Description
The tale of Hans Winterberg (1901ā91) is a strange one. A survivor of the TerezĆn concentration camp, where he had been interned as a Czech Jew, he settled in Munich after the War as a German citizen, and his music enjoyed a number of broadcasts ā but with his death his estate disappeared into a legal limbo, emerging only in 2015. This first album of his piano music reveals an unusual and individual voice, an idiosyncratic blend of JanĆ”cek, Ravel, Schoenberg and other mid-twentieth-century masters, animated by a hard-edged, freewheeling energy and grim humour reminiscent of his close contemporary, Nikos Skalkottas. Brigitte Helbig, who grew up in Munich and also studied there, is one of Germanyās livelier young pianists, with a respectable track record in the performance of new music.