Heinz Holliger (Foto: Priska Ketterer)

Focus Contemporary - Heinz Holliger in a portrait

Curious and radical, this brief description of Heinz Holliger – the musician, the composer, the oboist, and yes, the great, one-time artist – is quite justified. Always on the border, probably beyond, is where Holliger finds inspiration, where he finds stories, which he shares with us, thanks to his works. «Music takes place only at the borders. There's nothing in the middle that interests art», says Holliger.

And who replaces music with life, with fate, is not wrong with Heinz Holliger. The smooth does not suit him. He finds inspiration in a writer like Robert Walser, the romantic Nikolaus Lenau – to whom he dedicated his youngest opera – and in the Art Brut painter Louis Soutter. Soutter is cousin of Le Corbusier and finds his way around in life only insufficiently. But he is talented. As a violinist, he plays under Ernest Ansermet in the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and eventually becomes a painter. To him the violin concerto is dedicated which Patricia Kopatchinskaja interprets on the violin.

With «Romancendres» for violoncello and piano another significant work by Heinz Holliger is on the program: on the cello the solo cellist of the TOZ Anita Leuzinger, who is also a companion of Holliger.

Finally, the «Sinfonie in einem Satz» by Bernd Alois Zimmermann will be heard. Heinz Holliger for whom many great composers of the last century have composed, among them Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, Hans Werner Henze or György Ligeti will conduct the concert.

published: 14.11.2019

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