BOTH WORKS WERE WRITTEN FOR, AND PREMIERED BY, HERBERT HENCK This release celebrates the long collaboration between the great German pianist Herbert Henck and composer Walter Zimmermann. Zimmermann says “Beginner’s Mind is the result of my study of the contemporary European New Music scene. It is influenced on the one hand by Erik Satie, who wrote in the most simple way in the midst of a highly complex musical landscape, and on the other hand by John Cage, especially by the music of his “naive period” around 1950. … The piece represents the process from the “complex” to the “simple.” … The techniques of this process are derived from Shunryu Suzuki’s book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (1970) and are divided into three main chapters, analogous to the book: 1) Leave the old, 2) Clean the mind, 3) Alter the consciousness. The piece ends with the Beginner’s Mind Song, which articulates the new consciousness,” and is sung by the pianist. Both the vinyl LP and CD covers are facsimiles of the original LP cover. Apart from its ornate lettering, shining silvery-gray at the top, Michael von Biel’s cover design for the 1978 LP of Beginner’s Mind — which does not add the name of the composer, Walter Zimmermann — is empty, or white. The mind of anyone who wants to start anew should be blank. The CD reissue also includes Abgeschiedenheit (Detachment), released for the first time. Its influence comes from Meister Eckert, who Zimmermann sees as as a bridge from Cage to Zen to Europe. LP liner notes by Walter Zimmermann. The CD has liner notes by Zimmermann, Thomas Groetz, Christopher Fox and Monika Fürst-Heidtmann. Herbert Henck (b. 1948) Herbert Henck, born in 1948 in Treysa, Hesse, the son of a neurologist, only gradually developed into a “specialist for the music of the 20th century”. After his mother introduced him to the piano at an early age – “in a playful way” – and his son's unusual musical and pianistic talent soon became apparent, he attended the conservatory in Mannheim in 1959 with Gieseking student Doris Rothmund, who introduced him to Debussy and Ravel. Henck's career goal was decided at the latest after he won first prize at the Baden-Württemberg Piano Competition in 1965: After graduating from a humanistic grammar school, he began studying at the Stuttgart Musikhochschule in 1967. His piano teacher was Arno Erfurth, his composition teacher Helmut Lachenmann, who sometimes brought music by Stockhausen to his lessons. At the same time, Henck attended lectures by Erhard Karkoschka, “whose enthusiasm for new music was communicated to many of us at the time”. On Lachenmann's recommendation, Herbert Henck went to the Cologne University of Music in 1970 to study with Aloys Kontarsky, the pianistic protagonist of the “Mecca for New Music” at the time, whose teaching would soon prove to be extraordinarily fruitful. “Kontarsky had a great influence on me. He was a modern man and someone who had personal contact with composers. That permeated his teaching. He also quickly brought me into contact with Stockhausen. And to experience Stockhausen as a person, to hear him speak and not just his music from tapes or records, those were very important experiences. These were real artists I was dealing with, creative people who pursued ideals, which is something you are very receptive to as a young person.” The results of this encounter were his participation in the world premiere of Stockhausen's Goldstaub (Aus den sieben Tagen) recorded for Deutsche Grammophon in 1973. Henck's interpretation of the Piano Piece X, for him “one of the key experiences of new music, where completely new piano colors are developed through glissandi“, earned him the Kranichstein Music Prize in 1972. His first solo record, Charles Ives' Concord Sonata, was released by Wergo in 1978 – a brilliant start to a series of recordings that has since grown to over fifty. Henck's manual aplomb, his interpretative competence gained from thorough preparation and extensive knowledge, his intellectually and emotionally inspired, clear and lively playing soon made him one of the most internationally sought-after pianists for the music of the 20th century. Many composers entrusted him with world premieres, including Walter Zimmermann (Beginner's Mind), Wolfgang Rihm (Piano Piece No. 5) and György Ligeti (Piano Etudes 1 and 2). “Of course there is a certain pride in being the first, because that has something to do with originality. It is always a new beginning for an aesthetic experience, the outcome of which is uncertain and which, as a result, often involves a greater risk than further performances. But I don't get worked up about it.” — © Monika Fürst-Heidtmann Walter ZIMMERMANN: Beginner’s Mind, Abgeschiedenheit — Herbert Henck, piano. mode 346 Herbert Henck, piano Walter Zimmermann, composer Genres: Modern Classical