DES KAISER NEUE KLEIDER
2008
8 min.
Flute solo
commissioned by and dedicated to Helmut Trawöger
premiere: Bad Schallerbach, 31.8.2010
published by Doblinger Vienna
Fulte Magazine review:
This work is based on Haydn's Emperor's, composed as a reflection on the concept of power. Haydn's musid is occasionally quoted through the piece, and is surrounded by Berauer's contemporary compositional style. He uses a plethora of techniques, such as tongue rams, key clicks, air sounds, whistle tones and over blowing to give effective alterations of colour and percussive attacks. There is a sense of freedom and rubato in the writing, and the piece is notated without bar lines. This is a challenging work which puts Haydn's work into an interesting context and could make a fascinating recital addidtion.
(Carla Rees, FLUTE MAGAZINE, Sept. 2011)
Program Notes:
Why does Haydn compose a hymn for the emperor? Maybe one should take this as an idealization of the positive principles of ruling: strength, potency, presence, responsibility, self-confidence, generosity, vision ... and „power for ...“. Unfortunately „power for ...“ is most often abused as „power over ...“. The consequence of power abuse are oppression, persecution, torture, death, ...
Haydn’s imperial Song has encountered both in its history: idealism and fanatism.
The composition is to a large extent a lament (developed from the Imperial Song’s inversion – i.e. the inversion of the power principle), commemorating the many human beings who have to suffer and die from the abuse of power.
However, the original form of the song does time and again peep through and gives rise to the hope that people someday realize the principle of an „emperor“ within themselves and stop projecting it onto other persons. Self-consciousness, accepting one’s own nature, courage and strength to apply it to one’s life, as well as responsibility and the circumspectness to do this for the benefit of all would be the result of this utopia.
Thus the title „The Emperor’s New Cloths“. The „emperor“, i.e. the principle of „power“, needs new vestments.