...an excerpt from a booklet from one of our publications... 0056

appear in the Maestro’s music, in most of his theatrical
production, in chamber music and in orchestral works.
Simplifying, we can identify three periods during
which Henze composed differently for this instrument.
Until 1966, the year of the world premiere of The
Bassarids at the Salzburg Festival, the guitar is used
in a fairly traditional way, serves to expand the variety
of instrumental colours with short sounds and portray
characters. In Elegy for Young Lovers, for example,
it accompanies the growing love of young lovers
Elisabeth and Toni. In The Bassarids, on the other
hand, the guitar characterizes Dionysus during the
seduction of Penteus to persuade him to dress up as a
woman and take part in the feast of the Bassarids, at
Mount Citerone and, while he is torn apart by his own
mother Agave, also resonate, cold and vindictive, like
the mandolins.
The second period presents the use of instruments
typical of pop music - electric guitars and basses with a clearly political function. This is done in the
oratory Das Floß der “Medusa”, in Versuch über
Schweine, for reciting voice - baritone - and orchestra,
both written in 1968 and in the collection of songs
Voices, of 1973. Indeed, during this period Henze
has already demonstrated an in-depth knowledge of
plucked instruments, also due to his stay in Cuba and
his friendship with Leo Brouwer, a knowledge that
he pours into the composition of the recital for four
musicians El Cimarrón. In this 1970 work the guitarist
is called to use various techniques such as the use of the
bow or percussive - fingertips, nails, knuckles, palms the techniques of bending and sul ponticello, aleatory
techniques as well as the use of different percussion
instruments.
The guitar is therefore part of the path of politicization
of music but also in the composition for amateurs
and children, strongly desired by Henze. In the 1980
work Pollicino the sound and colour of the guitar is
in fact closely connected with “the good things of the
countryside, peace, warmth and a sense of well-being.
It’s close to the earth, to the music played in the fields.”