In den Wäldern des Lebens
Orchestral work with surviving film material.
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The dramatic idea
In den Wäldern des Lebens — In the Forests of Life — is a tone poem for orchestra with two actors after Goethe’s poems Gefunden and Nähe des Geliebten.
The young male character is conceived as naïve but intelligent, surprised and fascinated by life and natural beauty: a Prince without a Princess and, as yet, without self-doubt. His good intentions coexist with the assumption that everything he sees is there for his benefit.
The female character is the opposite: pensive, inward-looking and marked by the absence of the person she loves. The words should be heard clearly but without a heavy declamatory manner. Where the young man looks boldly upwards towards an unknown future, she looks downwards in reflection.
The work was commissioned for the orchestra of the Graz Music University in Oberschützen and first performed at the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt on 28 May 2011.