Waart, Edo de. 56 Wachmann, Eduard 56
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- Wernick, Richard
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Werner, Sven Erik(b Copenhagen, 21 Feb 1937). Danish composer and teacher. After completing studies in Danish and music at Copenhagen University in 1964, he worked until 1970 as programme secretary at Danish Radio. As a composer he was a late starter and essentially self-taught: he had one of his first compositions, the wind quintet Jubilus, accepted for performance at the 1968 Palermo festival. He was principal of the Fyn Conservatory in Odense between 1974 and 1989, during which period he founded the organization Funen Young Musicians (1982), and briefly, together with Poul Nielsen, edited the Dansk Musiktidsskrift (1972–4). He also served as a member of the National Music Council (1983–91), and from 1992 as chairman of the state-sponsored record company DaCapo. Werner’s extensive involvement in administration and in Danish cultural and musical debate has limited the volume of his production. His output nonetheless contains many substantial and personal works. While the most prominent influences on his music are those of Stockhausen and the Polish avant garde, Lutosławski especially, his works incorporate a variety of stylistic elements, and cover a wide range of genres. He has written works for both television (Cancer, 1970, and Formynderne, 1973–80) and the stage (Den Hellige Kommunion, 1972–3), as well as a number of educational works, such as the Twelve Tango Studies (1991–3) for accordion. Elements of Messiaen’s compositional techniques are found in Tie-Break (1984) for accordion ensemble and the choral work Hommage à Bruckner (1984), while Dramma giocoso (1982) pays homage to Mozart’s Don Giovanni. WORKS(selective list)
WRITINGS‘Cancer: et forsøg med billeder’ [Cancer: an experiment with pictures], DMt, xlvi (1971), 37–8 ‘Notat om ny kompositionsmusik’, DMt, lix (1984–5), 336–40 ‘ … efter postmodernism? Hvordan opfatter nordiske komponister deres placering i musikhistorisk sammenhaeng?’ [ … after postmodernism? How do Nordic composers see their position in the context of musical history?], DMt, lxiii (1988–9), 100–01 ‘Mellem Auschwitz og Venedig: Hommage à Witold Lutosławski (1913–94)’, DMt, lxix (1994–5), 74–83 ERIK H.A. JAKOBSEN
Wernick’s formative years were dominated by the pluralistic attitude of the 1960s. He has remarked, ‘I occasionally find 12-tone rows that have interesting characteristics and I work out all their permutations’, but has defined his general attitude as chordal-harmonic. His extensive output is dominated by large-scale works that reflect the influence of late Romantic forms and textures. His six string quartets adopt intensive quasi-Baroque contrapuntal devices, including cantus firmus techniques (String Quartet no.1, 1963) and elaborate fugatos (String Quartet no.5, second movement, 1996). His choice of texts for vocal and programmatic works has been guided by ideological messages. The Kaddish Requiem (1971), in memory of the victims of the Vietnam War, combines traditional mourning texts of Jewish and Christian services. Visions of Terror and Wonder (1978) alternates between verses from the Hebrew Bible, the Qu’ran and the New Testament, all of which call for peace. In the Viola Concerto (1986), Dylan Thomas’s verse Do not go gentle into that good night leads a rhythmically energetic concerto grosso texture into an ethereal slow movement that ends with an allusion to the children's rhyme This old man. Wernick’s style has been described as tonally referential, but based on fixed intervallic cells; a frequent reiteration of motivic-harmonic gestures is characteristic in works such as the Violin Concerto (1981–2) and the Second Symphony (1995). The piano sonata Reflections of a Dark Light (1982) is based on a limited harmonic vocabulary initially presented as a set of four chords built of minor 6ths and minor 3rds. His frequent cooperation with performers such as Jan de Gaetani, Lambert Orkis and Gregory Fulkerson has led to highly idiomatic compositions for the voice, piano and violin.
WORKS(selective list)
BIBLIOGRAPHYM.A. Rose: Unity in Diversity: the Synthesis of Compositional Approaches in Richard Wernick's Visions of Terror and Wonder (diss., Eastman School of Music, 1985) JEHOASH HIRSHBERG Directory: New%20Grove%20Dictionnary%20Of%20Music Download 14.95 Mb. Share with your friends:
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