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1936 was Hans Winterberg's most fruitful creative year before the catastrophe that befell Czechoslovakia with the annexation of the Sudeten territories in 1938 and the „rest of Czechoslovakia“ in 1939 by Nazi Germany. Winterberg lived as a freelance composer in Prague, had found his own style after studying with Alexander von Zemlinsky, among others, and ventured into the great forms of the tradition for the first time: piano sonata, symphony and string quartet. Winterberg's First String Quartet, whose manuscript survived the turmoil of the war and was not premiered until 2024, „a masterpiece not only of Czech music but of the entire string quartet repertoire of the 20th century“ (Michael Haas), is perhaps his most complex, most demanding work from the pre-war period. In terms of the interpretational challenges and the peculiarities of its stylistic approach, it lies at the interface between the quartets of Janáček and his pupil Pavel Haas and the quartet compositions of the protagonists of the Second Viennese School.
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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.
