Jörg Widmann

Web: http://www.joergwidmann.com/vita-en.html
See also: http://www.schott-music.com/

The Robert Schumann Award for Poetry and Music 2018 goes to Jörg Widmann

Jörg Widmann, a member of the Schumann Forum since 2014, receiving the Robert Schumann Prize for Poetry and Music 2018 of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz, which will also be the venue of the ceremonial event on 8th November 2018. The laudation is held by the former long-time director of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and violinist Professor Clemens Hellsberg.
http://www.adwmainz.de/

JörgWidmann is awarded the new Music Prize of the music festival “Heidelberger Frühling”, March 2013

Festival Director Thorsten Schmidt substantiated the choice of the first prize winner in the following way: “’Die Zukunft muss das höhere Echo der Vergangenheitsein.’ [‘The future has to be the higher echo of the past’.] This quotation by Robert Schumann seems to be an essential statement about the musical life of the great Schumann lover JörgWidmann.”

Cf. http://www.blasmusik.de/

(Translation: Thomas Henninger)

What does the clarinetist Jörg Widmann listen to on his iPod?

“Nothing” (He does not have one). In case he had one, then…

• 1. Carl Maria von Weber “Der Freischütz” [“The Freeshooter”]
  (in the recording with Carlos Kleiber and the Staatskapelle Dresden orchestra).
  A reference recording. Von Weber is underrated as a composer!
• 2. Miles Davis “Decoy”
  Such harmony! Such liberty! Such magic!
• 3. W.A. Mozart “Gran Partita”with Wilhelm Furtwängler
  (and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra)
  Pure sentimentality! I grew up with this recording.
• 4. Arnold Schönberg“Kammersymphonie No. 1” [“Chamber Symphony No. 1”]
  (with the Asko Ensemble, conducted byReinbert de Leeuw)
  An urgent plea for this ground-breaking work.
• 5. Robert Schumann “Violinkonzert” [“Violin Concerto”]
  (withGidon Kremer and NikolausHarnoncourt)
  To me, the most beautiful slow movement of the 19^th century.

Cf. http://www.crescendo.de/ (29.3.2012)

(Translation: Thomas Henninger)