Whispers from Heavenly Death

Hans Werner Henze created a setting of Walt Whitman’s poems in 1948 as a young man at the beginning of his compositional career. Around this period, a series of disturbing experiences in the Berlin metropolis – still haunted by the ravages of war – triggered a serious life crisis from which he took substantial time to recover. Henze initially composed the cantata for soprano and piano before creating a second version for eight instruments, including vibraphone, glockenspiel, celesta, harp and cello. Yearning opulence and a touch of exoticism lend the normally threatening topic of death a shimmering halo of gentleness and reverie perfectly capturing Henze’s attitude to life at the time of the work’s composition and the spirit of Whitman’s lyrical poetry.