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First name: Felix
Last name: Werder
Dates: 1922
Category: Quartet
Nationality: australian
Opus name: Opus 11 (1954)
Publisher:
Peculiarities: See: http://www.earsense.org/chamberbase/works/?newquery=1&nolq=1&composerKey=1694
Information: Felix Werder was born in Berlin in 1922 but fled the increasingly difficult political situation in Nazi Germany in 1935. On arriving in Australia with his father in 1940, Werder was interned for four years as a political prisoner, and was during this time he produced a large number of his early compositions - many of his fellow internees were musicians and, once they had instruments to play upon, the lack of music led Werder to write fragments of the scores of Handel and Mozart from memory, later progressing to his own imitations of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music. Werder's German and Jewish heritage has greatly impacted his music. His family had been a part of Schoenberg's musical circle - and from the age of eight Werder had acted as copyist for his father, formerly a cantor and liturgical composer at a leading Berlin synagogue. These circumstances gave Werder technique, and instilled in him a strong feeling of musical tradition. The music of the synagogue, first heard in these early years, has also been a strong influence on his music, appearing in his use of the Hebraic modes (in early works), and in the melismatic treatment of speech rhythms. Regarded as being at the forefront of the Australian musical avant-garde, Werder's music has been widely performed. His early twelve-tone music has given way to a more improvisatory, collage-like style that often makes virtuosic demands on its performers. Werder has been an Adult Education class lecturer in music since 1956 and held the position of music critic for the Melbourne daily newspaper The Age from 1960 to 1977 before moving into radio, developing a series on contemporary music with Keith Humble for the ABC. Felix Werder has written for a wide variety of musical media, including chamber music, orchestral and music theatre works, and has received numerous commissions from organisations such as Deutsch Opera (1967), the ABC (1969), the Australian Opera (1969), the National Theatre (1975), the Victorian State Opera (1976), and the Berlin Festival (1987). He has also received awards for his compositions, including the Stamitz Prize in 1988, and the Sir Zelman Cowan Medal in 1991. He was created a Member of the Order of Australia for services to music in January 1976. In 2002 a number of concerts featuring Werder's music helped celebrate the composer's 80th birthday. Further tribute was paid by the University of Melbourne, which awarded Werder the degree of Doctor of Music (honoris causa). Werder writes that "a thing of beauty is a bore forever", and that "music is not as soporific for calming neurosis of a decadent bourgeois society". Biography provided by the composer for the Australian MC-website— current to January 2007