Hans
Werner HenzeBiography Archive Links News Contact me Home
Hans
Werner Henze
(b. Gütersloh, 1 July 1926),
German composer. He studied at a music school in Brunswick and, after war service, with Fortner at the Institute for Church Music in Heidelberg (1946-8). At first he composed in a Stravinskian neo-classical style (First Symphony, 1947), but lessons with Leibowitz in 1947-8 encouraged his adoption of 12-note serialism. Unlike such contemporaries as Stockhausen, however, he held his music open to a wide range of materials. Occasionally he made his obeisance to Darmstadt (Second Quartet, 1952), but his large, varied output of this period also shows the continuing importance to him of neo-classicism, Schoenbergian or Bergian expressionism and jazz. Nor was he dismissive of old forms or, in particular, the theatre: he conducted the Wiesbaden ballet (1950-53) and composed ballets (Jack Pudding, 1951; Labyrinth, 1951) and operas (Boulevard Solitude, 1952).
In 1953 he moved to Italy, where his music became more expansive, sensuous and lyrical and he concentrated on a sequence of operas (König Hirsch, 1956; Elegy for Young Lovers, 1961) and cantatas (Kammermusik, 1958; Cantata della fiaba estrema, 1963). The climax to this period came with a rich and elaborate but also dynamic treatment of The Bacchae in the opera The Bassarids (1966), followed by a period of self-searching; that was externalized in the Second Piano Concerto (1967) and eventually gave rise to an outspoken commitment to revolutionary socialism. Henze visited Cuba (1969-70), where he conducted the first performance of his Sixth Symphony, incorporating the tunes of revolutionary songs. He also developed a bold, poster style in music-theatre works (El Cimarrón, 1970), leading to his dramatization of class conflict in the opera We Come to the River (1976).
But he was also continuing his exploration of an expressionist orchestral sumptuousness in such works as Heliogabalus imperator (1972) and Tristan (1974), and an enjoyment in reinterpreting old musical models (Aria de la folía española for chamber orchestra,1977). Later works, including the opera The English Cat (1983) and the Seventh Symphony (1984), continue his highly personal synthesis of past and present, lyricism and rigour.
Dramatic music Boulevard
Solitude (1952); König Hirsch (1956); Der Prinz von Homburg (1960); Elegy
for Young Lovers (1961); Der junge Lord (1965); The Bassarids (1966); Moralities
(1968); Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung der Natascha Ungeheuer (1971); La
cubana (1974); We Come to the River (1976); Pollicino (1979); The English Cat
(1983); Das verratene Meer (1990)
Ballets Jack Pudding (1951); Labyrinth (1951); Der Idiot (1952); Maratona (1957);
Ondine (1958); L'usignolo dell' imperatore (1959); Tancredi (1966); Orpheus
(1979)
Orchestral music 7 syms. (1947, 1949, 1950, 1955, 1962, 1969, 1984); 2 vn concs.
(1947, 1971); 2 pf concs. (1950, 1967); Sym. Variations (1950); Ode to the Westwind
(1953); Quattro poemi (1955); Sonata per archi (1958); Antifone (1960); Los
caprichos (1963); In memoriam: Die weisse Rose (1965); Double Conc., ob, harp,
str (1966); Dbn Conc. (1966); Telemanniana (1967); Compases para preguntas ensimismadas
(1970); Heliogabalus imperator (1972); Tristan (1974); Aria de la folía
española (1977); Il Vitalino raddoppiato (1977); Allegro brillante (1989)
Choral music Novae de infinite laudes (1962); cantata della fiaba estrema (1963);
Das Floss der 'Medusa' (1968)
Solo vocal music Kammermusik (1958); Being Beauteous (1963), Versuch über
Schweine (1968); El Cimarroón (1970); Voices (1973); The King of Harlem,
(1979); 3 Auden Pieces (1983)
Chamber music 5 str qts (1947, 1952, 1976, 1976, 1977); Pf Sonata (1959); Vn
Sonata (1976); Va sonata (1979); Sonata für sechs Spieler (1984); Serenade
(1986)
Incidental music, film scores