Kammersonate

The Kammersonate, for violin, cello and piano was composed in 1948 while Henze was working at the German theatre in Constance. It was the only chamber music written in a year which saw the composition of some of the composer's most acclaimed early works - including Wiegenlieder der Mutter Gottes ('Lullaby of the Blessed Virgin'), Das Wundertheater ('The Magic Theatre') and the solo cantata, Whispers from Heavenly Death - and gives clear evidence of the composer's instrumental skill already recognised in the First Symphony composed the previous year. Two richly polyphonic slow movements are flanked by a short introduction (light, detached, rhythmic), a short allegretto and a concluding Epilogo, a parting gesture recurring many times in the composer's music.