Those of us eagerly waiting for Hans Werner Henze's new work to be introduced to the public have a date: January 2010, in Rome, at Accademia di Santa Cecilia. The Italian institution commissioned a new piece and the greatest living composer has delivered a tone poem with text by Franz Werfel -- one of Alma's 1,003 (and that's in Spain only) toyboys. It's called Immolazione and it's a piece for orchestra, two voices and piano -- the piano will be played by Antonio Pappano, who will also conduct.
Henze's latest work to be introduced to the public was last year's "Elogium Musicum", conducted by Riccardo Chailly in Leipzig, HWH's elegy for his partner of forty years, Fausto Moroni, who died unexpectedly in April 2007. Opera Chic is amazed by how a man of Maestro Henze's age, who almost died and then awoke from the coma to finish his "Phaedra", and then followed that amazing opera with the heartbreaking "Elogium Musicum", is giving us some of his most stunning works in his old age. After an astonishing six years during which he gave us "L'Upupa", "Phaedra", "Elogium Musicum", we cannot wait to hear what Hans Werner Henze has given us. One is truly awed by the strength and the stamina of those old masters -- Elliott Carter (born 1908), Henri Dutilleux (born 1916), and the amazing Signor Henze (born 1926). In their most distinguished company, HWH is almost a youngster -- the freshness in his most recent music is certainly the one of a young composer's work.