Hans Werner Henze
Encyclopedia
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer
of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life". His music is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism
, atonality
, Stravinsky
, Italian music
, Arabic music and jazz
, as well as traditional schools of German composition.
Henze is also known for his political convictions. He left Germany for Italy in 1953 because of a perceived intolerance towards his leftist politics
and homosexuality
. He lives in the village of Marino
in the central Italian region of Lazio, and still travels extensively, in particular to Britain and Germany, as part of his work. An avowed Marxist
and member of the Communist Party of Italy
, Henze has produced compositions honoring Ho Chi Minh
and Che Guevara
. The librettist of his requiem
for Che Guevara, titled Das Floß der Medusa
(The Raft of Medusa), was among several people arrested at the 1968 Hamburg premiere in the riot that followed the placing of a red flag on the stage. Henze spent a year teaching in Cuba
, though he later became disillusioned with Castro
.
Henze continues to compose today in his mid-eighties.
, the oldest of six children of a teacher, and showed early interest in art and music. This, along with his political standpoint, led to conflict with his conservative father. Henze's father, Franz, had served in the First World War, and had been injured at Verdun
. He worked as a teacher in a school at Bielefeld
, formed on progressive lines, however it was closed in 1935 by government order, its progressive style being out of step with official views. Franz Henze then moved to Dünne, a small village near Bünde
where he became a victim of Nazi
propaganda. Books by Jewish and Christian authors were replaced in the Henze household by literature reflecting Nazi views; the whole family was expected to fall into line with Franz's new thinking. The older boys, including Hans, were enrolled in the Hitler Youth
.
Although the Henze household was filled with talk of current affairs, Hans was also able to hear broadcasts of classical music (especially Mozart
) and eventually his father realized that his son had a vocation as a musician. Henze began studies at the state music school of Braunschweig
in 1942, where he studied piano, percussion, and theory. In 1943, Franz Henze re-joined the army; he was sent to the Eastern front, never to return. Henze had to break off his studies after being called up
to the army in 1944, in the latter stages of the Second World War
. He was trained as a radio officer. He was soon captured by the British and was held in a prisoner-of-war camp
for the remainder of the war. In 1945, he became an accompanist in the Bielefeld City Theatre, and was able to continue his studies under Wolfgang Fortner
in Heidelberg in 1946.
Henze had some successful performances at Darmstadt
, including an immediate success in 1946 with a neo-baroque work for piano, flute and strings, that brought him to the attention of Schott's
, the music publishers. He also took part in the famous Darmstadt New Music Summer School, a key vehicle for the propagation of avant-garde
techniques. At the 1947 summer school, Henze turned his thoughts more thoroughly to serial technique
, and it seemed for a while as if he might become a leader of young German composers in this idiom.
In his early years he worked with twelve-tone technique
, for example in his First Symphony and Violin Concerto of 1947. Sadler's Wells Ballet visited Hamburg
in 1948, which inspired Henze to write a choreographic poem, Ballett-Variationen, which was completed in 1949. The first ballet he watched was Ashton's
Scènes de Ballet. He wrote a letter of appreciation to Ashton, introducing himself as a 22-year-old composer. The next time he wrote to Ashton he enclosed the score of his Ballett-Variationen, which he hoped Ashton might find of interest. His Ballett-Variationen was first performed in Düsseldorf
in September 1949, and staged first in Wuppertal
in 1958. In 1948 he became musical assistant at the Deutscher Theater in Konstanz
, where his first opera
Das Wundertheater (after Cervantes
) was created.
