Organization

Conductor

Peter Eötvös

Singer

Soprano

Caroline Stein

Baritone

Claudio Otelli

Michael Rotschopf

Speaker

Thomas Mittmann

Chorus master

James Wood

Howard Arman

Philipp Ahmann

Celso Antunes

Orchestra

Berliner Philharmoniker

Peter Eötvös conducts Zimmermann’s “Requiem for a Young Poet”

Berlin

Germany

Berliner Philharmonie

Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Requiem for a Young Poet from 1969 is a heart-wrenching and unconventional mass for the dead. Written for two speakers, vocalists, chorus, orchestra and tape, it reveals a powerful, multifaceted panorama of the half century that comprised Zimmermann’s life before he committed suicide in 1970. The conductor of this powerful performance from 2009 is Peter Eötvös, one of Zimmermann’s students.

Peter Eötvös conducts Zimmermann’s “Requiem for a Young Poet”: Concert Various

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Approved

When Peter Eötvös heard the news of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s death in 1970, he did not doubt for a moment that the composer had taken his life. The Hungarian composer and conductor met and came to respect Zimmermann while he was a student in Cologne during the 1960s, and at that time the thoughts of death of the deeply religious artist, who wrestled constantly with himself and the world, were already obvious.

Suicide also plays a central role in the Requiem for a Young Poet for two speakers, vocalists, chorus, orchestra and tape, which was premiered in 1970. The poets quoted in this unusual requiem – Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Konrad Bayer – also took their own lives. In his text collage and music, which combines different styles and quotations from works by other composers in a uniquely personal idiom, the extremely well-read Zimmermann provided a desperate commentary on the student-initiated era of new beginnings as he composed the work – and at the same time an anticipation of the end of his own life.

The Berliner Philharmoniker performed the heart-wrenching work under Peter Eötvös in April 2009, as part of the season focus on several of Zimmermann’s compositions. During the first half of the concert Richard Wagner’s radiant Siegfried Idyll for chamber orchestra and two chorale preludes by Johann Sebastian Bach were also heard, forming a counterpoint to the Requiem.

English

Peter Eötvös conducts Zimmermann’s “Requiem for a Young Poet” by Various, -tól (2009/2009), Karmester Peter Eötvös, Berliner Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany

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