Heinz Winbeck


Heinz Winbeck was a German composer, conductor and academic teacher. He is known for five large-scale symphonies, which he programmatically subtitled, such as "Tu Solus" and "De Profundis". As a composition teacher in Würzburg, he shaped a generation of students.

Career

Winbeck was born in a small village named Piflas, now part of Ergolding, close to Landshut in Lower Bavaria, into a family of farmers. He started his musical studies in 1964 at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich: piano with Magda Rusy and conducting with Fritz Rieger. From 1967 he studied conducting at the Musikhochschule München with Jan Koetsier and composition with Harald Genzmer and Günter Bialas, graduating with the Staatsexamen in 1973. After his studies, he was encouraged especially by Wilhelm Killmayer to find his personal style. Like Wolfgang Rihm and Manfred Trojahn, he turned to a Neue Einfachheit and subjectivity.
From 1974 to 1978 he worked as a composer and conductor at the Stadttheater Ingolstadt, also for the festival. In 1980 he taught at the Musikhochschule München. In 1981 he studied for half a year at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris on a scholarship from the State of Bavaria. In 1987 he taught ear training and music theory at the Musikhochschule München. In 1988 he was appointed professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg. Among his students were, the composer and pianist Rudi Spring and. Winbeck was composer in residence at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Cabrillo, California.
From 1991 Winbeck lived in Schambach near Riedenburg in Lower Bavaria, in a monastery that he and his wife Gerlinde modernised. He died on 26 March 2019 in a clinic in Regensburg.

Symphonies

Winbeck revived the genre of the symphony, motivated by the need for existential expression. He composed five large-scale symphonies between 1983 and 2011, comparable to the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. By giving them titles, he reflected topics such as history as a sequence of wars and cruelty, the guilt of the generation of his parents, endangered ecology, the loneliness of humanity in the cosmos, and facing near-death.
Winbeck's First Symphony was premiered in 1984 at the Donaueschinger Tage für Neue Musik and recorded by WERGO, combined with Winbeck's second string quartet, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken. Winbeck's Fifth Symphony "Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes" reflects sketches of Anton Bruckner's unfinished 9th Symphony. The work in three movements of about 55 minutes was played by the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies on 1 March 2010 at the Stift St. Florian. The same year Winbeck started a collaboration with the Landestheater Linz, which resulted in the ballet "Lebensstürme".
The composer commented on his way of composing:

Works

Winbeck's works are published by Bärenreiter.
Vocal
Symphonic works
Chamber music
In 1994 Heinz and Gerhilde Winbeck won a prize for the historical renovation by the Hypo-Foundation.