Description
The four "Poemas de Heidelberg" were written in Heidelberg in the first year of the Corona crisis between August 2020 and March 2021. They are dedicated to four friends of the composer Martin Münch who had or have their centre of life in Heidelberg. The poetic sound pictures are short character pieces inspired by the external beauty of the city and selected, distinctive places. The total performance time of the work - which is remotely sonata-like in conception, despite the song-like structure of its parts - is just under six minutes.
The introductory Tango suave is, on the one hand, a lingering homage to the world of tango, which the composer was able to get to know in detail during his South American years on the Rio de la Plata from 2016 to 2020, and, on the other hand, a reflection of the gratifying discovery that tango is also highly alive in Heidelberg. This unexpected tradition is symbolised by the beautiful Art Nouveau town hall (not mentioned in the title).
The castle (el castillo) is a bow to what is probably the most famous symbol of the city and possibly of the whole of German Romanticism. The momentarily gloomy impression of the ruins is transformed into a flowing, apotheotic mood in the central section.
A short scherzo resurrects the lively, promising and sometimes tense mood of the Neckar meadow with its beautiful embedding in the cityscape on the river, while the concluding hymn allows the listener to gaze at the Old Bridge with its majestic location and architecture.
In this short cycle, too, the pianist has the demanding task of working out the peculiarities of the respective parts and themes in a profiled manner between impressionistic sound frenzy, harmonic intricacies and delicate alienations, and nevertheless ensuring a coherent overall impression in this heterogeneity.