In 1950, he became ballet
conductor
at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
in Wiesbaden
, where he composed two operas for radio, his First Piano
Concerto as well as his first stage work of real note, the jazz-influenced opera Boulevard Solitude
, a modern recasting of the traditional Manon Lescaut
story.
and the country's general political climate, and moved to Italy, where he has remained for most of the rest of his life. Henze settled on the island of Ischia
in the Gulf of Naples
. Also resident on the island were the composer William Walton
and his Argentine wife Susana, who took a great interest in the young German composer. In 1955, his Quattro poemi for orchestra made clear that Henze had moved far from the principles of the Darmstadt avant-garde. In January 1956, Henze left Ischia and moved to the mainland to live in Naples
. Initially he suffered further disappointment, with disputed premieres of the opera König Hirsch
, based on a text by Carlo Gozzi
, and the ballet Maratona di danza, with a libretto
by Luchino Visconti
. However, he then began long-lasting and fruitful co-operation with the poet Ingeborg Bachmann
. Working with her as librettist, he composed the operas Der Prinz von Homburg (1958) based on a text by Heinrich von Kleist
and Der junge Lord
(1964) after Wilhelm Hauff
as well as Serenades and Arias (1957) and his Choral Fantasy (1964).
His Five Neapolitan Songs for the eminent baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
were written soon after his arrival in Naples. A later sojourn in Greece provided the opportunity to complete a work intended for another leading singer of the day: Kammermusik (1958), dedicated to Benjamin Britten
, included settings of Hölderlin
written for the tenor Peter Pears
, the guitarist Julian Bream
and eight instrumentalists.
In 1961, Henze moved to a secluded villa, La Leprara, on the hills of Marino
, overlooking the Tiber south of Rome. This time also signalled a strong leaning towards music involving the voice.
From 1962 until 1967, Henze taught masterclasses in composition
at the Mozarteum in Salzburg
, and in 1967 became a visiting Professor at Dartmouth College
in New Hampshire
. One of his greatest successes was the première of the opera Die Bassariden
at the Salzburg Festival.
In the following period, he greatly strengthened his political involvement which also influenced his musical work. For example, the première of his oratorio
Das Floß der Medusa
in Hamburg failed when his West Berlin
collaborators refused to perform under a portrait of Che Guevara
and a revolutionary flag had been placed upon the stage. His politics also greatly influenced his Sixth Symphony
(1969), Second Violin Concerto (1971), Voices
(1973) and his piece for spoken word and chamber orchestra, El Cimarrón
, based on a book by Cuban author Miguel Barnet
about escaped black slaves during Cuba's colonial period.
.
In 1976, Henze founded the Cantiere Internazionale d´Arte in Montepulciano
for the promotion of new music, where his children's opera Pollicino premiered in 1980. From 1980 until 1991 he led a class in composition in the Cologne
Music School. In 1981 he founded the Mürztal Workshops in the Austrian region of Styria, the same region where he set up the Deutschlandsberg
Youth Music Festival in 1984. Finally, in 1988, he founded the Munich Biennale
, an "international festival for new music theatre", of which he was the artistic director.
His own operas became more conventional once more, for example The English Cat
(1983), and Das verratene Meer
(1990), based on Yukio Mishima
's novel Gogo no Eiko (best known in English as The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
).
His later works, while arguably less controversial, continued his political and social engagement. His Requiem
(1990–93) comprised nine sacred concertos for piano, trumpet and chamber orchestra, and was written in memory of the musician Michael Vyner
who died young. The choral
Ninth Symphony
(1997), – "dedicated to the heroes and martyrs of German anti-fascism" – to a libretto by Hans-Ulrich Treichel
based on motifs from the novel The Seventh Cross
by Anna Seghers
is a defiant rejection of Nazi barbarism, with which Henze himself lived as a child and teenager. His most recent success was the 2003 premiere of the opera L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe
(English: The Hoopoe and the Triumph of Filial Love) at the Salzburg Festival, text by Henze himself, based on a Syria
n fairy tale. Other recent compositions include Sebastian im Traum
(2004) for large orchestra and the opera Phaedra
(2007).
