Henze: Being Beauteous - Kammermusik 1958

Hans Werner Henze, whose childhood and youth was overshadowed by the Nazi era and war experiences, in his own lifetime was a legend. He was at the beginning of his musical career as an outsider in the West German post-war scene, even though (or because) he was at that time one of the most frequently performed composers. From the musical avant-garde, he was cut and was considered a "traitor", which means "a completely senseless" reproach in the eyes of the composer. Henze followed seemingly undeterred an inner quest for compositional individuality. The cantata "Being Beauteous" after the same prose poem Arthur Rimbaud wrote Henze in 1963 immediately after his first trip to the USA. In Manhattan and Harlem, the composer had experienced the clash of opposites between rich and poor. These experiences - the threat to the life, even that of his classical ideal of beauty in the tension between abundance and decay - he found in Rimbaud's poem from the cycle "Les Illuminations" pre-formulated.