Sonata for Oboe, Piano, and Male Voices

More than one composer has been moved to create music in memory of Holocaust victims. Tonight we are honored to feature German composer Stefan Heucke’s Sonata for oboe, piano, and male voices. The Sonata was completed in 2009 for the American oboist Susan Eischeid and would be dedicated to the memory of homosexuals murdered during the era of National Socialism. In particular, Heucke focused on a list of 314 homosexual victims held at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp just north of Berlin. As the composer notes:

The piece was initially planned as a pure instrumental work until Susan suggested to include a vocal element, perhaps a choir. I could not settle on a way to achieve this combination, and I preferred to stay with an instrumental texture. But then I had a real inspiration that led to a breakthrough in the genesis of the finale, giving it a whole new face. Before this happens, however, there are two fairly conventional sonata movements that are, nevertheless, deeply charged with semantic meaning. Thus one could give the programmatic title “Premonitions” to the first movement, which bears the tempo and character designation “Not fast but in fluid motion.” The aggressive second movement, marked “Fast, hard, hammering,” could be titled “Persecution,” whereas the third finally could be named simply “Lament.” I have consciously renounced these titles in the score, in order to leave the associations of the players and listeners free scope, because the meaning of the music also opens up by itself. The emotionally touching world premiere took place in San Francisco in 2010 featuring oboist Susan Eischeid and pianist Maila Guiterrez Springfield.

(c) Jason Stell and Stefan Heucke