Various Artists

Three works for soprano and orchestra by Aribert Reimann, Hans Werner Henze and Wolfgang Rihm, sung by Juliane Banse. She met all three composers at the start of her career and stayed close to them, and their collaboration led to many premieres. Two of the works were written for her, and Reimann's Drei Gedichte der Sappho and Rihm's Aria/Ariadne are heard here in their first recordings.

Henze was born in Gütersloh on 1 July 1926 and died in Dresden on 27 October 2012. Reimann was born in Berlin on 4 March 1936 and died there on 13 March 2024. Rihm, born in Karlsruhe in 1952, died in 2024. Banse is joined by the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern under Christoph Poppen, in a production of Saarländischer Rundfunk and Südwestrundfunk. Both the Reimann and the Rihm are dedicated to Banse and the Münchener Kammerorchester. She has said that she had no regular contact with the composers while they wrote them, yet trusted the pieces would suit her voice.

Reimann sets three poems of Sappho in the German translation of Walter Jens, for soprano and nine instruments, ending with Versunken ist der Mond. Rihm's Aria/Ariadne (2001) is a "Szenarie" for soprano and small orchestra of oboe, two horns, harp and strings. It sets Nietzsche's lament of Ariadne from the Dionysos-Dithyramben and runs to more than 25 minutes. It was premiered in Cologne on 22 January 2002 by Banse and the Münchener Kammerorchester under Poppen. Henze's Nachtstücke und Arien (1957), on poems by Ingeborg Bachmann, alternates three orchestral nocturnes with two arias, Wohin wir uns wenden im Gewitter der Rosen and Mit schlaftrunkenen Vögeln.

The Henze was written before Banse was born, but she has her own tie to him: in his opera L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe (2003) he wrote a role for her voice, and she took part closely in its composition. Nachtstücke und Arien was first heard at the Donaueschingen festival on 20 October 1957, sung by Gloria Davy under Hans Rosbaud. Henze recalled that Boulez, Nono and Stockhausen left the hall after the first bars, while the audience applauded warmly.

CD, Wergo WER 7360 2, released in 2017.