Excerpt
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
1. Hans Werner Henze: Music and Life
by Kim Bo-Kyung and Jang Myung Hwa
2. Singing Technique: Classical Singing technique to Non-Classical Singing techniques
by Jang Myung Hwa , Kim Bo-Kyung, and Pan Kok Chang
3. An Analysis of Messianen’s Piano Piece, Île de Feu I
by Kim Bo-Kyung and Jang Myung Hwa
PREFACE
Music has something to offer to anyone, not just the talented. I strive to set clear goals and high expectations for students beginning at their current abilities. Consistently, try to push the boundaries of challenge, but initially earn their trust through successful endeavors.
To make the learning experience fun and rewarding and critical but supportive, also build confidence and make the studio a safe place to experiment.
Always be a lifetime learner. Never think there is not something you can learn from each student who walks in and out of your life. You may learn more from them than you will ever teach another.
Encourage a love of music study through use of positive reinforcement and constructive criticism. Instill a quiet confidence that may encourage a student when you are not present in their instruction and or performance.
Hans Werner Henze: Music and Life
by Jang Myung Hwa and Kim Bo- Kyung
Hans Werner Henze was born in Gültersloh (Westphalia) on July 1, 1926. He was the first of six children born to a schoolteacher, Franz Henze, and his wife, Margarete.[1] His began taking piano lessons quite young, before he began school. His early childhood passed mostly without even, until 1935 when his father and the rest of the family were sent to live in Dunne by the Nazi Regime after the school where the elder Henze was working was dissolved.[2] Hans Werner’s father became increasingly involved in the rhetoric of the Nazi party, as gradually he became more invested in the beliefs of the Nazis. The older boys in the party were enrolled in the Hitler Youth and the entire family was involved through Franz’s strict adherence to the Nazi’s banning of books, disapproval of religion and broadcasts of propaganda and news programs over the radio airwaves.[3] The events in Hans Werner Henze’s life during the Third Reich would have a lasting and substantial effect on his work and life thereafter.
Fortunately for Henze, the radio that figured quite prominently in his family’s life also helped to continue his interest in music. He continued his piano lessons alsong with theory,and his teacher for sometime took him to hear chamber music in a household which included Jews. He also had access to books, by authors like Hofmannsthal and Brecht, through a friend which did accept Han’s interest in music, and in 1942 when Hans was able to win a stipend at the Brunswick State Music School, he was allowed to attend and study piano, percussion and music theory rather than attending military school.[4] While at school he was able to indulge his joy in music, attending concert, operas and theater pieces with great frequency. The one thing lacking in these events was the music world outside of the strict guidelines of the Third Reich. None the less, Henze did become familiar with quite a bit of important literature, and in particular came to know and enjoy Mozart’s operas. This was also his first opportunity to become familiar with orchestral works as a performer, playing the timpani, which would certainly influence his later choices in orchestration. This time would prove only to be a short respite from the reality of the Nazi world, as in 1943 his father volunteered for the army and was sent to the Eastern front, never to return. Then, after months of forced labor in 1944, Hans was among the 17 year olds conscripted by the German army where he was trained as a radio officer in an armored tank division.[5] He was assigned to a group making military training films, which took him off the front lines, but the Russian offensive put an end to that. While briefly in a British internment camp at the end of the war, Henze absorbed as much as he could about life outside of Nazi Germany and took every chance to work on his English. The camp offered countless opportunities through BBC radio for Henze to expand his musical Knowledge beyond the limits he had known before the war.[6]
The post-war period in Henze’s life was greatly affected by World War II, as the rest of his life would be as well. Henze found an outlet in his first major composition, the Chor Gefangener Trojer (1948) which was a lament taken from the second part of Goethe’s Faust. Upon his return to his family, Hans had to adapt to his new role in the family and the need for him to help support his mother and siblings. Despite his job as a transport worker, Hans continued his musical quest, volunteering as répétiteur for the Bielefeld Stadttheater. Ultimately though, his desires and the encouragement of friends led to his studying with Wolfgang Fortner, who arranged for his enrollment at the Heidelberg Institute for Church Music, as well as finding him a position as a live-in tutor with a family in Heidelberg. He branched out even further into studying modern works, being influenced during these student times by Hindermith, Bartók and Stravinsky. Henze took part in the first Darmstadt summer courses for new music in 1946, where his composition Kammerknozert (1946) led to a contract with publisher Willy Strecker and the start of his relationship with the Schott firm. He next began to experiment with uses of 12-note composing, moving away from the neo-classical style he in which he had earlier been interested, as well as employing Stravinskian harmonic and melodic elements.[7] His chamber concerto Apool et Hyazinthus (1948-49) united the 12-note system with the concerto-sonata form with a story that ends up in a poem. The alto solo’ melody outlines three permutations of the row, using the poem, Trakl’s Im Park for the text. This combination of styles, influences and techniques came to represent Henze’s style, and this piece is often seen as the earliest of his mature works, particularly by Henze himself.
