Heinz Winbeck

Heinz Winbeck (born 11 February 1946) is a German composer and an academic teacher. He is known for five large scale symphonies.

Winbeck was born in a small village named Piflas, now part of Ergolding, close to Landshut in Lower Bavaria into a family of farmers. He started his musical studies in 1964 at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich, piano with Magda Rusy and conducting with Fritz Rieger. From 1967 he studied conducting at the Musikhochschule München with Jan Koetsier, composition with Harald Genzmer and Günter Bialas. From 1974 to 1978 he worked as composer and conductor at the Theater Ingolstadt, also for the festival Luisenburg-Festspiele. In 1980 he taught at the Musikhochschule München. In 1988 he was appointed professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg. Among his students is composer and pianist Rudi Spring. Winbeck was "Composer in Residence" at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Cabrillo, California.

Heinz Winbeck lives in Schambach, a monastery that he and his wife Gerlinde modernized in the 1990s, near Riedenburg in Lower Bavaria. He created five wide-spaced and organized symphonies. His First Symphony was premiered in 1984 at the Donaueschinger Tage für Neue Musik and recorded by WERGO, combined with Winbeck's second string quartet, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken. His Fifth Symphony "Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes" (Now and in the hour of death) reflects sketches of Anton Bruckner's unfinished 9th Symphony. The work in three movements of about 55 minutes was played by the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies on 1 March 2010 at the Stift St. Florian. The same year he started a collaboration with the Landestheater Linz, which resulted in the ballet "Lebensstürme" (Storms of life).

The composer commented on his way of composing: "Ich kann nichts anderes sagen, als daß ich buchstäblich nur das zu Papier bringe, das, würde ich es nicht tun, mich zersprengte." (All I can say is that I literally only put down on paper that which, were I not to do so, would cause me to explode.)

Winbeck's works are published by Bärenreiter.

Vocal

• Glühende Rätsel (Glowing enigmas) (1970), song cycle for baritone and piano, Text: Nelly Sachs

Symphonic works

• Sonoscillant (1971), music for cello and string orchestra
• Entgegengesang (1973) for orchestra
• Lenau-Fantasien (1979) for cello and orchestra
• Denk ich an Haydn (1982), three fragments for orchestra
• Tu Solus (You alone), First Symphony (1983/85)
• Second Symphony (1985/86)
• Grodek, Third Symphony (1987/88) for orchestra, alto and speaker, text: Georg Trakl
• De Profundis (Out of the deep), Fourth Symphony
• Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes (Now and in the hour of death), Fifth Symphony

Chamber music

• Pas de deux (1971) for flute and xylophon
• Tempi capricciosi, First String Quartet (1979)
• Tempi notturni, Second String Quartet (1979)
• Blick in den St.&nrom (1982) for 2 violins, viola and 2 celli
• Jagdquartett (Hunting quartet), Third String Quartet (1984)

• 1974 First prize in the First composition competition of the Summer Music Days in Hitzacker
• 1980 Second prize in the Fourth composition competition of the Summer Music Days in Hitzacker
• 1981 Grant award of the city of Munich
• 1981/82 scholarship by State of Bavaria for studies of half a year at the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris (German)
• 1985 Music prize of the Berliner Kunstpreis
• 2004 "Gerda-und-Günter-Bialas-Award" of the GEMA Foundation

In 1994 Heinz and Gerhilde Winbeck won a prize for the historical renovation by the Hypo-Foundation.