Three large works by Hans Zender, each for divided forces: Dialog mit Haydn for two pianos and three orchestral groups, Issei no kyō (Song of One Note) for soprano and orchestra, and Nanzen no kyō, Canto VII, for four choral and instrumental groups. The disc gathers the two lines that run through Zender's music, a dialogue with music history and an engagement with East Asian thought, and it includes first recordings.
Zender was born in Wiesbaden on 22 November 1936 and died in Meersburg on 23 October 2019. He worked as both conductor and composer, and in his later years composing came first. He was also a teacher and an author with wide interests in the arts, cultures and philosophy. In Dialog mit Haydn the soloists are Hermann Kretzschmar and Ueli Wiget, with the Bundesjugendorchester conducted by Zender himself. Claron McFadden sings Issei no kyō with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln under Johannes Kalitzke, and the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln joins for Nanzen no kyō. The recordings are productions of MDR and WDR.
Dialog mit Haydn (1982) was commissioned by the Südwestfunk and first performed at the Donaueschinger Musiktage on 17 October 1982 by the SWF orchestra under Kazimierz Kord. It takes a concrete model from music history and rebuilds it in two parts, headed Präsentation and Dialog, with the orchestra split into three groups around the two pianos. Issei no kyō, from 2008-10, is a song in four parts built around a single tone. Both it and the Haydn piece use microtonality. Nanzen no kyō (1992) sets four groups of singers against four instrumental groups, with flutes, clarinets, brass, two pianos, percussion and a small string group. Its six sections alternate frames, rotations and lines. It was premiered in Cologne in the Musik der Zeit series on 11 June 1993.
Zender gave long thought to harmony, partly because he found equal temperament increasingly insufficient. He organised the harmonic and overtone series into a system for performers, an ordered structure that brings tempered and pure intervals together. The Japanese titles belong to a series of kyō pieces that also includes Muji no kyō (1974) and Fūrin no kyō (1988-89). The label notes that all three works here share a humorous, ironic undertone.
CD, Wergo WER 7339 2, released in 2017.
