Richard Nikolaus Wenzel

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Richard Nikolaus Wenzel (2015)

Richard Nikolaus Wenzel , also OR Wenzel (born November 7, 1959 in Frankenthal , Pfalz) is a German composer of contemporary serious music and organist.

biography

Wenzel received his first piano lessons at the age of six. He later studied piano and bassoon at the Peter Cornelius Conservatory in Mainz (1972–75) and at the Wiesbaden Music Academy (1976–80), where he was also a piano teacher from 1978 to 1981. To this day he also works as an organist. Even before taking his private music exam, he was composing as an autodidact.

With the admission to the composition class of Klaus Huber at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg (study period 1981–1986), the view of the creative possibilities of new music opened up . In addition to the lessons with Huber, there were also encounters with Isang Yun , György Kurtág , György Ligeti and Iannis Xenakis, among others . He also completed church music training there.

Even in his youth, Wenzel spent a lot of time abroad, including a. in Hungary and Italy, through which he learned several languages. After graduating, he continued this and lived in Japan for five years (1986–91). A number of works, including singing, were performed here, which he wrote for his wife, the soprano Miyuko Matsumoto. On April 3, 1991, he conducted the world premiere of his Chanson de la plus haute tour in the Bunka Hall, Kagoshima .

In 1982 Wenzel received a prize at the composition competition in Hilchenbach (under the aegis of Isang Yun), was a finalist in the Alfredo Casella competition ( Accademia Musicale Chigiana ) in 1985 and was a scholarship holder at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music in 1982 and 1986 . He also worked in the radio play area.

His works have been performed in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the USA and Japan. He currently lives in Germany near Mainz.

music

Wenzel shows himself to be an independent composer, which proves the originality and individual form of his music. As a rule, Wenzel's music has no meter , but moves over long stretches in a state of limbo in which long, solemn sounds are contrasted with short interjections and pizzicati , which sometimes develop further in eruptive forms. Individual phrases often have the duration of a human breath. The music can be tonal in many ways and uses dissonance and dynamics in an emphatic sense as dramatic enhancement elements.

His Notte di Maggio was described as “a quiet duo, a calm development of intervals, lines and sounds” and “a certain rigor in the concentration of the material”. In 1982 Wolf-Eberhard von Lewinski described the songs for seven as “a lyrical-tragic story, worked consistently in itself, formed concisely”. About the orchestral version of Raisanka (2001) it was said after the world premiere with the Gürzenich Orchestra in the Cologne Philharmonic that it was reminiscent of “an incantation ritual with springy and floating sounds”.

Works (selection)

Stage works and radio plays

  • Crow groom (1998) for 3 voices "and a gang of crows" (SWR, May 4, 1998)
  • Zwischenraum (1999) for electronics, speaking voice and performance
  • Muradhan and Selvihan (2008) for 2 vocal soloists, flute, accordion, drums and dance

Orchestral works

  • Raisanka (2001) for soprano and chamber orchestra
  • Ruf an Holder (2004) for small orchestra

Chamber music

  • Lied für Sieben (1982) for 7 instruments
  • Three essays (1983) for oboe, clarinet and viola
  • Abyss of the Swans (1987) for 2 pianos
  • Col di lana (1988) for flute, clarinet, violin and piano
  • Fruit à la tête (1994) for violoncello and piano
  • Dialoge im Halbdunkel ( 2005) for 2 basset horns and piano
  • Tracas (2008) for string quartet

Solo instruments

  • Mille Fleurs (Sakura Reflections) (1991) for piano
  • Stanzen (1994) for guitar

Vocal music

  • Notte di Maggio (1983) for soprano and clarinet
  • Chanson de la plus haute tour (1991) for soprano, violin, 2 pianos, organ and 3 percussionists
  • L'anguilla (1991) for soprano, tenor and piano
  • Raisanka (1999) for soprano and piano
  • Ruf an Holder (2001) for soprano and piano
  • Das Lied vom Königsmantel (2002; rev. 2017) for soprano, flute and piano

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical note from the publication of Stanzen für Guitar (Berlin: Verlag Neue Musik, 2018).
  2. ↑ Stefan Koch: “Strictness and lust for playfulness”, in: Badische Zeitung , February 10, 1983.
  3. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine , July 19, 1982.
  4. ↑ Kölner Stadtanzeiger , November 23, 2001.
personal data
SURNAME Wenceslaus, Richard Nikolaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wenceslaus, OR
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer of contemporary serious music and organist
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankenthal , Palatinate