Befreiung

Konzertante Szene, 1989
© Jörg Hejkal
© Jörg Hejkal

Spr. / Bkl (Bsax). Fg. Hr. 2 Tr. Ps. Klav (Sam). Schlzg. Vl. Vc. Kb. (text: Rainald Goetz)
14 min(s)

premiere: Frankfurt 1989
performances between 1989 and now in Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna, Strasbourg, Paris, Barnaul (SSR), Den Haag, Krakow,

G.RICORDI & Co GmbH, Munich

"In 1989 the Frankfurt Alte Oper asked me to write a composition for the “Frankfurter Feste” celebrating the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. I hesitated for a long time because the hackneyed revolutionary vocabulary seemed to render a differentiated historical treatment impossible, particularly at that time (before the end of the GDR, Romania etc.). Every furniture company appropriated it (“The revolution is – Franz!”). I changed my mind when I rediscovered the anti-liberal, polemic tirade from Rainald Goetz’s dramatic trilogy Krieg. I took out the texts of two characters – “Stammheimer” and “Heidegger” – from Scenes Two (Disintegration) and Three (Organization) and tried to give them form by musical means. I do not intend, then, to resolve for the audience the political tension contained in these texts but unleash it for individual confrontation. The piece also opposes theatrical convention which usually treats Rainald Goetz’s rhythmic language merely naturalistically, deeming it necessary to give the characters a personality to provide psychological motives for good and evil, where, in fact, this serves only to protect us from establishing this distinction for ourselves." Heiner Goebbels

Texts

Die Frage konkret gestellt – gar nicht so einfach (Review, de)
Das Kölner „Acht Brücken“-Festival versucht es mit „Musik. Politik?“ trotzdem
1 June 2015, Georg Beck, NMZ Neue Musikzeitung

Reflexion und Verständigung (Review, de)
Heiner Goebbels' Befreiung und Songs of Wars I have seen
1 May 2015, Stefan Fricke, Das Magazin. Kölner Philharmonie

Befreiung (1989) (de)
1993, Heiner Goebbels

Past Dates

June 2018
Stadttheater, Gießen (Germany)

May 2018
Stadttheater, Gießen (Germany)

May 2015
Acht Brücken Festival
Schauspielhaus, Köln (Germany)

October 2010
Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Frankfurt am Main (Germany)

September 2008
Sacrum Profanum, Krakow (Poland)

March 2008
GOEBBELS FESTIVAL 2008
Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

February 2008
GOEBBELS FESTIVAL 2008
Koningklijk Conservatorium, Den Haag (Netherlands)

May 2007
Metropolis Concert, Lisboa (Portugal)

October 2003
Bolzano, Bolzano (Italy)

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