Background
Hans Werner Henze was born on July 1, 1926 in Gütersloh, Germany, the eldest of six children.
Hans Werner Henze was born on July 1, 1926 in Gütersloh, Germany, the eldest of six children.
Henze was a student of composer Wolfgang Fortner and of René Leibowitz, the leading French composer of 12-tone music.
In 1943 Henze was drafted into the Germany army and served in the tank corps before being taken prisoner by the British. After World War II, he was musical director of the German Theater in Konstanz (1948 - 1950) and composer and adviser on ballet for the Wiesbaden State Theater (1950 - 1952).
In 1963 Henze visited the United States for the world premiere of his Fifth Symphony, performed by the New York Philharmonic for the inaugural of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. The English National Opera celebrated his 70th birthday in 1996 by performing some of his works.
Early Work.
The style of Henze's first mature compositions – a violin sonata, a chamber concerto, and the First Symphony (1947) – was neoclassic in the manner of Igor Stravinsky and Béla Bartók. After his introduction to the 12-tone technique, Henze's next scores showed his mastery of this technique: the piano variations and a violin concerto (1948); Symphonies no. 2 (1949) and no. 3 (1951); a piano concerto (1950); The Idiot (1952), a ballet; the First String Quartet (1952); and a Wind Quintet (1953). He also exploited jazz idioms in Jack Pudding (1951) and Maratona di danza (1956).
Later Work.
Henze considered his opera König Hirsch (1952 - 1956) and the Fourth Symphony (1955 - 1963) as the end of his "exploratory" period. In his later compositions many styles and techniques were assimilated, including polytonality, neoclassicism, romanticism with elements of jazz, and an Italianate lyricism. His theatrical works, especially, aroused heated controversy because of the bold librettos and astringent musical idiom. In 1961 he became professor of composition at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
Henze’s important compositions include Undine (1958), a ballet; The Prince of Homburg (1960), a semihistorical opera; Elegy for Young Lovers (1961), with a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman; and The Bassarids (1966), an opera with a libretto by Auden and Kallman, which many consider Henze's most felicitous score. He also wrote the Second Piano Concerto (1968); an oratorio, Das Floss der Medusa (1969); Concerto for Double Bass (1969); and the opera El Cimarron (1970).
(This 2 CD set highlights Henze's 6 symphonies, the 5th sy...)
Quotations: "I have always been concerned with musical substance, particularly with melody, and have tended to express the most difficult musical processes in the simplest forms I could devise. "