Heiner Goebbels

Experimental composer and director Heiner Goebbels entered the world in Neustadt, Germany, on August 17, 1952, and moved to the Frankfurt region at twenty to pursue studies in music and sociology. Recognition first arrived in 1976 when he introduced several pieces, among them “Rote Sonne,” “Circa,” and “Improvisations on Themes by Hanns Eisler,” the majority presented alongside the Sogenanntes Linksradikales Blasorchester. At the same time he worked with Alfred 23 Harth, and from 1982 onward he belonged to the enduring art-rock trio Cassiber. He broadened his catalog through additional scores for theater, film, and ballet, then in the mid-1980s began crafting and staging his own audio plays, drawing initial impetus from the writings of Heiner Mueller. His stage and concert works have collected numerous European honors.

In the mid-1980s Goebbels entered a non-exclusive agreement with Manfred Eicher’s ECM label. His first ECM release, Der Mann Im Fahrstul, came out in 1988. Two years later Schliemanns Radio – 12 Protokolle appeared on the independent Der Hörverlag imprint. He rejoined ECM in 1993 with SHADOW/Landscape with Argonauts, setting texts by Edgar Allan Poe and Heiner Mueller, while the same year saw the release of La Jalousie/Red Run/Herakles 2/Befreiung, recorded with Ensemble Modern. The three-disc Hörstücke, drawn from sessions spanning 1984 to 1990, surfaced in 1995 together with the new piece Ou Bien le Débarquement Désastreux. Black on White was issued by RCA Red Seal in 1997, marking Goebbels’s final publication of the twentieth century. Two of his recorded works have earned Grammy nominations, one of them in the Best New Contemporary Composition category.

The year 2000 brought the ECM premiere of Surrogate Cities, his first score for symphony orchestra, although the work had been finished in 1994. Eislermaterial followed in 2002, realized with Ensemble Modern and Josef Bierbichler. Landschaft mit Entfernten Verwandten appeared in 2007, and the Italian Concerto was released in 2009 by the independent I Dischi di Angelica/ReR Megacorp. Goebbels returned to ECM in July 2012 with Stifters Dinge, two months before the Norwegian Government presented him with the Ibsen Award in recognition of his groundbreaking contributions to musical theater.