Four orchestral works by Bernd Alois Zimmermann spanning almost twenty years, from the Konzert für Streichorchester of 1948 to the "black ballet" Musique pour les Soupers du Roi Ubu of 1966. The disc opens with the first version of the Sinfonie in einem Satz, which Zimmermann withdrew after its premiere and rewrote. That version and Giostra Genovese are heard here in their first recordings.
Zimmermann was born in Bliesheim, near Cologne, on 20 March 1918 and died in Königsdorf on 10 August 1970. He began studying school music in Cologne, was drafted in 1939 and served as a soldier until 1942, when he was released because of a chronic skin disease caused by poisoning. War and time became central to his music. The WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln is conducted by Peter Hirsch, who also wrote the liner notes. The recordings were made at the Kölner Philharmonie on 11-13 March 2013 and 19-20 May 2015, produced by Stephan Hahn for Westdeutscher Rundfunk.
The Sinfonie, commissioned by the WDR, was first played in Cologne on 3 March 1952 under Hans Rosbaud and was harshly criticised. Zimmermann resolved to show himself a more experienced orchestrator, cut and tightened the form, and in a later commentary wrote that he had pushed back its strongly rhapsodic character. Giostra Genovese (1962), for small orchestra with guitars and mandolin, is a collage of old dances after Tilman Susato, Orlando Gibbons and William Byrd, laced with quotations from older and contemporary composers. Its material passed, through several revisions, into the Musique pour les Soupers du Roi Ubu, a ballet in seven parts and an entrée after Alfred Jarry. Here a jazz combo, saxophones, organ and electric guitar join the orchestra. The Konzert für Streichorchester is an arrangement of his String Trio of 1944, in three movements.
Taken together, the works show Zimmermann's idea of music as the art of time par excellence, in which different layers of time pass through one another and history is suspended. The Ubu ballet, commissioned by the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, was first given in concert there on 31 January 1968. Its stage premiere followed at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf on 25 April 1968, conducted by Hans Zender. It remains one of the most provocative pieces of new music.
CD, Wergo WER 7340 2, released in 2016 in the label's Edition Bernd Alois Zimmermann, with a 28-page booklet.
