Compases para preguntas ensimismadas
Compases para preguntas ensimismadas is a musical composition for viola, strings, wind sextet and percussion by the German composer Hans Werner Henze.
It was written during 1969-70. The title is taken from lines by the poet Gaston Salvatore, means literally metres for questions absorbed in self-contemplation.[1] The viola part is the monologue-like centre of the work, in a way parallel to Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, which according to some reviewers it appears to directly reference.[2]
It was commissioned by Paul Sacher for the Japanese viola player Hirofumi Fukai, who gave the premiere in Basel on 11 February 1971, and subsequently recorded it under the composer's direction.