The Konzertchor Darmstadt and Wolfgang Seeliger will receive a very special award this coming weekend: On October 18, 2020, the Konzertchor Darmstadt and its director Wolfgang Seeliger will be awarded the Opus Klassik Music Prize in the category "World Premiere Recording of the Year" at the Berlin Konzerthaus. The Konzertchor, which is known far beyond the borders of Darmstadt, collaborated on the complete recording of Heinz Winbeck's Symphonies 1 to 5. Heinz Winbeck (1946 - 2019) is an internationally renowned German composer whose large symphonic orchestral works have been described as "intense, tense and uncompromising."
He is considered a composer who brought the symphonic form "to new life with inner truthfulness, existential urgency and technical aplomb. Last year, the TYXart label issued Winbeck's five symphonies in a CD cassette. This premiere recording features the Darmstadt Concert Choir conducted by Wolfgang Seeliger, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Muhai Tang, the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Mathias Husmann, and the Beethoven Orchester Bonn conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, as well as well-known soloists.
In this complete recording, the Konzertchor Darmstadt has designed the choral part for the recording of Heinz Winbeck's 4th Symphony. This oversized work features vocal soloists (alto, baritone, countertenor), narrator, organ and tape, as well as a 16-part choir and large orchestra. Despite this gargantuan cast size, the 80-minute symphony is considered the work in which Winbeck departed more stylistically from his great models Mahler, Berg, and Bruckner than in his other symphonies.
