a joint commission by the Eduard van Beinum Foundation, the New York Philharmonic, the Zurich Tonhalle and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

According to Henze:

The music tried to follow the traces of the poet's words (as someone with a movie camera tries to capture the course of events or as another perhaps takes down the communication of subject matter in shorthand) and it has a deep relationship to Salzburg - to the ... temperatures and perfumes, to the rustic Baroque, to the biblical, to the wooden crucifix, to the nearness of death, to the moonlight, to Traklish evening sonatas... we continually hear different characters, new ones always come and go, appear, shine, and disappear. [1]

It was premiered on 22 December 2005 at the Concertgebouw, with Mariss Jansons conducting. The same forces later recorded it as part of a two-disc set featuring Mahler's Sixth Symphony on the orchestra's own label.

Related Research Articles

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Symphony orchestra of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is a symphony orchestra in the Netherlands, based at the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw. Considered one of the world's leading orchestras, Queen Beatrix conferred the "Royal" title upon the orchestra in 1988.

Willem Mengelberg

Joseph Willem Mengelberg was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Riccardo Chailly Italian conductor

Riccardo Chailly is an Italian conductor. He started his career as an opera conductor and gradually extended his repertoire to encompass symphonic music.

Hans Werner Henze

Hans Werner Henze was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as traditional schools of German composition. In particular, his stage works reflect "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life".

David Walter Del Tredici is an American composer. He has won a Pulitzer Prize in Music and is a former Guggenheim and Woodrow Wilson fellow. Del Tredici is considered a pioneer of the Neo-Romantic movement. He has also been described by the Los Angeles Times as "one of our most flamboyant outsider composers".

Peter Ruzicka is a German composer and conductor of classical music. He was director of the Hamburg State Opera, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Hamburg and the Salzburg Festival. Ruzicka was managing director and Intendant of the Salzburg Easter Festival and is professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. The list of his compositions includes numerous orchestral and chamber music works as well as the opera "Celan", about the poet Paul Celan, which was premiered in Dresden in 2001. His opera "Hölderlin" had its premiere at the Berlin State Opera in 2008. Ruzicka's third opera "Benjamin", about the philosopher Walter Benjamin, was written in 2015/16 for the Hamburg State Opera and premiered in 2018.

<i>Elegy for Young Lovers</i>

Elegy for Young Lovers is an opera in three acts by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman.

<i>The Bassarids</i>

The Bassarids is an opera in one act and an intermezzo, with music by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, after Euripides's The Bacchae.

Markus Stenz

Markus Stenz is a German conductor. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln with Volker Wangenhein and at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa.

Ingo Metzmacher German conductor

Ingo Metzmacher is a German conductor and artistic director of the festival KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen in Hanover.

Kenneth Hesketh

Kenneth Hesketh is a British composer of contemporary classical music in numerous genres including dance, orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo. He has also composed music for wind and brass bands as well as seasonal music for choir.

Gerald English was an English tenor. He performed operatic and concert repertoire, was a recording artist, and was a sometime academic.

Ortrun Wenkel

Ortrun Wenkel is a German operatic contralto. She notably portrayed the role of Erda in the Bayreuth Jahrhundertring in 1976 and was awarded a Grammy Award as a Principal Soloist in 1983.

Vesko Eschkenazy

Vesko Eschkenazy is a violinist who serves as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's concertmaster.

Reinbert de Leeuw Dutch conductor

Reinbert de Leeuw was a Dutch conductor, pianist and composer.

Willem Jeths Dutch composer

Willem Jeths is a Dutch classical composer.

The Symphony No. 8 Autumnal Fragments, Op. 81, is the eighth symphony by the Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen. The work was commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and was completed in October 2001. Its world premiere was given by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Paavo Järvi at the Concertgebouw on April 16, 2004.

Double Concerto (Henze) Double concerto by Hans Werner Henze

The Double Concerto by German composer Hans Werner Henze is a double concerto for oboe and harp, better known by its original Italian title Doppio concerto. It was completed and first performed in Zurich in 1966, and published by Schott.

The Trombone Concerto is a composition for trombone and orchestra written by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. The work was commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for their principal trombonist Jörgen van Rijen and co-commissioned by a consortium of orchestras comprising the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Oulu Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonisches Orchester des Staatstheaters Cottbus. It was first performed by Jörgen van Rijen and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under the direction of Iván Fischer at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, on 20 April 2017. The piece is dedicated to Jörgen van Rijen and in memory of Sara Maria MacMillan, the composer's granddaughter, who died shortly before its composition.

Detlef Roth is a German operatic baritone and bass.

References