Heliogabalus imperator
Heliogabalus imperator, allegoria per musica (Emperor Heliogabalus, allegory in music) is an orchestral work by the German composer Hans Werner Henze.
Composed in 1972 and revised in 1986, it is a "cinematic, circus-like"Artaud's fictional biography Héliogabale and Stefan George's collection of poems, Algabal, lines from which preface the score:
Sieh ich bin zart wie eine apfelblüte
Und friedenfroher denn ein neues lamm.
Doch liegen eisen stein und feuer-schwamm
Gefährlich in erschüttertem gemüte
— Stefan George, Algabal
A
Praetorian guard
depicted by brief snatches of German and American marches.
The work lasts for about 28 minutes, and is scored for a large orchestra, with a particularly wide range of percussion (requiring five players), including
aleatoric passages. This revision was published in 1986, and given its première on 28 June 1989 at the Villa Massimo, Rome by the RAI National Symphony Orchestra under Eberhard Kloke
.
The première of Heliogabalus imperator was recorded, however it was not until 2019 that a commercial recording was issued, by
Wergo Records. This was a transfer of a radio broadcast from 2014, made at the Maida Vale Studios in London by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Oliver Knussen.[6]
References
- ISBN 0-571-17815-4
- ISBN 0-754-66655-7
- ^ Henze (1998)
- ^ "Hans-Werner-Henze-Stiftung - List of Works".
- ^ Henze (1998)
- ^ "Heliogabalus Imperator".
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