Heroische Prosodie

Among Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s early orchestral works, the Heroische Prosodie can be considered as his first artistically mature and fully valid composition. Zimmermann completed his work on this score in 1948, but decided against publication. It is therefore the last of his compositions not to have experienced its first performance. Musical material from this composition has however already been performed: within completely different contexts, Zimmermann revised the middle section to be included as ‘Das verwunschene Schloss’ in his Märchen-Suite and the fugue appears in his Symphonische Variationen über ‘In dulci jubilo’.