Liebeslied

The ensemble piece „…umdüstert…“ was composed around the same time as my cello concerto Dunkle Saiten. It is based on a comment on the subject of beauty made by Baudelaire towards the end of his life, ‘on one of the most interesting objects which human society has to offer’, the face of a woman, which is at its most fascinating and attractive ‘when darkened by melancholy’. Ten years later, I am now working in a similar manner on a new pair of compositions: on the subject of love. A poet’s phrase, in this case the fragment of a poem by Schiller, provided the basis for my orchestral work Teufel Amor. The chamber music counterpart for this work is this purely instrumental lovesong free of any verbal associations. The composition deals in compressed form with the same subject matter as in Teufel Amor: the character of love as both paradise and a pit of snakes in the manner of a Janus face. (Jörg Widmann)