Hindemith Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival
The Austrian composer Bernd Richard Deutsch is the winner of this year's Hindemith Prize. Born in 1977 in Mödling, he studied composition at the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna from 1995 until 2003. Participation at several workshops and summer academies rounded off his studies. Bernd Richard Deutsch, who has already received a number of prizes and awards for his work, lives in Vienna as a freelance composer.
The awards ceremony will take place on 21 July 2014 in Reinbek during the course of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. The Nathan Quartet will perform the String Quartet No. 2 by Deutsch as well as Hindemith's “Ouverture zum Fliegenden Holländer, wie sie eine schlechte Kurkapelle morgens um 7 am Brunnen vom Blatt spielt” for String Quartet.
How did you happen upon composing?
I developed a great love of music very early on, and thus began to occupy myself with the music of the Viennese Classicists. From there, I covered the entire history of music, especially that of the 19th and 20th centuries. From this occupation, there gradually arose the desire to become creative myself and to make my own music. Since I did not play any musical instrument at that time, these creative processes only took place in my head at first: when I heard music, I always tried to imagine how I would then continue composing. I made my first real attempts at composition when I was 15 years old.
Which impulses did you receive at the outset of your work as a composer?
During the years of my studies in Vienna, the composers of the Second Viennese School were important, of course - most of all Alban Berg. On the other hand, I have always occupied myself intensively with Igor Stravinsky. I do not at all sense the polarity that was seen for a long time between Stravinsky and the Schönberg School; rather, I try to make both sides of this coin fruitful for myself.
What is your relationship to Paul Hindemith?
My first contact with the music of Hindemith was the production of "Cardillac" at the Vienna State Opera, which I saw in the early 1990s. This work has fascinated me very much ever since then. I became acquainted with other works of Hindemith later on, including the Bassoon Sonata, which I played during the course of my bassoon studies. And Hindemith's "Elementary Training for Musicians" served as teaching material at the Conservatory, i.e. was with me from very beginning.
The Hindemith Prize of the SHMF goes together with a composition commission. Can you already tell us something about the new piece?
The commission was given for a chamber work with a maximum of four musicians. In accordance with this specification, I intend to write a piece for two pianos and two percussionists. This instrumental combination is not pure chance: Hindemith, after all, wrote about his "Rag Time" from the Suite "1922" for piano: "Regard the piano here as an interesting kind of percussion instrument and treat it accordingly."
What are your plans for the future?
At the moment, I am working on a Concerto for Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba and Orchestra that will be performed in October 2014 at the Vienna Musikverein. After that, I will compose a Concerto for Organ and Orchestra commissioned by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Both projects, incidentally, also have a connection to Hindemith: with his series of wind sonatas, he was one of the pioneers in treating wind instruments such as the trombone and tuba as soloists, and his wonderful Organ Concerto composed in 1962 is one of the very few great works for this combination.
Interview: Susanne Schaal-Gotthardt
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