Enjott Schneider: Metamorphosen

‘Metamorphosen’ is the first in a series of ten recordings of the music of Enjott Schneider on the Wergo label. Schneider is a German businessman, composer, musicologist and music educator. As a composer he is known for his film work, having won the Bavarian Film Award in 1990, the Filmband in Gold in 1991 and the Deutscher Fernsehpreis in 2007. The four compositions on this CD all refer to four historical models: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Wagner, Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann.

‘Ein ewig Rätsel will ich bleiben’ was composed for the 125th anniversary of the death of the Bavarian fairy-tale king Ludwig II. The piece combines the idioms of Richard Wagner with a free musical narrative style.

‘Ein feste Burg’ [A Mighty Fortress] was conceived as a companion piece to Felix Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony.

‘Florestan & Eusebius’ is a one-movement work for orchestra that depicts Schumann’s psychic fragmentation into a schizophrenic dual personality that led to his final days in the mental asylum at Endenich: Florestan is the vital and energetic youth; Eusebius is the soft and almost feminine poet.