Mostly Symphonies 44: Heinz Winbeck’s Five

Grant Chu Covell

[August 2025.]

“The Complete Symphonies.” Heinz WINBECK: Symphony No. 1, “Tu Solus” (1983-85)¹; Symphony No. 2 (1985-86)²; Symphony No. 3, “Grodek” (1987-88)³; Symphony No. 4, “De Profundis” (1992-93)⁴; Symphony No. 5, “Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes” (2009-10)⁵. Christel Borchers^3,4 (alt), Günter Binge⁴ (bar), Werner Buchin⁴ (c-ten), Udo Samel³, Wolf Euba⁴ (speaker), Bruce Weinberger¹ (t-sax), Konzertchor Darmstadt⁴, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks¹, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien², Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin^3,5, Beethoven Orchester Bonn⁴, Muhai Tang¹, Dennis Russell Davies^2,4,5, Mathias Husmann³ (cond.). TYXart TXA17091 (5 CDs) (www.tyxart.de).

I started these remarks in 2020, having immensely appreciated Winbeck’s purely instrumental symphonies (Nos. 1, 2 and 5). The vocal symphonies (Nos. 3 and 4) proved harder to grasp (and not just because of the German texts), but I suspect they’re more emblematic of Winbeck’s preferred language.

If Nos. 3 and 4 were the only Winbeck symphonies I knew, I’d consider them remarkable, although anachronistic, despite their consistency and confidence. They are colossal statements. They also rattle at the edges with contradictions, folding quotations into a rigorous 21st-century dissonant language. Nos. 1, 2 and 5 are more stylized, also referencing other music (an understatement for the Bruckner-themed No. 5), occasionally incorporating minimalist characteristics. The instrumental symphonies give freer rein to their obsessions; they are bolder, even terrifying in what they accomplish.

Heinz Winbeck (1946-2019) is hardly a household name. But like Schnittke or Silvestrov, he takes a postmodern stance, boldly sifting through Austro-Germanic history and cobbling together music from its rubble. It is convenient to consider the five symphonies, a mature and varied series, in order. But any path through them is possible.

Before this release, Denk Ich an Haydn (1982) might have been Winbeck’s most accessible orchestral work (you can find it on YouTube). In three fragments, Winbeck ruminates on the Haydn tune which became the German national anthem. Musical gestures point to Viennese Classicism, however the structure is modern, and phrases proceed absent traditional harmonic logic. In the first part a treble tune weaves continuously, lightly ornamented with related material in overlapping tempos, but the tonality is questionable and its purpose unclear. The second and third parts gather a patchwork of Classical gestures with modern commentary as harmonies and phrases are layered and stretched.

Winbeck’s technique and orchestral prowess are in complete service to his ideas. Denk ich an Haydn may frustrate because it doesn’t consistently reference Haydn and doesn’t maintain a strong avant-garde outlook except for momentary pileups in the concluding section. In the years 1977-78, Winbeck started a symphony that was never finished. The first four of the five numbered symphonies were completed in relatively quick succession between 1983 and 1993, an impressive achievement considering their heft. Winbeck’s Fifth is his penultimate work, followed in 2011 by a ballet, Lebensstürme (after Schubert, of course).

We should ask why Winbeck employs the “symphony” label. As goes the famous anecdote, Mahler told Sibelius: “The symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything!” But perhaps the world was kinder and gentler back then. The ensuing world wars made the world smaller and reminded us how terrible mankind can be.

Why would someone bother with symphonies at the cusp of the 21st century? Surpassed only by opera productions, symphonies are nonetheless extravagant. A composer may choose to make a grandiloquent statement. Some try their tools on a bigger scale (most are not ready). Winbeck is more than up to the challenge, and he reminds us why symphonies matter. I believe that these five symphonies are great symphonies. As it suits, Winbeck fluently leverages earlier genres and styles, effortlessly impersonating Mahler, Berg or Bruckner. These symphonies are about war, death, and our messy world.

“All I can say is that I literally only put down on paper that which, were I not to do so, would cause me to explode.” —Heinz Winbeck

To say Winbeck’s Symphony No. 1, “Tu Solus” (1983; rev. 1985) begins aggressively is an understatement. The forceful tutti that assaults the listener is as close to giving a musical middle finger as can be imagined. Underpinned by antiphonal timpani and drums, a unison gesture built from an arpeggiated diminished triad repeats with subtle alterations in a steady pulse but in unpredictably varying durations. The onslaught eventually fades revealing a tender Mahler imitation (suggesting the Finale of Mahler’s Third). This pungent contrast surprises, and the 40-minute three-movement work lurches between these two poles.

