Peter von Wienhardt
*5 May 1966
Works by Peter von Wienhardt
Biography
Peter von Wienhardt is a pianist, composer and arranger and recently he has been devoting a significant amount of his time to conducting.
It is one of his distinctive characteristics; to continuously seek out or create new trends in music. Over time improvisation, re-arrangement and cadence have become an integral part of not only his daily life but also his art and composing. The search for meaning and character of music is the central element of his work.
In his concerts he shares his philosophy as well as musical and cultural contexts of the works verbally with his audience. His technical and sight-reading skills have enabled him to build an enormous repertoire taking into account off the beaten path works.
As a performer, composer, arranger of music Peter von Wienhardt is committed to the underlying intention of the piece and as a conductor he strives to serve the orchestra or the musician. He employs the musicians as a tool to breathe life into a piece and honor it with the expression and love it deserves. Every piece is approached with creativity; its various sources range from analytical organization, structure, re-arrangement to spontaneous response to the space, situation and audience. Peter von Wienhard does not shy away from the "seemingly impossible", "unperformable" or extremely complicated works. On the contrary he welcomes the challenge to clarify insane compositions or confusing processes for the audience. Whether Renaissance or Contemporary works he firmly believes that "every work deserves to be performed at least once as intended by the composer and let history make its choice after that.”
As a composer and arranger his works mostly arise from the need to be played in a concert. Almost none of his works are written just to be written, they all are comissioned or driven by (sometimes) urgent concert situations.
Peter had never really composition classes, nevertheless he had during his studies a lot of exchange and excursions to musical aesthetics with Helmut Lachenmann, Ulrich Suesse, Joachim Kaiser, Erhard Karkoschka and Mirko Kelemen.
Peter von Wienhardt played in virtually all known concert halls of the world as a soloist and chamber musician. To name a few outside Germany: Goldener Saal - Vienna, Smetana Hall - Prague, Franz Liszt Conservatory - Budapest, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra Hall - large hall, Suntory Hall - Tokyo, Seoul Sejong Arts Hall & Hall - Soul, Salle Gaveau - Paris La Fenice - Venice, Atheneul - Bucharest, Carnegie Hall - New York, Bellas Artes - Mexico City. Peter of Wienhardt traveled to more than 120 countries as a musician and is probably one of the few who gave a concert in the same year both in Greenland and in the Antarctic, (not just for the penguins).
Through the intense cooperation with numerous orchestras, Peter von Wienhardt grew into the role of conducting the orchestra himself. He has cooperated as a soloist or conductor with: Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttart, European Music Festival, Festival Orchestra of Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, Radio Philharmonic Bucharest, Classical Philharmonic, Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester, Korean Chamber orchestra, German Philharmonie Bonn and many more. In 2017 he founded his own orchestra: the „philharmonica westfalica"
Peter received many awards (including Bartok, Cziffra Liszt, German Music Council, Echo Klassik, etc.) and published thirteen recordings as a soloist, with orchestras and as a chamber musician. His latest CD “Rhapsody” has been well received by critics. Since 2006 Peter von Wienhardt holds a professorship for Piano and Crossover in Münster and is director of the Aaseerenaden Münster, one of the best classical open-air festivals in Germany. Also he is also the new artistic director of the International Music Festival Mittelrhein.
Peters compositions and arrangements are performed worldwide with a high success. As an example the year 2019 should be mentioned. Three CDs were produced with his arrangements/compositions. They were recorded by: WDR Orchestra, Münchner Kammerorchester, London Symphony with soloist like Arabella Steinbacher and Anne Akiko Meyers.
About the music
The most of my compositions are arrangements. They rarely arise randomly, usually they are influenced through concert necessities, sometimes my concert necessities. Nevertheless in the last ten years the requests are getting more and so i try also to tailor some works exactly to the needs of the musician who asked.
There is absolutely no limit in style. As Schnittke once said: "My style is the style brake"
But it is different with arrangements. There are basically two ways. 1: Transmitting all notes exactly in the designated instrumentation. 2: Some kind of a recomposition (like f.e: Zenders "Winterreise") I like both very much, but i prefer definitely the first way, even though i have to fill sometimes some "missing" notes with the "fitting".
Sometimes my original works sound like Schubert, sometimes like Henze. But i found out that i have a musical home of "sound quality" and "instrumentation quality" not to talk about "harmonic extensions". This is somewhat the music and the symphonic sound of the compositions between 1880-1940.
My compositions/arrangements mature in my head, until i have the feeling, it is overloaded; this is the moment i sit down and write it down. The writing itself happens insane fast.