Hans Werner Henze-Für Manfred (1989) Peter Sheppard Skaerved-Violin (Workshop Recording 3rd September 2012) Wapping

I have recorded and performed all of Henze’s major works for violin,  but this morning(September 3rd) realised, over my coffee, that I really wanted to spend some time with this single page work that he wrote in 1989.

My worked score of Für Manfred. 2012

Like Beethoven, Henze has always been able to achieve astounding lyricism, beauty and sincerity in the largest and smallest forms. Indeed, this work functions like a Beethoven bagatelle-the central dramatic section, marked ‘feierlich, deklamatorisch’ is displaced from the reality of the ‘frame’, quite literally on the page, with a ‘side-stepped’ stave, which I have never seen in Henze’s solo works, but which is very familiar from Crumb.

Link to 3rd Concerto

Peter with Henze. September 1989 (two weeks after this work was written)