RIP Hans Werner Henze

[Robespierres Neck]

The great German composer and Marxist (made compositions honoring Ho Chi Minh and other influential leftists) has passed away on the 27th of October. I just read about this. Very sad.

http://johnsonsrambler.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/file-photo-german-composer-hans-werner-henze-dies-aged-86.jpg

[Robespierres Neck]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80-yhQcBNlw

Hans Werner Henze: Prison Song (1971) Jonathan Faralli, percussionist. The following explanation of this work is provided by Jonathan Faralli: "Hans Werner Henze's Prison Song of 1971 is one of the works in the percussion repertoire which is the richest in poetic significance. Underlying the piece, which is based on the poem "The Leg-Irons" from Ho Chi Minh's prison diary, is a tape recording made previously by the performer, on which he has recorded the sounds that reach the cell from the outside: the noises in the prison corridors, the voices of the prison guards, the inmates' steps and the odd fragment of undefinable music emanating from the street just beyond the prison; all of this is accompanied by continuous breathing. The performer depicts the prisoner and creates his sounds from this perspective, by using bamboo pipes, wooden objects presumably found in the cell and which are used to imitate the sounds coming from the street in order to establish a connection between them, which is nothing but the synthesis of the drama expressed in the lines of the poem."

The Leg-irons,
(from the Prison Diary of Ho Chi Minh)
"With hungry mouth open like a wicked monster,
Each night the irons devour the legs of people:
The jaws grip the right leg of every prisoner:
Only the left is free to bend and stretch.
Yet there is one thing stranger in this world:
People rush in to place their legs in irons.
Once they are shackled, they can sleep in peace.
Otherwise they would have no place to lay their heads."
----

It's a little more avant-garde than a lot of his pieces. I find it really chilling.