This disc gathers the two Orpheus works of Hans Werner Henze, released by Wergo for the composer's 80th birthday in 2006. Orpheus behind the Wire is a cycle for unaccompanied choir on poems by Edward Bond, while Aristaeus, a dramma in musica from 2003, appears here in its first recording. That recording won the ECHO Klassik 2007 as World Premiere Recording of the Year.
Henze was born in Gütersloh in 1926 and died in Dresden in 2012, and Schott offered him a publishing contract early in his career. Both works were recorded live in the Berlin Konzerthaus on 1 February 2004, at the concert celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Berlin radio orchestra and choirs. The Rundfunkchor Berlin sings Orpheus behind the Wire under Robin Gritton. In Aristaeus Martin Wuttke is the speaker, in a baritone part, with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Marek Janowski.
Orpheus behind the Wire was composed in 1981-83 for mixed choir a cappella and first performed by the BBC Singers under John Alldis in Southampton on 10 September 1985. Its five sections set Bond's texts, which open with the question "What was Hell like?". The work stands as a political statement against the Argentine military government, a regime that sanctioned kidnapping, torture and murder. Aristaeus, for speaking voice and orchestra on Henze's own words, tells a story of renunciation and loss after ancient models, with Aristeo, Mopso, Tirsi, Eurydice and Orpheus as its figures. Its twenty-one sections alternate spoken episodes in German with orchestral movements: an overture, an Adagio, a Nachtstück, a Grave, a Lacrimosa and a closing Finale.
The pairing sets two approaches to the same myth side by side, twenty years apart. In the choral cycle Orpheus becomes a figure of political witness, in line with the commitment that marks much of Henze's work from the late 1960s onward. The later piece returns to the classical tale through the eyes of Aristaeus, with a libretto Henze wrote himself, and Schott calls it magical and touching, refreshing and entertaining.
CD, Wergo WER 6680 2, released in 2006 in the series Hans Werner Henze at Wergo, with a 56-page booklet in a slipcase. Total running time 68'58".
