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FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY As Werner Heider in 2006, on the occasion of the premiere of his orchestral work architecture at Munich musica viva, was asked what metaphysical or symbolic ideas were hidden behind the formal floor plan, he amazed his counterpart with a very clear answer: »My piece is quite simply a composition of musical architecture. Nothing else should be kept secret, and there are no extra-musical comparisons.« A statement that, beyond the specific occasion, also names an essential moment in Heider's music. Because even if many of his works were inspired by other art forms, by autobiographical or private matters, and occasionally even reflect contemporary historical events - at the end of the creative process there is no ideological statement, no philosophical speculation in tones, but a piece of autonomous, absolute music. Heider is committed to "demanding music for demanding people" and making concessions to any kind of public taste is foreign to him. And yet, with his extensive oeuvre, he left his mark on Franconian cultural life for decades as a pianist, conductor and long-time director of the »ars nova ensemble nürnberg«. For many people in the metropolitan region of Nuremberg, the name Heider has become synonymous with new music, and his mischievous smile, his bright, alert eyes, framed by a shock of white hair, the face of the avant-garde. Music has always been his elixir of life. Born in Fürth in 1930, the image of a coffee house band with saxophone and drum set is one of his earliest childhood memories. Where other children dream of a toy train, four-year-old Werner wanted a drum kit for Christmas. This affinity for rhythm has stayed with him; to this day he often notates a rhythm score first of a new composition. After the war, Werner Heider formed a band, played for the American troops and discovered Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton and Woody Herman; he was to say later that he had »a primal feeling for jazz«. At the same time, the 15-year-old also took classical composition lessons from Willy Spilling, who later became head of the music department at the BR Studio in Nuremberg, and in 1951 studied piano, conducting and composition in Munich. However, the exciting impulses did not come from the rather conservative teacher Karl Höller, but from the visits to the Darmstadt summer courses. There Heider immersed himself deeply in the world of the post-war avant-garde, without ever letting himself be taken in by a school. He has retained his intellectual independence; in his wealth of anecdotes, Mauricio Kagel and Bruno Maderna (who conducted his music) sit alongside Chet Baker and the Modern Jazz Quartet (for whom he composed). He also suffered from this versatility, says Heider; a contemporary composer who visits a jazz club was then regarded "like a monk who goes to a brothel". Freedom has always been a top priority for Werner Heider. And so – with a good dose of perseverance, persuasiveness and a network that transcends the narrow boundaries of new music – he also managed the feat of leading a life as a freelance composer, independent of institutional constraints. He soon received recognition for this, among other things through a double grant for the Villa Massimo in Rome, the culture prizes of the cities of Nuremberg, Fürth and Erlangen (where he has lived since 1958) or the Wolfram von Eschenbach Prize; since 2019 he has also been an honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. His performances with the »ars nova ensemble nürnberg«, which he founded in 1968 – long before the Ensemble Modern or the Ensemble intercontemporain existed, became legendary. Heider stood here at the podium for almost half a century, premiered countless works of his own as well as others and then recorded them for the Bavarian Radio – with highly precise, accurate conducting gestures that also vibrated with energy, which reveal a lot about his musical thinking. Because Heider's compositions are always characterized by clear structures, even if they are rarely based on traditional formal models. At the same time, despite all the abstraction, the communicative moment is in the foreground; his music, from the solo piece to the orchestral work, always has a three-dimensional effect and is characterized by gestural immediacy. And so it is an experience every time Heider talks about a piece that is just being created and then begins to imitate this musical gesture – humming, whispering, chanting or tracing with his hands. Werner Heider's total work of art can of course be experienced most directly when he sits down at the piano and plays his music. Even in old age he gives recitals, where he not only performs his compositions, but also improvises individual pieces and intersperses witty comments. The recording of the piano piece mountains pointed comes from such a concert, recorded in 2012 in the Kulturforum Fürth. The composition was premiered at a far more spectacular location: on the Zuspitze, in 1997 on the occasion of an exhibition in the summit house with the rugged, dramatic mountain pictures by the Nuremberg painter Werner Knaupp. Heider's music captures the elementary nature of the paintings, layers massive blocks of chords on top of each other, translates the mountain peaks into jagged lines and, using the entire keyboard, creates a wide panorama between shadowy depths and icy heights. The listener completely forgets that this piece, which seems so rhapsodic, is strictly organized - from the intervallic-rhythmic starting material to the large form of twelve "mountain blocks" and eleven interposed "levels". Without such a formal plan, says Werner Heider, he never begins to compose: "Actually, I could call many of my pieces 'Architecture'!" architecture he actually did it – and did not use the term »symphony«, for example, although the piece has four movements in a very classic way. The first movement (»Project«) builds up rhythmically gripping from the one-part drawing to the complex seven-part composition, analogous to an architect's draft. The slow second movement ("Statik"), on the other hand, exudes an atmosphere of tense calm; According to Heider, it is “in static equilibrium”. The third movement ("Construction") corresponds to the shell of a building: it rests entirely on the parameter of rhythm. Small rhythmic figures in strings and wind instruments gradually condense into complex polyrhythms; at the end three crashing drums play their way into the foreground. The final movement (»Interna«), on the other hand, is surprisingly chamber music. Here Heider acts as an interior designer, who enlivens the orchestral building with twelve rooms of the same size but differently designed: five soloists, three duos, two trios and two quartets. The large orchestra only remains in the background as an accompaniment, and the tender final gesture clearly distances itself once again from the triumphant final character of a symphony. In chamber music, too, Heider's sympathy was with the individual for decades: in addition to piano music, he wrote more than 30 solo works for practically all common instruments; they are often intended for fellow musicians. On the other hand, Heider mostly avoided the large »classical« chamber music ensembles. Against this background, it is all the more striking that he turned his attention to these traditional genres in his late work - mostly without an external commission, just following an inner impulse. In 2012, a very personal one emerged Lamento passionato for string quartet (after the first quartet from 1978), 2015 a clarinet quintet, 2017 a string trio, 2018 a piano trio and 2019 the third string quartet. Both Six properties for string trio, these are transparent, thoughtful miniatures in the tradition of the character piece. Each movement focuses on a different characteristic, from the quietly breathing "calmo" to the rough chords of the "collegio" and the technically somewhat more experimental "capriccioso" to the resolute end. The central »Adagio e arioso« occupies a special position with the melancholic singing of the violin: it is a musical obituary for Heider's wife Lydia, who died in 2012. A thoughtful-melancholic tone also lies over this Clarinet Quintet, although, for example, the introductory »Capriccio« is repeatedly loosened up by »giocoso« sections. From the start, the composition takes the form of an artfully dovetailed dialogue between the clarinet, treated as a solo instrument (to which two small cadenzas are also assigned) and the string quartet. After the elegiac »Notturno« (with an »Andante sostenuto à la Chopin«), the dynamic third movement once again evokes the power of rhythm. However, the fact that the work ends with a quiet, shadowy »ending« almost provokes a comparison with the autumnal quintets by Mozart and Brahms. A yardstick that Heider set himself throughout his life: »Every piece should be created with the greatest responsibility«, he confessed as early as 1986. »Actually, I compose for eternity!« Thorsten Preuss program:
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