Hans spent time after attending the institute in Heidelberg in Konstanz, Berlin, Wiesbaden, and Munich; receiving more commissions then he could actually take and developing his signature style. He first ventured onto the stage in his composition in 1948 with his musical theater piece Das Wundertheater, and in 1949 he was appointed musical advisor to the German Theater in Konstanz.[8] Hanze then moved into the ballet world with a choreographic poem, Ballet-Variationen, followed by the ballet Jack Pudding, which he compiled from pieces that he had composed for performances of Molier’s Georges Dandin. By the1950s however, and was not happy initially with the way many of his pieces turned out, although later many of his sketches from this period inspired later works.
The next period of Henze’s life took him away to Italy, where he would stay from 1953-1965. It was during this time that Hans formed a relationship which would ultimately result in several successful collaborations, when Ingeborg Bchmann (an Austrian Poet) came to visit Henze in Italy during the summer of 1953. This friendship would lead to six collaborations as well as dedications of compositions to Bachmann by Henze. An integral piece of this period when Henze was in Italy is Kammermusik 1958 which was a setting of a Holdelin ode with classical themes. This work again drew on varied influences, including Dowland, Schoenberg,Milán, Weber, Monteverdi, and Britten, the latter being the composer to whom Henze dedicated the piece. Another collaboration was begun in this period, when Hans asked W. H.Auden and Chester Kallman to provide him with a libretto for a chamber opera which would necessitate “tender, beautiful noises.”[9] This resulted in Elegy for Young Lovers, which would be one of his most successful operas. In this opera Henze used particular musical ideas for the different personalities, and specifically paired each singer with a musical instrument which related to the character and to the vocal range of the part. This was a technique which Henze would continue to use, and to refine, in later operas. The following years found Henze’s pieces being performed internationally while he found a home in the Castelli Romani in Italy outside of Rome, and branched out into education with a master class at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Hans also was able to enjoy Berlin as his five symphonies were being played by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and the commissioning of a new opera by the Deutshe Oper Berlin. His output in the sixties included several operas; collaborations with both Bachmann (Der Affe als Mensch) and with Auden (The Bassarids) which showed more of Henze’s drawing from a variety of sources and combining seemingly incompatible, or at least previously unimagined, elements. During the later 1960s, he also went through a period of doubt and self-questioning which would cause a shift in his focus as a composer. Henze’s compositions turned at this time toward making personal and political statements. After teaching at Dartmouth in the U.S. in 1967, Henze moved into action with his beliefs, becoming involved in Socialist causes, participating in peace demonstrations and he co-initiated the Vietnam Congress. His work Das Floss der ‘Medusa’ of 1968 was dedicated to Ernesto Che Guevara after his assassination. He also visited Cuba for a performance of his Sixth Symphony and was inspired to compose El Cimarron (1969-70). Elements of socialism, protest and resistance are running themes throughout many of his works of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
By the late 1970s-1980s, Henze’s view had shifted in many ways, with a new concern for posterity and a look back to his past. It also began a period in which Hans would receive many awards and honors, hold many positions as a professor as well as tackling writing his memoirs and updating the catalogue of his works. Also during the 1980s, Henze worked on revisions of earlier works which didn’t quite live up to his new standards. He also began his leadership of the cantiere International d’Arte in Montepulciano, which resulted in pieces which put the local talent to use, like his sonata for solo guitar, Royal Winter Music (1975-6) for Julian Bream. After collaboration with Edward Bond in the seventies on two operas, Henze’s next operatic project would involve working with a young poet, Hans-Ulrich Treichel, who he coached in writing for his music. Their collaboration, along with Henze’s desire to composed German operas again, has resulted in three operas, the last one being Venus und Adonis (1993-5) a one act reinterpretation of the myth as conceived by Ovid and Shakespeare.[10]
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[1] Virginia Palmer- Fuchsel, “Hans Werner Henze, “ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition. Stanley Sadie, ed (London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 2001), Page 387.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Virginia Palmer- Fuchsel, “Hans Werner Henze, “ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition. Stanley Sadie, ed (London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 2001), Page 387.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Virginia Palmer- Fuchsel, “Hans Werner Henze, “ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition. Stanley Sadie, ed (London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 2001), Page 387.
[7] Virginia Palmer- Fuchsel, “Hans Werner Henze, “ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition. Stanley Sadie, ed (London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 2001), Page 388.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Andrew Clements. “Elegy for Young Lovers,”The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. (London:Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1980), Page 32.
[10] Virginia Palmer- Fuchsel, “Hans Werner Henze, “ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition. Stanley Sadie, ed (London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 2001), Page 393.