Search - Hans Werner Henze :: Hans Werner Henze: Royal Winter Music

I wanted to like these pieces but ...

Jeremiah Lawson | Seattle, WA United States | 12/29/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I wanted to like this music. There are great moments but Henze's attempt to write, if you will sonatas on the scale of Beethoven's Hammerklavier for the guitar comes up short. Now there's no denying it takes incredible technical mastery just to play this music just as there's no denying (if you read the scores) that there may be some compromise in performance between what is physically possible on the guitar and the ideal Henze was aiming for.



Despite taking Shakespeare's characters and Beethoven's music as inspiration Henze compose a work of epic scale but not one that lingers in the memory. I've even listened to it several times and read the scores to give these pieces every chance possible. It's not really bad music but it's not great, either. The best long-form cyclical work for solo guitar for the time being is still Benjamin Brittens Nocturnal after John Dowland. Decent runner-ups are Michael Tippet's The Blue Guitar or Nikita Koshkin's Sonata for guitar solo. For dark, quasi-jazzy moodiness Henze's work feels like what you'd get if Toru Takemitsu's brilliant miniatures from All in Twilight tripled their length and outstayed their welcome.



Now if you're a hard-core classical guitar fan you should still consider getting this CD but if you just dabble pass this one by."

Difficult music indeed..

anonreviewer | California | 04/22/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I think you have to know the Shakespeare characters to really get involved with this music, but I'll give it four stars for effort, both from David Tanenbaum and Hans Werner Henze. Certainly any really serious guitarist should check it out just to hear what can be realized on a solo acoustic guitar!"