Hans Werner Henze's "Quattro Fantasie — 3 Tentos" is the featured work at today's NOVA Chamber Music Series season opener. The work was premiered 50 years ago this month, and today's performance at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts Auditorium will be the first time it's been heard in Utah.
"Henze's music just isn't played in here," NOVA artistic director and Utah Symphony associate principal bassist Corbin Johnston said. "David Yavornitzky, who is a huge fan of Henze's music, can't recall a performance of a single piece by Henze here in Utah in the last 25 years," he added, referring to the symphony's principal bass, who will also conduct the work.
Henze's music isn't necessarily easily digestible for concertgoers or musicians, although "Quattro Fantasie — 3 Tentos" is quite romantic. However, "It's a very sophisticated piece. It's dense, severe music."
The piece consists of four movements for ensemble and three for guitar solo. "The guitar represents the outer view of the work's psyche. It depicts a peaceful Mediterranean landscape. The other movements represent the clouded inner world."
Why Henze's music hasn't found a permanent place among the works of leading 20th century composers can partly be explained by the fact that his music isn't easily categorized. Henze came of age as a composer in post-World War II Germany, at a critical juncture in European music where the leading figures of the time eagerly embraced Arnold Schoenberg's 12-tone technique and expanded the concept to bring a defined order to all aspects of a work, not just to the structure of a tone row. And tonality and any resemblance to past eras were forbidden.
While Henze accepted the basic premise of this line of intellectual thought, he nevertheless never completely renounced tonality. Serial technique lies at the core of his music, to be sure, but Henze also incorporates passages of tonality and romanticism into much of his music. And that angered Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez and Luigi Nono, who were the leading musical figures of the time in Europe. "They stormed out of a concert where one of Henze's pieces was being played, because they were offended by what they were hearing," Johnston said.
Hopefully, nothing like that will happen at today's concert, Johnston said. The rest of the concert will be solidly tonal, the Henze being bookended with music by Joseph Haydn and Louis Spohr.
"We're opening with an early divertimento by Haydn with the curious instrumentation of oboe, violin, viola and double bass," Johnston said, noting that a lot of Haydn's early works had no cello part. "He always had great bass players, and he even wrote a bass concerto, the manuscript of which has been lost. A lot of his early symphonies also have large bass solos."
Closing the concert will be Spohr's "Grand Nonetto." "This is really a lovely piece with romantic elements," Johnston said. "It was one of his most popular pieces then and now, and it's one of a few of his works that's still being played today."
Spohr's life spanned the end of the classical era to the height of German romanticism. A popular composer and noted violin virtuoso, who had the misfortune of being in Niccolo Paganini's shadow, Spohr's music deserves to be rediscovered. "He's maybe not as consistently inspired as Mozart and Beethoven were, but the Nonet is inspired throughout, and it has an absolutely gorgeous slow movement," Johnston said.
• Below is a rundown of NOVA's 2008-09 season. All concerts begin at 3 p.m. and take place in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts auditorium.
Today: Haydn, Divertimento, Hob. II:B4; Henze, "Quattro Fantasie — 3 Tentos"; Spohr, "Grande Nonetto."
Nov. 16: Beethoven, String Quintet, op. 29; Bruckner, String Quintet.
Jan. 18, 2009: Schnittke, "Kanon in memoriam Igor Stravinsky"; Gubaidulina, "Quattro"; Stravinsky, Octet; Glinka, Grand Sextet.
Feb. 15, 2009: Beethoven, Piano Quartet, WoO 36, no. 3; Mahler, Piano Quartet; Schnittke, Piano Quartet; Schumann, Piano Quartet, op. 47.
March 29, 2009: Schubert: The Chamber Music of 1824 (Part IV)— "4 Landler," D. 814; "Divertissement a l'hongroise," D. 818; String Quartet, D. 810 ("Death and the Maiden").
April, 26, 2009: Kurtag, "6 Bagatelles"; Bartok, "Contrasts"; Ligeti, "3 Pieces for 2 Pianos"; Bartok, Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.
If you go
What: NOVA Chamber Music Series
Where: Utah Museum of Fine Arts Auditorium
When: today, 3 p.m.
How much: $72 general admission, $60 senior citizens (season); $15 general admission, $12 senior citizens, $5 students (individual)
Phone: 463-5223
Web: www.novachambermusicseries.org
E-mail: ereichel@desnews.com