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Assorted items => Commercial recordings (vintage, new and forthcoming) => Topic started by: M. Yaskovsky on August 17, 2019, 11:54:57 am



Title: Heinz Winbeck - 5 symphonies
Post by: M. Yaskovsky on August 17, 2019, 11:54:57 am
Available from September, 6 https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/heinz-winbeck-symphonien-nr-1-5/hnum/9424806

Heinz Winbeck (11 February 1946 – 26 March 2019)[1] was a German composer, conductor and academic teacher. He is known for five large-scale symphonies, which he programmatically subtitled, such as "Tu Solus" and "De Profundis". As a composition teacher in Würzburg, he shaped a generation of students.
Winbeck's First Symphony was premiered in 1984 at the Donaueschinger Tage für Neue Musik and recorded by WERGO, combined with Winbeck's second string quartet, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken. Winbeck's Fifth Symphony "Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes" (Now and in the hour of death) reflects sketches of Anton Bruckner's unfinished 9th Symphony. The work in three movements of about 55 minutes was played by the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies on 1 March 2010 at the Stift St. Florian. The same year Winbeck started a collaboration with the Landestheater Linz, which resulted in the ballet "Lebensstürme" (Storms of life).


Title: Re: Heinz Winbeck - 5 symphonies
Post by: relm1 on August 17, 2019, 04:30:38 pm
I haven't heard of this composer before, but am enjoying this output so far.  Am on Symphony No. 2.  It is modern but very approachable.  No worse than late Shostakovitch but sometimes has Mahler quotes for some nice sense of catharsis.  Thanks for recommending this composer, I'm enjoying discovering him.


Title: Re: Heinz Winbeck - 5 symphonies
Post by: guest377 on August 17, 2019, 04:58:43 pm
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.   I see he just died this year.


Title: Re: Heinz Winbeck - 5 symphonies
Post by: guest128 on August 17, 2019, 06:35:04 pm
I haven't heard of this composer before, but am enjoying this output so far.  Am on Symphony No. 2.  It is modern but very approachable.  No worse than late Shostakovitch but sometimes has Mahler quotes for some nice sense of catharsis.  Thanks for recommending this composer, I'm enjoying discovering him.

I hear the last movement of Symphony 2 as rather an inversion of Mahlerian catharsis, - compare with the last movement of Mahler's Symphony 3 which it sounds similar to, but then moves and concludes antithetically, - the benediction become ominous and even menacing.





Title: Re: Heinz Winbeck - 5 symphonies
Post by: relm1 on August 18, 2019, 01:21:28 am
I haven't heard of this composer before, but am enjoying this output so far.  Am on Symphony No. 2.  It is modern but very approachable.  No worse than late Shostakovitch but sometimes has Mahler quotes for some nice sense of catharsis.  Thanks for recommending this composer, I'm enjoying discovering him.

I hear the last movement of Symphony 2 as rather an inversion of Mahlerian catharsis, - compare with the last movement of Mahler's Symphony 3 which it sounds similar to, but then moves and concludes antithetically, - the benediction become ominous and even menacing.


I don't think I can agree with you when there are so many direct quotes of preexisting music.  In fact, I am now at No. 5 (I couldn't find No. 4) so I feel I have a good sense of what he does.  I like it very much but can't say it is an inversion of Mahler because it is direct quotes sort of out out of order.  I know quite a few composer friends that this would thoroughly piss them off to literally go to the library quote one of the greatest composers but put their music out of order and that becomes your new symphony.  I take it he wasn't highly regarded at home?  He doesn't sound similar to Mahler 3, he is quoting Mahler 3 then doesn't quote him.  IN CONTRAST, you have the collage of Schnittke who does a Bach style chorale but the music is completely original but evoking the style of Bach.  Winbech is not doing that.  Now, I'm in his No. 5, the Bruckner 9 tribute where I'm hearing long swathes of sequences based on passages from that symphony.  Contrast this with Rautavaara Symphony No. 3 which uses Bruckner 3 dramatic and orchestrational devises in his own way much more successfully.  My final thoughts after listening to hours of his symphonies, it is too bad that this is relegated to pastiche.  He has great technique and skill but I wish he would have incorporated the tradition rather than mimicked it.


Title: Re: Heinz Winbeck - 5 symphonies
Post by: guest128 on August 18, 2019, 03:26:49 am
"Inverted Mahler" was no more than my haphazard reaction to one section of one Symphony, not a summary of Winbeck's whole symphonic output, - but I still say the "Choral" movement of his Symphony 2 resembles the last movement of Mahler 3 in its cadence of reaching for or opening to transcendence and apotheosis, but the intrusions of disturbance and unrest into which finally undermine and demolish that.  There seems some experiential relation up to a point, but then with disjunctive outcome.


Title: Re: Heinz Winbeck - 5 symphonies
Post by: relm1 on August 18, 2019, 03:16:54 pm
"Inverted Mahler" was no more than my haphazard reaction to one section of one Symphony, not a summary of Winbeck's whole symphonic output, - but I still say the "Choral" movement of his Symphony 2 resembles the last movement of Mahler 3 in its cadence of reaching for or opening to transcendence and apotheosis, but the intrusions of disturbance and unrest into which finally undermine and demolish that.  There seems some experiential relation up to a point, but then with disjunctive outcome.

I came off way too harsh in my response.  I agree with my sentiment just not as strongly as I might have voiced it.  Your point makes sense and I can hear that in the music too.


Title: Re: Heinz Winbeck - 5 symphonies
Post by: guest128 on August 18, 2019, 04:40:48 pm
Yes, your original response made some insightful comments about Winbeck's approach.  Any harshness was undetectable.