Hans Werner Henze

Hommages turns to a little-known side of Hans Werner Henze, whose output is dominated by the larger genres and their rich instrumental colours. It collects chamber and solo pieces written over about two decades as tributes to friends and colleagues, several of them unpublished until now, and most appear here in their first recording.

The performers are the ensemble recherche and its members: the pianist Jean-Pierre Collot, the violinist Melise Mellinger, the violist Barbara Maurer and the cellist Åsa Åkerberg. The disc is a coproduction with Westdeutscher Rundfunk, produced by Harry Vogt, with liner notes by Ulrich Mosch. The manuscripts of the unpublished works are kept at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, which also holds Henze's diaries. Henze (1926-2012) was born in Gütersloh and lived in Italy from 1953.

The two largest works frame the programme. The Sonate für sechs Spieler is scored for flute, clarinet, violin (and viola), cello, percussion and piano (and celesta), in three movements ending with a passacaglia. The Trio in drei Sätzen for violin, viola and cello lasts some 24 minutes, and its finale is a Ländler. Between them come miniatures, most under three minutes. La mano sinistra is a piano piece for the pianist Leon Fleisher. The Epitaph for solo cello was written after the death of Paul Dessau, and the Serenade for solo violin is dedicated to Yehudi Menuhin. The Margareten-Walzer, a birthday piece, and the trio Adagio adagio are both for Margaret, Princess of Hesse and by Rhine, Henze's patron and friend of many years.

The other pieces have similarly personal addresses: a Toccata mistica for Susanne and Rolf Ibach, an Ode al dodicesimo apostolo for Matthias Wimmer, a song for viola titled An Brenton and a Klavierstück für Reinhold. The disc also includes a Ländler for solo violin. Mark Hohn and Uwe Sabirowsky engineered the recording, with Stephan Schmidt as recording supervisor, and the programme runs to 69 minutes. Heard together the pieces form a private portrait, a composer's circle of friends traced through occasional music.

CD, Wergo WER 6727 2, released in 2010 in the Hans Werner Henze at Wergo series.