Henze lived with his partner Fausto Moroni from the early sixties and Moroni planned and planted the celebrated hillside garden around La Leprara. Moroni cared for the composer when he suffered a spectacular emotional collapse during which he barely spoke and had to be encouraged to eat, living as though in a coma. Shortly after Henze's sudden recovery in 2007 Moroni died after a lengthy battle with cancer. Elogium Musicum (2008) for large orchestra and chorus singing a text in Latin of Henze's own is an obituary to his partner of more than 40 years.
In 1995 Henze received the Westphalian Music Prize, which has carried his name since 2001. Invited by Walter Fink
, he was the tenth composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival
in 2000, but absent due to illness. The music included his Requiem
. On November 7, 2004 Henze received an honorary doctorate for Musicology from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
(University for Music and Performing Arts, Munich). In 1975 Hans Werner Henze became Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music
, London. In 1990 he received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize
.
, the twelve-tone technique
, serialism
, and some rock
or popular music
. He was taught by the German composer Wolfgang Fortner
, and his 1947 Violin Concerto shows that he could write excellently in the 12-tone style. Later however, he reacted against atonalism and his opera Boulevard Solitude
includes elements of jazz and Parisian popular music. After his move to Italy in 1953, his music became considerably more Neapolitan in style, with lush, rich textures in the opera König Hirsch
, and even more so in the opulent ballet music that he wrote for English choreographer Frederick Ashton
's Ondine
, completed in 1957. However, his Maratona di danza required the incorporation of jazz elements complete with an on-stage band, which was very different from the romantic Undine
. Henze received much of the impetus for his ballet music from his earlier job as ballet adviser at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
. Ondine is classical in appearance, but contains some jazz and, although Mendelssohn
and Weber
were important influences for this composition, plenty of it is redolent of Stravinsky
, not only Stravinsky as a neo-classical composer, but also as the composer of The Rite of Spring
. The textures for the cantata Kammermusik (1958, rev. 1963) are far harsher, however, and later Henze returned to atonalism in Antifone, and later again other styles mentioned above became important in his music. Political considerations have often played a part in shaping Henze's style at different times in his career.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life". His music is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
, atonality
Atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
, Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, Italian music
Music of Italy
The music of Italy ranges across a broad spectrum of opera and instrumental classical music and a body of popular music drawn from both native and imported sources. Music has traditionally been one of the cultural markers of Italian national and ethnic identity and holds an important position in...
, Arabic music and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, as well as traditional schools of German composition.
Henze is also known for his political convictions. He left Germany for Italy in 1953 because of a perceived intolerance towards his leftist politics
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
and homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
. He lives in the village of Marino
Marino, Italy
Marino is an Italian city and comune in Lazio , on the Alban Hills, Italy, 21 km south east of Rome, with population of 37,684 and a territory of 26.10 km2...
in the central Italian region of Lazio, and still travels extensively, in particular to Britain and Germany, as part of his work. An avowed Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and member of the Communist Party of Italy
Communist Party of Italy
The Communist Party of Italy was a communist political party in Italy which existed from 1921 to 1926. That year it was outlawed by Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. In 1943, the name was changed to the Italian Communist Party.-Foundation:The forerunner of the party was the Communist Faction...
, Henze has produced compositions honoring Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
and Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
. The librettist of his requiem
Requiem
A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...
for Che Guevara, titled Das Floß der Medusa
Das Floß der Medusa
Das Floß der Medusa is an oratorio by the German composer Hans Werner Henze. It is regarded as a seminal work in the composer's political alignment with left-wing politics....
(The Raft of Medusa), was among several people arrested at the 1968 Hamburg premiere in the riot that followed the placing of a red flag on the stage. Henze spent a year teaching in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, though he later became disillusioned with Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
.
Henze continues to compose today in his mid-eighties.
Early years
Henze was born in Gütersloh, WestphaliaProvince of Westphalia
The Province of Westphalia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946.-History:Napoleon Bonaparte founded the Kingdom of Westphalia, which was a client state of the First French Empire from 1807 to 1813...
