Description

Seeking with the soul the land of our longing, as Goethe put it, became sorely needed in times of the second huge Covid lockdown in spring 2021. I remembered Italy daydreaming half asleep in the morning. Short miniatures arose to life like sending myself daily postcards. At the end there was a whole album of postcards. Like Schumann´s “Album for the Youth” it had a first section with youthful subjects, and a second one with more adult themes. The first part “Elba” reflects holiday memories from my youth, a dreamlike discovering of “la bella vita” in Italy. The second part concerns some memories of Rome and Lazio, some of them in Hans Werner Henze´s villa, from a time, that was musically and personally formative.

Jobst Liebrecht, 20.2.2023

In the middle of the Corona lockdown, Jobst Liebrecht called me and said he had gone on a fantasy trip to Italy. Quote: „I keep hearing the sound of the accordion.“ How wonderful. Here is the resulting version of the postcard pieces, slightly adapted for the accordion. The premiere was played at the Klangwerkstatt and neuköllner originaltöne festivals in 2022 and 2023 by the young accordionists Pheline Abraham, Noga Baake, Rubina Cvjetkovic, Elliot Etter, Raphael Kopp, Annika Li, Isabel Sava, Joris Schmidt, Lara Sommer and Bela Sporrer.

Gerhard Scherer, 9.4.2024