Windhagauer, Horst Rudolf

Windhagauer, Horst Rudolf

Suite en miniature for Viola and Piano, 2012/WN 1

Horst Rudolf Windhagauer
Horst Rudolf Windhagauer was born in 1955 at Gmunden/Austria and grew up in Nuremberg, a city in nothern Bavaria. Since 1998 he lives with his family in Bamberg.
He studied Violoncello, piano and composition in Nuremberg and Wuerzburg with Claus Reichardt and Prof. Julius Berger. He was a member of several ensembles for chamber music, so the „Trio elegiáque“, the „Arpa Trio“ and the „Cello quartet of Nuremberg“.
Since 1998 he was the leader of the cellist group at the „Chamber orchestra of Bamberg“.
In 2016 he created the „Quartetto cellistico Bamberg“. For this ensemble he wrote and adapted a number of pieces.
Several works for chambermusic he wrote during the years of 2012 until 2017 for the international wellknown ensemble the „Giocoso Quartett“.
Since 1988 he his a teacher for cello at the Highschool for music in Erlangen.
As a student for composition with Gottfried Muller, who was an expert for the music of Bach, he developed as a composer – during many years – a very personal style of music, which lies between his baroque idols, a moderate modern style and the late Richard Strauss.

Suite en miniature
2012 /WN 1
Prologue – Larghetto con moto
Serenade – Adagio
Marche – Moderato
Menuet – Allegretto
Gigue – Allegro
Epilogue – Lento lugubre
The sets of this work are similar to those of a baroque suite, although it is composed in a slightly postmodern way. The voices of the viola and the piano demand a very high knowlege of the instrument. Framed by a very slow Prologue and an Epilogue the tension of the inner sets increase from movement to movement. The Suite en miniature was performed for the first time during a concert at the Highschool for Music in Munich in July 2017 by his daughter with great success and is certainly a new composition for the repertoire of the viola.