The central part converts the martial hammering into frenzied restlessness. The opening harmony (diminished triads, tritones and minor thirds) remains crucial as do stray drumbeats. In the closing section, the Mahlerian tenderness tries to reestablish itself, even adding solo saxophone, but the initial violence snaps back. The symphony does not end optimistically.

The title “Tu Solus” references the Gloria, but also at face value means “you alone” or “you are alone.” The work is dedicated to Sophie Scholl (1921-1943) and others in the Weiße Rose who fought the Nazis. Winbeck revised No. 1 in 1985 and this final version was premiered on April 19, 1985, in the Munich Residenz, just blocks away from where Scholl was arrested decades earlier on February 18, 1943.

The April 1986 US bombing of Libya and the Chernobyl disaster were literally in the air, and on Winbeck’s mind, as he was completing his Second. In three parts, Symphony No. 2 (1985-86) can be heard independently or as a continuation of “Tu Solus.” No. 2’s first movement unfolds like an essay in background where delicate scrims of busy strings, held winds, celesta and electric piano slither. Its title is “Praeludium. Mors est quies viatoris – Finis est omnis laboris…” (“Death is the resting place of the wanderer – it is the end of all hardship…”). Through layering and shifting themes and tempos, no dominant motifs emerge. Like the First, the Second oscillates between contrasting material and epochs. This time the curtain pulls back to reveal Schumann bits (from Piano Sonata No. 1 and perhaps Frisch from Davidsbündlertanze, Op. 6, No. 8) and Bach.

If the first movement is a study on indirectness and unassertiveness, the second movement reacquaints us with action and purpose (“Quasi una fuga. Non in commotione, non in commotione est dominus…” or “Like a fugue / flight. Not in the movement, not in the movement is the Lord…”). The entire movement is obsessed with a snappy rhythm duplicating the same formulation found in Winbeck’s Third String Quartet (1984), “Jagdquartett” (“The Hunt”). But we’re not dressed in country clothes galloping over the hills pursuing foxes: We are the hunted. Just as the First was perpetually looking back in fear as if it was about to be overtaken, so the Second’s central movement represents the pursued.

The Second’s last movement starts from an entirely different place: A gorgeous Mahlerian Adagio gains a foothold but is eventually drowned out by a percussion crescendo. Here Winbeck takes his sweet time to build an Adagio and then wear it away with a slowly building percussion barrage. The third movement is titled “Choral. In omnibus requiem quaesivi et nusquam inveni…” or “Everywhere I have sought peace, but nowhere have I found it….” The first and last movements have the same tempo indication: “Sospeso, come in ipnosi” (“Suspended, as in hypnosis”). No. 2’s live recording concludes with cathartic applause.

Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 are distinct, however the similarity in vocabulary is unmistakable. Both symphonies develop or repeat contemporary material over something borrowed and Romantic (Mahler, Schumann, etc.). Foreground and background become indistinguishable, and percussion plays an essential role. In both symphonies, there are repetitions which border on mania: No. 1’s opening tritone / diminished triad gesture, the perpetual rhythm in No. 2’s middle movement.

You could say Winbeck extended treasured remnants from “Tu Solus” in his Second Symphony, or both symphonies represent related solutions to similar musical situations. The chronology bears this out: Between 1982 and 1986, Winbeck completed four pieces: Denk ich an Haydn, Symphony No. 1, String Quartet No. 3 and Symphony No. 2.

I admire Nos. 1 and 2’s audacity but am more impressed by the skill and humanity of Symphony No. 3. “Grodek” (1987-88) starts conventionally with flourishes and fanfares, and scant quotations or references. The material seems more intricate, less stylized. As said before, I believe Nos. 3 and 4 are “real” Winbeck.

Winbeck had long considered setting Georg Trakl’s “Grodek” perhaps the poet’s most significant poem and possibly his last before he overdosed at 27. Winbeck approaches the poem rather brilliantly, providing an alto voice with Trakl lines that prefigure the poem’s themes and having “Grodek” recited.

Symphony No. 3 is a military symphony, but there are no triumphs: Like the poem, the symphony expresses the agony and misery of war. Winbeck’s intention was to infiltrate Trakl’s universe and the Austro-Germanic music of the time.