, the oldest of six children of a teacher, and showed early interest in art and music. This, along with his political standpoint, led to conflict with his conservative father. Henze's father, Franz, had served in the First World War, and had been injured at Verdun
Verdun
Verdun is a city in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.Verdun is the biggest city in Meuse, although the capital of the department is the slightly smaller city of Bar-le-Duc.- History :...
. He worked as a teacher in a school at Bielefeld
Bielefeld
Bielefeld is an independent city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 323,000, it is also the most populous city in the Regierungsbezirk Detmold...
, formed on progressive lines, however it was closed in 1935 by government order, its progressive style being out of step with official views. Franz Henze then moved to Dünne, a small village near Bünde
Bünde
Bünde is a town in the Herford district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.-Geography:Bünde is situated between Osnabrück , Hannover and Bielefeld .- Waterways :...
where he became a victim of Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
propaganda. Books by Jewish and Christian authors were replaced in the Henze household by literature reflecting Nazi views; the whole family was expected to fall into line with Franz's new thinking. The older boys, including Hans, were enrolled in the Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
.
Although the Henze household was filled with talk of current affairs, Hans was also able to hear broadcasts of classical music (especially Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
) and eventually his father realized that his son had a vocation as a musician. Henze began studies at the state music school of Braunschweig
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
in 1942, where he studied piano, percussion, and theory. In 1943, Franz Henze re-joined the army; he was sent to the Eastern front, never to return. Henze had to break off his studies after being called up
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
to the army in 1944, in the latter stages of the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He was trained as a radio officer. He was soon captured by the British and was held in a prisoner-of-war camp
Prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...
for the remainder of the war. In 1945, he became an accompanist in the Bielefeld City Theatre, and was able to continue his studies under Wolfgang Fortner
Wolfgang Fortner
Wolfgang Fortner was a German composer, composition teacher and conductor.-Life:Fortner was born in Leipzig. From his parents - both singers - Fortner very early on had intense contact with music...
in Heidelberg in 1946.
Henze had some successful performances at Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
, including an immediate success in 1946 with a neo-baroque work for piano, flute and strings, that brought him to the attention of Schott's
Schott Music
Schott Music is one of the oldest German music publishers. It is also one of the largest music publishing houses in Europe and is currently the second oldest music publishing house. The company headquarters of Schott Music was founded by Bernhard Schott in Mainz, Germany in 1770.Established in...
, the music publishers. He also took part in the famous Darmstadt New Music Summer School, a key vehicle for the propagation of avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
techniques. At the 1947 summer school, Henze turned his thoughts more thoroughly to serial technique
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
, and it seemed for a while as if he might become a leader of young German composers in this idiom.
In his early years he worked with twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
, for example in his First Symphony and Violin Concerto of 1947. Sadler's Wells Ballet visited Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
in 1948, which inspired Henze to write a choreographic poem, Ballett-Variationen, which was completed in 1949. The first ballet he watched was Ashton's
Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...
Scènes de Ballet. He wrote a letter of appreciation to Ashton, introducing himself as a 22-year-old composer. The next time he wrote to Ashton he enclosed the score of his Ballett-Variationen, which he hoped Ashton might find of interest. His Ballett-Variationen was first performed in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
in September 1949, and staged first in Wuppertal
Wuppertal
Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...
in 1958. In 1948 he became musical assistant at the Deutscher Theater in Konstanz
Konstanz
Konstanz is a university city with approximately 80,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south-west corner of Germany, bordering Switzerland. The city houses the University of Konstanz.-Location:...
, where his first opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
Das Wundertheater (after Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
) was created.
In 1950, he became ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
The Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden is the State Theatre of the German state Hesse in the capital Wiesbaden, producing operas, plays, ballets, musicals and concerts on four stages. It is also known as Staatstheater Wiesbaden or Theater Wiesbaden...
in Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
, where he composed two operas for radio, his First Piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
Concerto as well as his first stage work of real note, the jazz-influenced opera Boulevard Solitude
Boulevard Solitude
Boulevard Solitutde is a Lyrisches Drama or opera in one act by Hans Werner Henze to a German libretto by Grete Weil after the play by Walter Jockisch, in its turn a modern telling of François Prévost's Manon Lescaut. The premiere was on February 17, 1952 at the Landestheater, Hanover...
