Jörg Widmann

Widmann's 'Études' for solo violin are in the tradition of the caprices by Paganini and the piano studies by Chopin, Liszt and Ligeti: artistically autonomous concertante pieces on a specific technica...

'Ein Orakelspruch für sechs Kontrabässe' (An oracle for six double-basses) - this is how Widmann calls his composition which he wrote upon commission of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on the occasi...

My 2nd string quartet is one single slow movement. The piece does not directly reflect Joseph Haydn's Seven Last Words but I would not have been able to write it without knowing that work. The movemen...

The Jagdquartett (Hunt Quartet), which Jörg Widmann wrote as his third string quartet in 2003, following the Choralquartett, also begins with a visible gesture. After a short signal cry from the perfo...

This 'Suite' is not one of my 'epic' instrumental concertos such as the concertos for cello, violin or oboe, but a substantially smaller-structured series of dance forms arranged into a suite. Sunken...

After several pieces dealing with flow and mastery of a large-scale form, in 1997 I became fascinated by the idea of Bruch pieces: reduction, abridgement, concentration. The instruments I had grown fo...

Jörg Widmann, an internationally sought-after soloist and professor of clarinet at the Freiburg Musikhochschule, displays the exquisite refinement of contemporary clarinet sound in 'Fünf Bruchstücke'...

Widmann views in his 'Three Shadow Dances' again the clarinet from a completely different perspective and thereby encourages young clarinetists to develop an enthusiastic and playful approach to micro...

The sense of longing, characteristic of every elegy, is really made for the tonal world of the clarinet. In this attractive concert piece, however, it is 'loaded with barbed hooks', as the composer on...

Although I never had any 'official' lessons with him, Heinz Holliger has become and will always remain a lifelong teacher to me. And we have developed a friendship that started 10 years ago, in Davos,...

Jörg Widmann treats the violon at first as a vocal instrument, just in the tradition of the great violin concertos of the 19th century through to Alban Berg. But from the cantabile lines, often writte...

In 2006, Jörg Widmann composed these noble, deliberately simple cadenzas for Mozart's violin concerto as a commission from the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and violinist Isabelle van Keulen. In t...

In 2006, Jörg Widmann composed these noble, deliberately simple cadenzas for Mozart's violin concerto as a commission from the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and violinist Isabelle van Keulen. In t...

I wrote the first movement of my Sommersonate in the summer of 2010, and though a self-contained work, it called out for continuation or a companion piece. I imagine the first movement, marked moderat...

Jörg Widmann komponierte die Signale für sechs Stimmen anlässlich der Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik 2003 ohne die Verwendung eines konkreten Textes. Die einzelnen Stimmen behandeln rein phonetisc...

This virtuoso alienation of the 'Bavarian Defilier March', which is not only familiar to visitors of the Oktoberfest, is an avant-garde joke for the whole clarinet family. A Babylonian musical confusi...

Referring to Robert Schumann, the title sets the general mood of these character pieces which alternate between Romantic and contemporary tonal language. This is how the composer stresses it in his pr...

Widmann's Intermezzi are influenced by the famous cycles of Johannes Brahms (Op. 116 - Op. 119) which are cited quite frequently. In the preface of the edition, Widmann hints at its 'unsettling reduct...

'Fleurs du mal' ostensibly fits into the traditional pattern of the three-movement piano sonata and conforms to rudimentary sonata form. Yet the formal restrictions - including the predominance of the...

This piece was composed by Jörg Widmann for the Italian pianist Irene Russo in 2003. Consisting only of sharp pulse patterns and their lingering sound, it explores the tonal possibilities of the whole...