Classical Modern Composers And The Avant-Garde : Germany

Concert programs also regularly feature works by classical modern composers such as Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg and Bela Bartok as well as Boris Blacher, Wolfgang Fortner, Werner Egk and Carl Orff. The versatile avant-gardist Bernd Alois Zimmer-mann established a place for himself in music history very early in his career with his opera “The Soldiers”.

Today’s composers try to win public support for music outside the realm of familiar harmony with great music theater and the most unusual effects. Hans Werner Henze offered a kind of wild action theater in 1990 with his opera “Das verratene Meer”. The first performance of his opera “Venus und Adonis” in Munich in the year 1997 was enthusiastically received. Aribert Reimann, who experiments with chords of 20, 30 and more notes, presented his opera “Lear” in Munich as a ghastly psychodrama. In 1992 his soprano monologue “Lady Lazarus” was performed for the first time at the 42nd Berlin Festival. Karlheinz Stockhausen stages visionary music theater on a Wagnerian scale. Wolfgang Rihm used sheet metal and drums in a novel manner in his “Oedipus”. “Chamber operas” with small casts are also enjoying increasing popularity. Germany’s radio networks feature works by modern composers and commission new compositions. The German Music Council promotes the performance of contemporary works through the “Concert of the German Music Council” and furthers young composers through the “Edition Contemporary Music” (a CD edition).