Tristan

Hans Werner Henze - Tristan

prelude for piano, tapes and orchestra (1973)

Performers:

Homero Francesch - piano

Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester; Hans Werner Henze - conductor

Hans Werner Henze on the creation of "Tristan":

One morning, early in 1972, I composed a lengthy piano piece within a few hours. The thematic material which figures prominently in it - steps of a semitone and of a sixth, and on the vertical plane, chords of the fourth and especially diminished fifths - represents distant recollections of something concrete: the music of Wagner's "Tristan". Like Wagner's, my harmony seems to strive toward an incommensurable goal, whose attainment is constantly deferred while new questions present themselves. Wagner's music has, however, something glowing and exclusive, total and ceremonial about it. Mine, on the other hand, is cool as though it is early in the morning, and the questioning and longing are muted, seemingly coming from afar - it appears to have something marble, monumental and impersonal about it. Nevertheless this piano piece, which I called Prelude and which was subsequently to be followed by other Preludes, brought out the most intimate and personal elements which were later to be unfolded in my symphonic Tristan music. For the time being I left the piano piece in sketch form.

...

A few months later in London:... At night I write down in words what I hear when half-asleep or in dreams. A form and a name emerge: Tristan. The sounds flit about as in a nightmare, like the bats from the drawing by Goya entitled: El sueno de la razon produce monstros". ... I write down the sounds I have dreamed as a score. There are two sections, each lasting for six minutes; one of them is laid out for prepared piano and primitive percussion instruments. Seven tracks, seven-part counterpoint. The other is for Renaissance instruments - flute, shawms, lutes, tromba marina, and includes the ancient Florentine "Lamento di Tristano". A few days later, we record these instrumental parts track by track, and after this has been done successfully we prepare the strings of Zinovieff's grand piano with clothes pegs, strips of cardboard, drawing pins and wire. Vieux jeu. Children's toys, whips and bells are among the instruments. We work for a whole day recording this music....

We drop glass marbles onto the strings. They leap about, chuckling, and clink against the steel of the sounding board. We bombard the bass strings with tennis balls, producing sounds like distant explosions. This is a game, but it also has something diabolical, neurotic, evil and demented about it. We are tense and excited, cry out and lose our composure. Finally, we fix an old pianola device to the piano and play a pianola roll of Chopin's Funeral March. The result on the tape is overpowering in its ugliness, even before being treated by the synthesizer. It sounds grotesque, frightening, this act of violence to the music. Brutality. Physical aggression. It clatters, groans, howls, bellows. Never before have I made, let alone heard, anything like this.

Later, the first four bars of the third act of Wagner's "Tristan" are computer-analysed....Suffering and atonement, death and deliverance are blended in these artificial sounds, as ever new experiences of suffering, of many kinds and in many forms, are poured forth. Six minutes of this material will later be preserved as continuum for the epilogue of my work.

However, a year is to elapse before that occurs. Before I can begin the composition of the piano pieces and the orchestral music I must listen to the tapes again and again until I know them by heart, because until I have done this, it would be impossible for me to conceive opposing colours and lines, and others to correspond to the sounds on the tapes.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. I. Prologue {4:53}

2. II. Lament {6:07}

3. III. Prelude and Variations. Lento quasi improvisando {9:05}

Side 2

1. IV. Tristan's Folly {5:58}

2. V. Adagio. Burla I (Valse)-Burla II (alla turca) Vivace-Ricercare I. Un poco meno mosso-Burla III (Marcia. Molto piu mosso)-Ricercare II {5:24}

3. VI. Epilogue. Silenzioso, fluido, meditativo {11:32}

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