WINBECK – LÜTGE – SCHNEID: CHAMBER MUSIC Heinz Winbeck (1946–2019) was a Romantic maverick in modern times, defying serialism with fervent Expressionism and symphonies exploring war, nature's destruction, suffering, guilt, and transience. Rejecting commissions, he composed only from inner compulsion, living reclusively in a renovated Bavarian parsonage with animals. This album highlights three pivotal chamber works by him, alongside pieces by his students Ines Lütge and Tobias PM Schneid, performed by the Leopold Mozart Quartet and others. Winbeck's Key Works Winbeck's 'Poco a poco …' (1973), a piano quartet, marks his emerging voice post-studies with Günter Bialas. Inspired by Wolfgang Hildesheimer's 'Tynset', a single note unfolds "poco a poco" into rhythmic swarms, tormented and ecstatic, culminating in a shocking Schubert Death and the Maiden quote—latent threat turned deadly. ​ 'Blick in den Strom' (1981), a string quintet, launches his mature "New Simplicity" phase akin to Wolfgang Rihm. Drawing from Nikolaus Lenau's poem, perpetual sixteenth-note currents surge between instruments; motifs drift and submerge, resolving in a chorale epilogue of rest. ​ 'Heiter … Einsam … Leise …' (Helian fragments) (1996), for voice and strings, adapts Georg Trakl's sketches with feverish quarter tones, leaps, and screams—from tender to extreme. A simple epilogue ruptures tension, preceding Winbeck's decade-long silence after symphonic peaks. ​ Students' Tributes Tobias PM Schneid, Winbeck's student crediting him for his path, offers 'Torso – Fragment – Kommentar' for string quartet and low female voice by Luise von Garnier. Reinterpreting Schumann and Schubert songs like Zender's 'Winterreise', it deconstructs into climate despair: disintegration signals madness, surreal beauty threatens, nature's idyll dissolves in grief—a manifesto on ecological ruin. Ines Lütge, inspired by Winbeck's Schambach home and lessons, dedicates 'Beschriebene Blätter', a concentrated string quartet. Echoing Beethoven's C-sharp minor Quartet and Bach's B minor Fugue (via Winbeck's influences), it weaves counterpoint, timbre, and expression around an unanswered motif of minor seconds—hope, rebellion, resignation. ​ Performers The Leopold Mozart Quartet (Mariko Umae, Aleksandra Manic, Christian Döring, Johannes Gutfleisch)—Augsburg Philharmonic principals—deliver committed interpretations, as in their prior Winbeck quartets CD. Soprano Luise von Garnier, Staatstheater Augsburg ensemble member shifting from mezzo roles (Strauss, Wagner, Mozart) to dramatic soprano, shines in modern premieres and lieder; pianist Andreas Kirpal and cellist Susanne Gutfleisch complete the ensemble. This collection embodies Winbeck's legacy: intense subjectivism, literary depth, tradition-modern fusion, passed to pupils confronting existential crises.