Henze - Being Beauteous; Kammermusik

The Guardian 100

Prohaska/Gijsberten/Ruck/NDR SO/Ruzicka
(Wergo)

This brings together two of Hans Werner Henze’s most rapturously lyrical works, both completed in the same year, 1963. Being Beauteous is a 15-minute cantata for coloratura soprano, harp and four cellos, setting Rimbaud’s poem of the same name from his cycle Les Illuminations, and surrounds the spiralling, helium-high soprano lines with velvety cello harmonies and delicate harp adornments. Soprano Anna Prohaska captures its strange, fragile, ecstatic quality perfectly.