, a modern recasting of the traditional Manon Lescaut
Manon Lescaut
Manon Lescaut is a short novel by French author Abbé Prévost. Published in 1731, it is the seventh and final volume of Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité . It was controversial in its time and was banned in France upon publication...
story.
Move to Italy
In 1953 he left Germany in disappointment, reacting against homophobiaHomophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
and the country's general political climate, and moved to Italy, where he has remained for most of the rest of his life. Henze settled on the island of Ischia
Ischia
Ischia is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about 30 km from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Roughly trapezoidal in shape, it measures around 10 km east to west and 7 km north to south and has...
in the Gulf of Naples
Gulf of Naples
The Gulf of Naples is a c. 15 km wide gulf located in the south western coast of Italy, . It opens to the west into the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered on the north by the cities of Naples and Pozzuoli, on the east by Mount Vesuvius, and on the south by the Sorrentine Peninsula and the main...
. Also resident on the island were the composer William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
and his Argentine wife Susana, who took a great interest in the young German composer. In 1955, his Quattro poemi for orchestra made clear that Henze had moved far from the principles of the Darmstadt avant-garde. In January 1956, Henze left Ischia and moved to the mainland to live in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. Initially he suffered further disappointment, with disputed premieres of the opera König Hirsch
König Hirsch
König Hirsch is an opera in three acts by Hans Werner Henze to an German libretto by Heinz von Cramer after a fable by Carlo Gozzi.-Performance history:...
, based on a text by Carlo Gozzi
Carlo Gozzi
Carlo, Count Gozzi was an Italian playwright.Born in Venice, he came from an old Venetian family from the Republic of Ragusa...
, and the ballet Maratona di danza, with a libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...
. However, he then began long-lasting and fruitful co-operation with the poet Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann was an Austrian poet and author.-Biography:Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of a headmaster. She studied philosophy, psychology, German philology, and law at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna...
. Working with her as librettist, he composed the operas Der Prinz von Homburg (1958) based on a text by Heinrich von Kleist
Heinrich von Kleist
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist was a poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him.- Life :...
and Der junge Lord
Der junge Lord
Der junge Lord is an opera in two acts by Hans Werner Henze to a German libretto by Ingeborg Bachmann, after Wilhelm Hauff's Der Affe als Mensch from Der Scheik von Alexandria und seine Sklaven .The style and plot owe much to Italian opera buffa, with the influence of Vincenzo Bellini and...
(1964) after Wilhelm Hauff
Wilhelm Hauff
Wilhelm Hauff was a German poet and novelist.-Early life:Hauff was born in Stuttgart, the son of August Friedrich Hauff, a secretary in the ministry of foreign affairs, and Hedwig Wilhelmine Elsaesser Hauff...
as well as Serenades and Arias (1957) and his Choral Fantasy (1964).
His Five Neapolitan Songs for the eminent baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is a retired German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous lieder performers of the post-war period and "one of the supreme vocal artists of the 20th century"...
were written soon after his arrival in Naples. A later sojourn in Greece provided the opportunity to complete a work intended for another leading singer of the day: Kammermusik (1958), dedicated to Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
, included settings of Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
written for the tenor Peter Pears
Peter Pears
Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears CBE was an English tenor who was knighted in 1978. His career was closely associated with the composer Edward Benjamin Britten....
, the guitarist Julian Bream
Julian Bream
Julian Bream, CBE is an English classical guitarist and lutenist and is one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century. He has also been successful in renewing popular interest in the Renaissance lute....
and eight instrumentalists.
In 1961, Henze moved to a secluded villa, La Leprara, on the hills of Marino
Marino, Italy
Marino is an Italian city and comune in Lazio , on the Alban Hills, Italy, 21 km south east of Rome, with population of 37,684 and a territory of 26.10 km2...
