Richard Wagnersche Klavierlieder

More than twenty years after his famous arrangement of the Wesendonck-Lieder (1976), Hans Werner Henze turned again to Richard Wagner’s lieder: this time 17 little-known early works. Henze’s resulting composition brings together two single lieder along with the song cycles 7 Kompositionen zu Goethes Faust (7 Compositions to Goethe's Faust) and 8 Französische Lieder (8 French Songs), which includes the famous Les deux grenadiers based on a text by Heinrich Heine.

'After having orchestrated the Wesendonck-Lieder, I was also encouraged to tackle the remainder of Wagner’s song settings. I soon, however, established that I found it impossible to hold myself back and to proceed no further than an effortless recreation of these works in an orchestral texture with Classical Romantic instrumentation. As a result, numerous alterations can be detected which were not undertaken arbitrarily, but prompted by artistic curiosity: for example changes of metre, tonal and tessitura transformation, and the realisation and completion of the two fragments “Extase” and “La tombe dit à la rose”. I have also occasionally added new, supplementary musical lines. All these features sprang from my desire to focus a spotlight on the allusive beauty of this music which is frequently concealed in the piano accompaniment. During this process, my thoughts often wandered to the great composer himself, wondering what he would perhaps have thought and said if he had been looking over my shoulder to pass judgement on my interventions and alterations.' (Hans Werner Henze)