On 4–5 May, a symposium was held in Basel under the title “The Raft of Music: Hans Werner Henze on the 100th Anniversary of his Birth”, focusing on one of the most important composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
He used his music as a vehicle for excursions and forays into new realms; to the Mediterranean south and tropical Cuba, into diverse collaborative relationships with literary forms, onto the stages of musical drama, or into the formats of radio drama. Conceived and organised in collaboration between the Paul Sacher Foundation and the University of Basel, the symposium sought, just a few weeks before the centenary commemorative event, to present the composer Hans Werner Henze in the diversity of his new directions and collaborative relationships. Topics covered included the collaboration between music and literature, aspects of his enthusiasm for experimentation with genres and media aesthetics, and Henze’s significance for cultural life in a post-war Germany that was gradually becoming internationalised. The Paul Sacher Foundation holds the estate, the materials from which were incorporated into the joint project.
Elena Minetti, who worked as a research assistant on the DFG-funded Henze Digital project at the University of Paderborn, focused her lecture on Don Chisciotte della Mancia (1769 / 1976).