, overlooking the Tiber south of Rome. This time also signalled a strong leaning towards music involving the voice.
From 1962 until 1967, Henze taught masterclasses in composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
at the Mozarteum in Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
, and in 1967 became a visiting Professor at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
. One of his greatest successes was the première of the opera Die Bassariden
The Bassarids
The Bassarids is an opera in one act and an intermezzo, with music Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by W. H...
at the Salzburg Festival.
In the following period, he greatly strengthened his political involvement which also influenced his musical work. For example, the première of his oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
Das Floß der Medusa
Das Floß der Medusa
Das Floß der Medusa is an oratorio by the German composer Hans Werner Henze. It is regarded as a seminal work in the composer's political alignment with left-wing politics....
in Hamburg failed when his West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
collaborators refused to perform under a portrait of Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
and a revolutionary flag had been placed upon the stage. His politics also greatly influenced his Sixth Symphony
Symphony No. 6 (Henze)
Symphony No. 6 for two chamber orchestras by Hans Werner Henze was written in 1969.It was written whilst the composer was living in Cuba and marks a departure in the composer's symphonic output: whilst the previous five symphonies were more straightforwardly lyrical, the Sixth Symphony has a more...
(1969), Second Violin Concerto (1971), Voices
Voices (Henze)
Voices is a musical composition by the German composer Hans Werner Henze.Written between January and June 1973, it is a collection of 22 independent songs which may be performed individually, with alterations to the instrumentation...
(1973) and his piece for spoken word and chamber orchestra, El Cimarrón
El Cimarrón (musical work)
El Cimarrón is a composition by the German composer Hans Werner Henze, written when the composer lived in Cuba in 1969-1970. It is subtitled Autobiographie des geflohenen Sklaven Esteban Montejo , and is based around the autobiographical passages recounted by Montejo to Miguel Barnet in 1963...
, based on a book by Cuban author Miguel Barnet
Miguel Barnet
Miguel Barnet is a Cuban writer, novelist and ethnographer. He studied sociology at the University of Havana, under Fernando Ortiz , the pioneer of Cuban anthropology. Fernando Ortíz's studies of Afro-Cuban cultures influenced many of the themes, both literary and scholarly, of Barnet.-Early...
about escaped black slaves during Cuba's colonial period.
An established composer
His political critique reached its high point in 1976 with the premiere of his opera We Come to the RiverWe Come to the River
We Come to the River is an opera by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by Edward Bond. Henze and Bond described this work as "Actions for music", rather than an opera. It was Henze's 7th opera, written originally for the Royal Opera in London, and takes as its focus the horrors of war...
.
In 1976, Henze founded the Cantiere Internazionale d´Arte in Montepulciano
Montepulciano
Montepulciano is a medieval and Renaissance hill town and comune in the province of Siena in southern Tuscany, in Italy. Montepulciano, with an elevation of 605 m, sits on a high limestone ridge. By car it is 13 km E of Pienza; 70 km SE of Siena, 124 km SE of Florence, and...
for the promotion of new music, where his children's opera Pollicino premiered in 1980. From 1980 until 1991 he led a class in composition in the Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
Music School. In 1981 he founded the Mürztal Workshops in the Austrian region of Styria, the same region where he set up the Deutschlandsberg
Deutschlandsberg
Deutschlandsberg is a town in Deutschlandsberg district of Styria, Austria. It covers an area of 24 km² and has a population of 7,983. It is located in southern Austria, near Slovenia and is approx. 35 km from Graz. Popular tourist attractions in that area include the Deutschlandsberg...
Youth Music Festival in 1984. Finally, in 1988, he founded the Munich Biennale
Munich Biennale
The Munich Biennale is an opera festival in the city of Munich. The full German name is Internationales Festival für neues Musiktheater, literally: International Festival for New Music Theater. The biennial festival was created in 1988 by Hans Werner Henze and is held in even-numbered years over...
