Text: Friedrich Hölderlin
Publisher: Schott Music
Duration: ca. 4′
FP:January 4, 1991, Weikersheim (Hans-Christian Ziegler, Stephanie Hamburger, Nicole Winter)
FP: (revised version) Nov 17, 2007, Lubeck (Dieter Müller-Jacobsen baritone, Anne Beer, flute, Matthias Lassen, piano)
Further performances:
May 25, 2007, Hamburg, Forum Neuer Musik (St. Christian’s Church)
June 18, 2010, Kiel, Landesbibliothek
Introduction:
An Zimmern was initially planned to be part of a cycle of Hölderlin settings. Hölderlin’s late poems offer a certain divergence between calmness, lunatic bursts and a distant smoothness. This divergence is reflected in the work’s character, which combines fragile colours of piano and flute, an eruptive climax and refined lines and motives.
During the thorough revision of the score, 17 years after the composition of the primary version, I tried to preserve the character of the piece with its strong influences from Alban Berg’s expressionistic style, but to accentuate the musical ideas of the work more exactly and subtly at the same time.