As No. 3 marches along, the atmosphere begins to feel familiar as tiny recognizable bits briefly flit in and out of focus. There are flashes, skillfully appearing and dissipating, of Mahler (a variation on a theme from the Ninth’s Rondo-Burleske), Webern (Op. 6, No. 4) and Berg. While Wozzeck has more to do with war than Lulu, motifs of the latter appear at critical points.

The sung texts are fragments, non-narrative, non-linear, and with the feverishly organized music creates an opulent environment from which the spoken poem emerges inevitably and logically.

Just as the First and Second can be paired, so can the Third and Fourth. Although, No. 4 is the largest of all with three vocal soloists, reciter, chorus and tape. The symphony opens with German speech, adding a soft whirr of chorus, organ and pre-recorded sounds. The solo voices’ first entry is accompanied by the snap of sticks.

Symphony No. 4, “De Profundis” (1992-93) is an unnerving Requiem on a grand scale. Texts are from the Requiem mass, Trakl again, and anonymous 19th-century sources. As with the preceding symphonies, Winbeck represents the pursued or suffering. This work is perhaps the most personal, as it was written as the composer’s mother was dying.

This time, quotations represent Winbeck’s memories. Out of dark and dissonant textures, the Scherzo from Beethoven’s Ninth emerges in the third movement, “De profundis.” Few scores match the pain and anguish found in Winbeck’s “Dies irae.” Scenes of complete terror are contrasted with paradoxical moments, such as the rosy triad concluding the “Tuba mirum.”

Winbeck’s Fourth does not end jubilantly but dissipates like a machine losing power. The strings shake their way into a stop, incorporating the end of Winbeck’s Second String Quartet (1979), the piece Winbeck wrote when his father had died.

“Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes” (“Now and in the hour of death”) is Winbeck’s thoughtful yet idiosyncratic response to the sketches of the last movement of Bruckner’s Ninth. Winbeck’s Symphony No. 5 should have appeared here, but this recording was not yet available. It’s not a Ninth or Finale completion, however, but a three-part fantasy in the spirit of the Austrian symphonist. Winbeck uses the sketches to imagine what Bruckner may have felt when he realized he was never going to complete his Ninth.

The movements or “fragments” do not neatly align with Bruckner’s designs or any classical symphony. We start with tolling bells which had appeared briefly in No. 4. There is nothing like a Scherzo (despite a brisk triple-time section which never repeats and lacks a Trio), the slow movement launches grandly but soon wanders (including a blunt quotation of the Crucifixus from Bach’s B-Minor Mass). The concluding movement is not a Rondo or sonata form but a spectacular crescendo and resolving diminuendo capped with a wry joke.

Winbeck has mastered Bruckner’s orchestral handling. However, Bruckner’s eight-bar phrasing is ignored, with dissonance aplenty, incongruous phrase lengths, and jarring transitions. Bruckner would never have used a snare drum, string glissandos or harmonics, or isolated drumbeats for emphasis. Although the Ninth’s draft had provided the spark, I found it closer in spirit to earlier Bruckner, such as No. 3. I caught a fanfare from the Fourth, a steadying gesture from the Eighth’s Finale, and there are undoubtedly more quotes and similarities. Winbeck states that there are Götterdämerung bits too. There are plenty of astonishing moments, such as the fugal parts in II, which momentarily behaves like a big Bruckner Finale, and the unanticipated Viennese waltz which closes the whole tableaux.

Winbeck does not approach Bruckner’s harmonic complexity. As much as we may grumble about Bruckner’s scale, the older composer did adhere to specific designs and structures, whereas Winbeck strolls about, offering expositions, favorite movements and capricious transitions. It’s great fun to be swept along on this ride.

There is an earlier recording of the First (Wergo WER 6509-2, with String Quartet No. 2). Dennis Russell Davies leads the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken in a deliberate performance (44:36 compared to 39:00) that delivers less menace.

With its varied forces, the Fourth is perhaps the hardest to record. This release ensures the vocal soloists are heard at the orchestra’s expense. Here and there we catch a slow-moving string background, like something from Ives’ Fourth or Unanswered Question (though note that nearly all Winbeck derives from the Austro-Germanic tradition), but details are smudged. For probably practical reasons, the symphonies’ recordings have internal divisions suggesting different structures than what’s indicated on the composer’s website.

I rarely gush with superlatives, but these five are as great a cycle as one could hope for. It should take me less than five years to bring attention to a recent recording of Winbeck’s string quartets (on Genuin) and a new recording of Lebensstürme (Sonus Eterna). It appears Winbeck has yet to be discovered.