, an "international festival for new music theatre", of which he was the artistic director.
His own operas became more conventional once more, for example The English Cat
The English Cat
The English Cat is an opera in two acts by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by Edward Bond, based on Les peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise by Honoré de Balzac...
(1983), and Das verratene Meer
Das verratene Meer
Das verratene Meer is an opera in two parts and 14 scenes, with music by Hans Werner Henze to a German libretto by Hans-Ulrich Treichel, after Yukio Mishima's novel The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea...
(1990), based on Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima
was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...
's novel Gogo no Eiko (best known in English as The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea , is a novel written by Yukio Mishima, published in Japanese in 1963 and translated into English by John Nathan in 1965.- Plot summary :...
).
His later works, while arguably less controversial, continued his political and social engagement. His Requiem
Requiem (Henze)
Hans Werner Henze composed the nine Sacred Concertos that comprise his Requiem over the course of three years from 1991 to 1993 on commissions from the London Sinfonietta, Suntory Corporation for the NHK Philharmonic, and Westdeutschen Rundfunks Köln...
(1990–93) comprised nine sacred concertos for piano, trumpet and chamber orchestra, and was written in memory of the musician Michael Vyner
Michael Vyner
Michael Vyner was an English arts administrator.Formerly employed by the music publishers Schott Music, he became Musical Director of the London Sinfonietta in 1972...
who died young. The choral
Choral symphony
A choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra, choir, sometimes with solo vocalists, which in its internal workings and overall musical architecture adheres broadly to symphonic musical form. The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when describing his...
Ninth Symphony
Symphony no. 9 (Henze)
The Ninth Symphony of the German composer Hans Werner Henze was written in 1997.It is a choral symphony, subtitled Den Helden und Märtyrern des deutschen Antifaschismus gewidmet...
(1997), – "dedicated to the heroes and martyrs of German anti-fascism" – to a libretto by Hans-Ulrich Treichel
Hans-Ulrich Treichel
Hans-Ulrich Treichel is a Germanist, novelist and poet. His earliest published books were collections of poetry, but prose writing has become a larger part of his output since the critical and commercial success of his first novel Der Verlorene...
based on motifs from the novel The Seventh Cross
The Seventh Cross
Anna Seghers' novel The Seventh Cross , is one of the better-known examples of German literature circa World War II. It was published first in America, in an abridged version, in September 1942 by Little, Brown and Company...
by Anna Seghers
Anna Seghers
Anna Seghers was a German writer famous for depicting the moral experience of the Second World War.- Life :...
is a defiant rejection of Nazi barbarism, with which Henze himself lived as a child and teenager. His most recent success was the 2003 premiere of the opera L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe
L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe
L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe is an opera by Hans Werner Henze with a German libretto by the composer, inspired by Arab and Persian legends...
(English: The Hoopoe and the Triumph of Filial Love) at the Salzburg Festival, text by Henze himself, based on a Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n fairy tale. Other recent compositions include Sebastian im Traum
Sebastian im Traum
Sebastian im Traum is an orchestral composition by the German composer Hans Werner Henze.Based on the poem of the same name by Georg Trakl, it is a fifteen minute composition for large orchestra...
(2004) for large orchestra and the opera Phaedra
Phaedra (opera)
Phaedra is a 'concert opera' in two-acts by Hans Werner Henze. Its first performance was given at the Berlin State Opera on 6 September 2007...
(2007).
Henze lived with his partner Fausto Moroni from the early sixties and Moroni planned and planted the celebrated hillside garden around La Leprara. Moroni cared for the composer when he suffered a spectacular emotional collapse during which he barely spoke and had to be encouraged to eat, living as though in a coma. Shortly after Henze's sudden recovery in 2007 Moroni died after a lengthy battle with cancer. Elogium Musicum (2008) for large orchestra and chorus singing a text in Latin of Henze's own is an obituary to his partner of more than 40 years.
