Charlotte Schmitt

On 19 August 2020, the composer Heinrich Poos died at the age of 91. The composer, who lived in Rhineland-Palatinate and Berlin, stands in the great tradition of the polyphonic choral music of Heinrich Isaak, Heinrich Schütz and Ernst Pepping and is one of the most important German choral composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. - An obituary

On 12 August we celebrate the 110th birthday of Heinrich Sutermeister (1910-1995). In the mid-20th century, the Swiss Orff pupil became an internationally acclaimed composer of dramatic music for the stage with performances at major venues from La Scala in Milan to the Semper Opera in Dresden. In 1953, Herbert von Karajan conducted in Rome the world premiere of Sutermeister’s well-received ‘Missa da Requiem’ (1952), an opulent and very dramatic piece for choir and orchestra.

Missa da Requiem

The center of Karl Amadeus Hartmann's (1905–1963) oeuvre is occupied by the six symphonies and the opera “Simplicius Simplicissimus”. Hartmann always composed under the sign of the artist's responsibility to society. Thus even behind the cheerful and ironic facade of his “Wachsfigurenkabinett” (Waxworks) stands a critique of the prevailing circumstances and his engagement for a better world. On August 2, 2020, he would have been 115 years old.

Simplicius Simplicissimus
Wachsfigurenkabinett
Concerto funebre

Mikis Theodorakis’s life has been characterised by his political commitment to the Greek people, personal persecution and banishment. For many years, the composer lived in exile in Paris, but returned repeatedly to his native country. During the 1960s, he was a member of the Greek parliament and held the post of a government minister from 1990 - 1992. In 1993, Theodorakis was appointed as the general music director of the Symphony Orchestra and Choir of Hellenic Radio and Television. He gained an international reputation for his soundtrack to the film “Zorba the Greek” which is also available in a ballet version and as an orchestral suite. Theodorakis also composed cantatas, chamber music, and orchestral works. Many of his operas were based on dramas from Ancient Greek mythology. His oratorios Axion Esti and Canto General were performed worldwide. Schott Music warmly congratulates Mikis Theodorakis on the occasion of his 95th birthday.

(Foto: Jens Rötzsch)

Mikis Theodorakis at Wergo

Carl Orff was one of the major tonal composers and pedagogues of the 20th century. Out of a holistic awareness of sound, Orff worked on a comprehensive form of teaching which, as "Schulwerk", has remained a foundation of music instruction to this day. This also included the development of the percussive Orff instruments. As a composer, Carl Orff achieved his breakthrough in 1934/37 with "Carmina Burana", a setting of medieval goliardic poems from the monastery library. Behind almost all of his stage works, laments, but also behind his instrumental works, was the idea of the unity of music, movement and language which he extended to forms of improvisation". On July 10, 2020, he would have been 125 years old.

Released by WERGO:
Bairisches Welttheater (WER 30074)
Carmina Burana - The Piano Version (WER 62172)
Lieder und Gesänge (WER 62792)
Carmina Burana (WER 66022)
Astutuli - Eine bairische Komödie (DVD, MV 8525)
Die Bernauerin - Ein bairisches Stück (DVD, MV 8535)
Oedipus der Tyrann - Ein Trauerspiel des Sophokles (DVD, MV 8545)
Antigonae - Ein Trauerspiel des Sophokles (DVD, MV 8555)
Gisei - Das Opfer (DVD, MV 8565)

During his lifetime George Antheil was considered a dazzling personality, was a name on everyone's lips in artistic circles and described himself as the "bad boy of music". The US-American composer and pianist George Antheil created several operas and symphonies, solo concertos and chamber music. In addition, he wrote crime novels and designed radio-controlled torpedoes, the technology of which is still used in mobile phones today.
On July 8, 2020, he would have been 120 years old.

Released by WERGO:
The Lost Sonatas (WER 66612)
Antheil the Futurist (WER 67622)

Matthias Kaul (1949–2020) had a longstanding collaboration with WERGO. Solo-albums with works by John Cage, Christian Wolff, Vinko Globokar and Alvin Lucier have been released here. He was able to elicit particularly intense moments from instruments with reduced sounding abilities. His independent stubbornness will be missing in contemporary music.

Matthias Kaul died on 1 July 2020 at the age of 71.

Published by WERGO:
Christian Wolff: Bread and Roses (WER 66582)
Alvin Lucier: Nothing is Real (WER 66602)
Vinko Globaokar: Toucher (WER 66622)
Cage after Cage - Works for Percussion Solo (WER 73202)

Enjott Schneider is one of the most played German composers of contemporary music. On May 25th he celebrates his 70th birthday.

Enjott Schneider studied in Freiburg, where he received his PhD in 1977. From 1979 to 2012, he was a professor for music theory and composition at the Hochschule for Music and Theater in Munich. Schneider is also active as an author. As a composer, his works include nine operas, numerous orchestral and chamber music works, and sacred music including oratorios as well as concertos and symphonies for organ. His music for more than 600 films (among them "Schlafes Bruder", "23", "Herbstmilch", "Stalingrad", "Wunder von Leipzig" and "Stauffenberg") has brought him awards such as an Emmy, the Bavarian Film Prize, the Bundesfilmband in Gold, and the German Television Prize. Enjott Schneider received a Lifetime Achievement Award from SoundTrack Cologne in 2015. In 2017, he composed "Marco Polo", a three-hour opera in Chinese, which was com­missioned by the Chinese government for the opera houses in Guangzhou and Beijing. Schneider has been a member of the GEMA supervisory board since 2003 and was its chairman from 2012 to 2017. He has been a member of the board of the German Music Council and has since 2013 been president of the German Composers Association.

Enjott Schneider at Wergo

With the death of Krzysztof Penderecki, the music world has lost an outstanding representative of the generation of composers who received their original impulses from 20th century avant-garde. As early as the late 1950s, Penderecki looked for and found new possibilities of compositional expression in the tension-filled area between noise and music. Thus, he unsettled the conservative concert audience, yet at the same time opened new artistic horizons and reached the forefront of the European avant-garde. After turning away from his early sound experiments, Penderecki was said to have taken a neo-Romantic turn.
Krzysztof Penderecki died on March 29 in Kraków, Poland.

Obituary

He was a classic of contemporary music. Ever since the 1950s, composers around the world followed with curiosity what he was writing. Alongside Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono, Pierre Boulez was one of the outstanding representatives of the musical avant-garde. He was not only a composer, but also a conductor. On March 26, 2020, he would have been 95 years old.

The composer Pierre Boulez at WERGO:
Structures pour deux pianos (WER 60112)

The conductor Pierre Boulez at WERGO:
Arnold Schönberg: Pierrot lunaire (WER 67782)
Arnold Schönberg: Serenade op. 24 (WER 67802)
Ondrej Adámek: Körper und Seele (WER 64192)