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| cv Stefan Heucke (*1959 Gaildorf, Germany) received his musical education at the Academies of Music in Stuttgart and Dortmund by Renate Werner, Arnulf von Arnim (piano) and Gerhart Schäfer (composition) from 1978 to 1986. He aroused first public interest through the premiere of his "Vier Orchesterstücke op. 5" accompanied by the Saarländische Staatsorchester conducted by Matthias Kuntzsch. Afterwards, he was engaged for many national and international performances and radio productions, together with famous soloists and orchestras. In March 2006 he finished his second feature-length musical theatre work "Das Frauenorchester von Auschwitz" (The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz), that premiered at the Theater Krefeld/Mönchengladbach in September 2006. From 1989 to 2002 Stefan Heucke taught music-theory at the Academy of Music Detmold, Department Dortmund. 1990 he was awarded the Young Artist Award of the City of Dortmund, 2002 he won the audience award at the "Windrose" Festival of the Ruhr Orchestras. Numerous requests by theatres, orchestras, ensembles, foundations and private persons as well as two scholarships of the Werner Richard-Dr. Carl Dörken-Foundation permitted him to exist as freelance composer. In the autumn of 2007 Stefan Heucke, who has been living in Bochum since 1996, was awarded the Hans-Werner-Henze-Prize of Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe. Stefan Heucke’s works are published at Schott Music. Radio recordings and audio productions document his manifold oeuvre. Tobias Bredohl (*1974 Münster, Germany) studied with Gregor Weichert at the Academy of Music Detmold, Dep. Münster. He has been internationally awarded, for example, second best of the Int. Piano Competition in Carlsbad/Czech Republic, at the Int. Schubert Competition Dortmund/Germany as well as placed third in the Int. Piano Competition Premio F. Durante Naples/Italy. He received the Young Artist Award of the GWK in Münster and performed second best at the Wartburg-Piano Competition Eisenach/Germany. Since 1995 Tobias Bredohl has been invited as a soloist and chamber musician to many European venues. Marko Kassl (*1976 Klagenfurt, Austria) studied at the Carinthian Provincial Conservatory with Mika Väyrynen and Roman Pechmann, with James Crabb at the Music Academy of Graz, and with Mie Miki – first at the Academy of Music Detmold, Dep. Dortmund, and afterwards at the Essen Folkwang Academy. He attended master classes i.a. of F. Lips, V. Dolgopolov, P. Gerter, M. Kern, and M. Rantanen. In 1998 he received the highest award of the Austrian Accordion Competition, in 2002 he performed second best in the 3. IAA Int. Accordion Competition in Tokyo/Japan, as well as he got the Young Artist Award of the GWK in Münster/Germany. He was given scholarships by i.a. the Richard-Wagner-Association as well as the Werner Richard-Dr. Karl Dörken-Foundation. As a soloist and chamber musician Marko Kassl performs all over Europe. He premiered works by composers like Stefan Heucke, Ivo Petric, Bruno Strobl, Wilfried Maria Danner, Chiel Meijering. Since 2007 he has been teaching at the Academy of Music Detmold.
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1. Tracing The Swabian folksong "Jetzt gang i ans Brünnele, trink aber net" which was discovered by Friedrich Silcher in 1822 in Schorndorf, in the Valley of Rems east of Stuttgart, and which was then added to his folksong collection, underlies the cycle. Schorndorf is the town where I was raised. 1. "Tracing" directly springs from Janácek in so far as the final chord of the tenth and last Janácek piece forms the initial chord of my piece. From this point of origin I musically start my search for my own history and homeland, finally – after some detours – finding the subtle trace of the above mentioned folk song. 2. In "Childhood" the folk song is circled by ethereally speckled harmonies actually without exactly occurring at all. But one could play the melody into the harmonic veil. Twice the subtle flow is interrupted by a heavy chord, a symbol of the dark and nightmarish sides of childhood. 3. "Do You Know the Land" expresses the search for homeland in foreign places, the longing for Italy, because: "where you are not, there is happiness". Being under way is made clear by continuously pulsating triplets, over which an emphatic melody rises that is developed from the folk song. 4. The central piece of the cycle is number four "BBB". Three father figures of German music – Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms – designate my intellectual homeland. This is conjured up with a complicated quadruple fugue construction which, initially, is generated from the themes about B-A-C-H, B-E-E-H-E (the musically utilisable letters of "Beethoven"), B-A-H-S ("Brahms"), and, finally, from a combination of all three themes together with the beginning of the folk song. The complex composition technique of just this piece is directly associated with the typical German technique of motivic development for which these three composers stand, in particular. 5. The title "We are Auschwitz" is an ironic allusion to the inhalt "We are Pope" which the German tabloid-newspaper BILD came up with after the election of Pope Benedict XVI. It is easy, as a German, to identify with Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Unfortunately, it is also compulsory, however oppressive, to identify with Auschwitz and to accept it as a part of "the German Homeland". The musical substance of the relentlessly driving quarter notes of this piece derives from my opera "Das Frauenorchester von Auschwitz" (The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz). Over that the folk song wheezes in a blur and dissonance, a symbol of "the abuse, corruption, and blackmail of all that was good, genuine, true, and trustworthy in our old Germany. For, liars and lickspittles mixed us a poison draught and took away our senses" (Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus, transl. by H.T. Lowe-Porter, Hammondsworth 1968). 6. "Lost" finally represents the homeland lost by the glaring misuse of the "homeland" term in National Socialism. The song has nearly vanished and only occurs at the very end of the piece in a very low position and in melodic inversion, rather sub- than emerging. 7. "From now on …" alludes to the perspective of a religious and spiritual homeland. The folk song is transformed into an imaginative 4-part chorale played by the accordion. Over this comes the piano, which picks up motives of the chorale in shimmering runs, trills, and embellishments – however in the D flat major key, which diametrically opposes the accordion’s G major. Thus, a floating, utopian, seemingly unreal duet evolves. 8. In the end, the folksong "Jetzt gang I ans Brünnele" occurs in the Epilogue – unalienated – only once, first alternately and then together performed by the two instruments in a very pure harmonization. Stefan Heucke
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