Wunderhorn Music was composed in 2008 to a commission from the Ensemble of the Theater am Gleis in Winterthur (TaG) and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, and is dedicated to the violinist Rahel Cunz, the TaG Ensemble and the conductor Jac van Steen.

The Wunderhorn Music was inspired by the folksong collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn ('The Boy's Magic Horn'), which was published by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim in 1806. Its subtitle '7 Sound Pictures for Violin and Ensemble' refers to the fact that the texts on which the work is founded were used in neither a pictorial nor an onomatopoeic fashion during the process of composition. Rather is this work a setting of impressions that were evoked while reading the seven texts in question. Since even the titles alone of the individual movements inspire one's imagination, it is not essential to know the texts themselves in order to understand the music. The homogeneous grouping of the instruments at the beginning of the work (e.g. their grouping according to their registers) is gradually dissolved. One result of this is that the violin is constantly having to decide between its soloistic function and its status as an equal amongst fellow chamber musicians. The palette of colours ranges from fragile, subtly shaded tones to unwieldy, contrary blocks of sound. The structural and tempo relations, and the relationships between the motives all unite the seven movements into a single, many-facetted picture. The titles of the seven individual sections are:

1. Das Wunderhorn (The Magic Horn)
2. Der Ritter und die Magd (The knight and the maiden)
3. Die Wahrheit (The truth)
4. Abendstern (Evening star)
5. An einen Boten (To a messenger)
6. Die Greuelhochzeit (The horror wedding)
7. Des Hirten Einsamkeit (The shepherd's loneliness)

D.P.H.