In 1995 Henze received the Westphalian Music Prize, which has carried his name since 2001. Invited by Walter Fink
Walter Fink
Walter Fink is a German retired executive and a patron of Contemporary music. He is mostly known for being a founding member, Executive Committee member and sponsor of the Rheingau Musik Festival.- Biography :...
, he was the tenth composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival
Rheingau Musik Festival
The Rheingau Musik Festival is an international summer music festival in Germany, founded in 1987. It is mostly for classical music, but includes other genres...
in 2000, but absent due to illness. The music included his Requiem
Requiem
A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...
. On November 7, 2004 Henze received an honorary doctorate for Musicology from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
The Hochschule für Musik und Theater München is one of the most respected traditional vocational universities in Germany specialising in music and the performing arts. The seat of the Hochschule is the former Führerbau of the NSDAP, located at Arcisstraße 12, on the eastern side of the Königsplatz...
(University for Music and Performing Arts, Munich). In 1975 Hans Werner Henze became Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
, London. In 1990 he received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize
Ernst von Siemens Music Prize
The international Ernst von Siemens Music Prize is an annual music prize given by the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste on behalf of the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung , established in 1972. The foundation was established by Ernst von Siemens...
.
Works
Henze's music has incorporated neo-classicism, jazzJazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, the twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
, serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
, and some rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
or popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
. He was taught by the German composer Wolfgang Fortner
Wolfgang Fortner
Wolfgang Fortner was a German composer, composition teacher and conductor.-Life:Fortner was born in Leipzig. From his parents - both singers - Fortner very early on had intense contact with music...
, and his 1947 Violin Concerto shows that he could write excellently in the 12-tone style. Later however, he reacted against atonalism and his opera Boulevard Solitude
Boulevard Solitude
Boulevard Solitutde is a Lyrisches Drama or opera in one act by Hans Werner Henze to a German libretto by Grete Weil after the play by Walter Jockisch, in its turn a modern telling of François Prévost's Manon Lescaut. The premiere was on February 17, 1952 at the Landestheater, Hanover...
includes elements of jazz and Parisian popular music. After his move to Italy in 1953, his music became considerably more Neapolitan in style, with lush, rich textures in the opera König Hirsch
König Hirsch
König Hirsch is an opera in three acts by Hans Werner Henze to an German libretto by Heinz von Cramer after a fable by Carlo Gozzi.-Performance history:...
, and even more so in the opulent ballet music that he wrote for English choreographer Frederick Ashton
Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...
's Ondine
Ondine (ballet)
Ondine, ou La naïade is a ballet with choreography by Jules Perrot and music by Cesare Pugni, with a libretto inspired by the novel Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Pugni dedicated his score to the Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Augusta, a long-time balletomane and patron of the arts in...
, completed in 1957. However, his Maratona di danza required the incorporation of jazz elements complete with an on-stage band, which was very different from the romantic Undine
Undine
Undine, Undina or Ondine are sometimes interchangeable and may refer to:* Ondine , a water nymph from mythology- In literature and painting :* Undine , a novella by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué...
. Henze received much of the impetus for his ballet music from his earlier job as ballet adviser at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
The Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden is the State Theatre of the German state Hesse in the capital Wiesbaden, producing operas, plays, ballets, musicals and concerts on four stages. It is also known as Staatstheater Wiesbaden or Theater Wiesbaden...
. Ondine is classical in appearance, but contains some jazz and, although Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
and Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
were important influences for this composition, plenty of it is redolent of Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, not only Stravinsky as a neo-classical composer, but also as the composer of The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring, original French title Le sacre du printemps , is a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky; choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky; and concept, set design and costumes by Nicholas Roerich...
. The textures for the cantata Kammermusik (1958, rev. 1963) are far harsher, however, and later Henze returned to atonalism in Antifone, and later again other styles mentioned above became important in his music. Political considerations have often played a part in shaping Henze's style at different times in his career.