3rd violin concerto (Henze)

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In Hans Werner Henze's Violin Concerto No. 3, Three Portraits from Thomas Mann's “Doktor Faustus” , written in 1997, there is an explicit reference to Thomas Mann's novel Doktor Faustus in the 3 sentence headings:

  • Esmeralda. do not rush, dance comfortably
  • The child echo: Adagio - Tempo giusto
  • Rudolf S .: Andante - Più mosso

In the traditional instrumental concert, the relationship between the soloist and the orchestra is initially shaped by the concertante principle: the dialogical principle (e.g. with Johannes Brahms ) may apply as a further development . In Hans Werner Henze's 3rd Violin Concerto, the extremely long solo passages of the solo violin in all three movements, which completely call into question the traditional relationship between soloist and orchestra, are immediately noticeable. For a long time, the solo instrument no longer appears to be embedded in the symphonic context (neither in concert nor in dialog). Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust deals essentially with the question of knowledge of the modern age by contrasting the Cartesian scholar Faust with his claim to explain the world with the figure of Gretchen as the representative of the numinous, the enigmatic, the "eternally feminine". In Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus , the emphasis shifts to the artist problem: what is art or what is the artist capable of achieving in the modern world? Hans Werner Henze takes up Mann's question and formulates it in a new context as a musical question. The question of the role of the artist in society is reflected in the formal structure of the work: the solo violin represents the fate of the individual (artist), the orchestra as the entirety of its social relations, i.e. society. The long solo passages of the solo violin almost make you forget the existence of an orchestra: this usually sets in completely surprisingly (as if from an ambush), but not in the role of an equal partner, but rather as an opponent, adversary, stimulator. In this respect, Henze's large formal outline reveals his advocacy of an almost excessive weighting of the individual to the detriment of society and its claims.