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Dort und hier
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Hans Winterberg, born in Prague in 1901, belonged to the assimilated Jewish bourgeoisie of Prague, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918. Until 1918, Prague was part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, a cultural metropolis in which German was spoken until the middle of the 19th century. The Prague writers Kafka, Rilke and Werfel published in German. And Winterberg, who lived just a few meters from the Café Arco, the meeting place of Prague's literary avant-garde, was – primarily – German-speaking. Winterberg's literary fixed star was Franz Werfel. He dedicated several cycles to him, with Dort und Hier marking a highlight not only among his own song settings – it is a masterpiece of the genre of vocal music with ensemble accompaniment, comparable to the Chansons madécasses by Ravel, written 10 years earlier with similar instrumentation. Winterberg chose four poems by Werfel from different publications and cleverly wove them into a cycle that deals with things of this world and the hereafter in surprising images. Winterberg finds congenial musical correspondences to Werfel's lyrical expressionist tone, which is interwoven with a subtle, surreal-ironic note that is so typical of Czech modernism in the interwar period.
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Turning Points - Episode 2: Hans Winterberg
Turning Points - Episode 2: Hans Winterberg
Turning Points - Episode 2: Hans Winterberg
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Hans Winterberg, born in 1901 into a Jewish family that had lived in Prague for centuries, studied with Alexander von Zemlinsky and Alois Hába. Until the annexation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany in 1939, he worked as a conductor, pianist, and composer. Unlike his friends and colleagues Viktor Ullmann, Hans Krása, and Gideon Klein, he survived the Shoah through a series of miracles. In 1945, he moved to Munich, where he began a promising second career. As a representative of a moderate avant-garde, he found himself increasingly marginalized from the late 1960s onwards. After his death in 1991, his artistic estate was locked away in a German music archive and, since none of his works had been published during his lifetime, he was forgotten. Since 2023, Boosey & Hawkes has been publishing Winterberg's chamber music in an extraordinary edition project as first editions in cooperation with the Exilarte Research Center at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. They reveal music of unique charm, in which influences from Janáček, the Second Viennese School, and French Impressionism are amalgamated into an original and exciting personal style.
Following the chamber music, the edition project will focus on the first editions of Winterberg's piano works and songs.
