SKU: HL.49046414

ISBN 9781540090522. UPC: 842819103974.

The American musical patrons Mildred and Robert Wood Bliss were considering which distinguished composer to commission to create a work in celebration of their 30th wedding anniversary in 1938. The couple had made the acquaintance of Igor Stravinsky in April the preceding year at the premiere of his ballet Jeu de Cartes in New York and had subsequently invited the composer to their country home 'Dumbarton Oaks' in Washington D.C. to talk about a new composition. Stravinsky only just managed to complete the work in time for the anniversary celebrations: its date of completion was also the date of its first performance. For his classically styled three-movement work, he selected the title Concerto in E flat, adding the subtitle Dumbarton Oaks as a dedication. The structure of the work references the concerto grosso: it features a soloist ensemble which unites in the tutti sequences but also plays in concertino groups during the solo episodes. Broken chordal structures characterise the central movement whereas the outer movements are distinguished through their use of fugato. Dumbarton Oaks went on to become one of Stravinskys mostsuccessful works, performed widely and delighting Mildred Bliss so much that she immediately issued another commission, for the Symphony in C. Its composer's very public commitment to American cultural life helped pave the way for Stravinskys emigration to the USA in 1945. As early as 1952 Leif Thybo created an arrangement for organ which Stravinsky probably did not know at the time of his life.

SKU: HL.49045022

ISBN 9790001154277. UPC: 841886027794.

The formal structure of this organ chorale with solo clarinet follows a Jewish death prayer. The solo clarinet represents the chant of the traditional prayer leader while the organ plays the response of the congregation of the synagogue. The piece ends with a cadenza of the solo clarinet to which an optional organ improvisation can be added.Barbara Heller dedicated this chorale to the memory of Elke Mascha Blankenburg (1943-2013). Talking about her before the first performance, the composer said: 'She was open-hearted with a really tender soul, very trusting. Her creativity knew no limits; she was also an almost fanatical campaigner for music by women. In the music you will hear now I have attempted to convey some aspects of her personality: charming, loving, obstinate, committed, volatile, tragic, crazy, untamed, tender and anguished.' The various sections of this chorale may be performed in a correspondingly contrasting manner: searching, hesitant, visionary, focused, volatile, accusatory, hopeful, etc., with use of rubato and powerful contrasts in dynamic and tone quality.

SKU: BR.EB-9300

ISBN 9790004187647. 9 x 12 inches.

World premieres:I version for flute: Wiesbaden, 1972II version for piano: Nyon, 1972III version for var. insts.: Cologne, May 29, 1976VI version for accordeon: Fribourg, June 25, 1987VIII version for violoncello Tokyo: October 14, 1989X version for organ: Stuttgart, March 28, 2018This work (A Breath of the Untimely) was first written for solo Flute and dedicated to Aurele Nicolet. Its bears the subtitle Lament on the Loss of Musical Thought - some Madrigals for Solo Flute or Flute with any other Instruments. This serves as a playing instruction but doubles at the same time as an outmoded programme: it refers back to the musical origin of the opening lamenting motif, a tradition which was once of its time but is not of our time - namely the Lamento genre which gave the title to the Chaconne in Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas. Almost simultaneously I wrote a second version for Piano (for Piano one-and-a-half hands), which already formulates possible approaches for the performer, in some detail, to the indicated, quasi-canonic version of the piece in the programme. The multiple version Ein Hauch von Unzeit III realizes a concrete version of a formal state which floats between strict canon and aleatoric principles: each of the musicians who are spread throughout the hall introduces their own idiomatic translation of the flute part. And so the music exists, omnipresent, not only spatially throughout the hall, but also formally in a sort of fluctuating simultaneity. For that reason, it was my express wish to any potential interpreter that they should construct entirely their own version of the piece. A healthy number of musicians have responded to my suggestion - versions of the piece have now been made for guitar (Cornelius Schwehr, Gunther Schneider), accordion (Hugo Noth), double bass (Fernando Grillo), violin (Hansheinz Schneeberger), viola, violoncello, and double bass (trio basso, Koln), violoncello (Michael Bach), trombone (Andrew Digby) and, created by myself, a sung version for voice (to words by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel und Max Bense), and for viola.The most important requirement for the whole piece is absolute stillness, which should as far as possible emanate from the performer. The pauses are occasionally in this respect the most important element. These may, if one can find the necessary stillness, become very long.Ein Hauch von Unzeit (A Breath of the Untimely) - time almost dissolves!(Klaus Huber, 1989/2014 - translation: David Alberman)CD:Jean-Luc Menet (Bass flute)CD Traversieres 120.270Jean-Luc Menet (fl)CD STR 37039Bibliography:Zimmermann, Heidy: Zeitgestaltung im Kompositionsprozess bei Klaus Huber - dargestellt anhand von Skizzen, in: Mnemosyne. Zeit und Gedachtnis in der europaischen Musik des ausgehenden 20. Jahrhunderts, hrsg. von Dorothea Redepenning und Joachim Steinheuer, Saarbrucken: Pfau 2006, S. 90-109

World premiere: Stuttgart, Hospitalkirche, March 28, 2018.