Humperdinck, Engelbert
Humperdinck, Engelbert
Humperdinck, Engelbert, famous German composer and pedagogue; b. Siegburg, near Bonn, Sept. 1, 1854; d. Neustrelitz, Sept. 27, 1921. He began to study piano at 7. He commenced composing at 14, then studied at the Cologne Cons. (1872–76), where his teachers were Hiller, Gernsheim, and Jensen (harmony and composition), Hompesch, Mertke, and Seiss (piano), F. Weber (organ), and Ehlert and Rensburg (cello). After winning the Mozart Prize (1876), he studied counterpoint and fugue with Rheinberger at Munich’s Royal Music School (1877); also studied composition privately there with F. Lachner. In 1879 he won the Mendelssohn Prize of Berlin for his choral work Die Wallfahrt nach Kevelaar (1878); then went to Italy, where he met Wagner in Naples (1880); at Wagner’s invitation, he worked in Bayreuth (1881–82). In 1881 he won the Meyerbeer Prize of Berlin, which enabled him to visit Paris in 1882. He taught at the Barcelona Cons. (1885–86) and the Cologne Cons. (1887–88); subsequently worked for the Schott publishing firm in Mainz (1888–89). After serving as private teacher to Siegfried Wagner (1889–90), he joined the faculty of the Hoch Cons, in Frankfurt am Main in 1890; was made prof, there in 1896, but resigned in 1897. During this period he also was music critic of the Frankfurter Zeitung.His fame as a composer was assured with the extraordinary success of his opera Hansel und Gretel (Weimar, Dec. 23, 1893), written to a libretto by his sister Adelheid Wette. This fairy-tale score, with its melodies of ingenuous felicity in a Wagnerian idiom, retains its place in the repertoire. Although he continued to write for the stage, his succeeding works left little impression. He was director of a master class in composition at Berlin’s Akademische Meisterschule (1900–20); was also a member of the senate of the Berlin Academy of Arts.
Works
dramatic: Opera: Hansel und Gretel (Weimar, Dec. 23, 1893, R. Strauss conducting); Dornröschen (Frankfurt am Main, Nov. 12, 1902); Die Heirat wider Willen (Berlin, April 14, 1905); Königskinder (N.Y., Dec. 28, 1910; based on his incidental music to Rosmer’s Königskinder); Die Marketenderin (Cologne, May 10, 1914); Gaudeamus (Darmstadt, March 18, 1919). Also Die sieben Geislein, children’s fairy play for Voice and Piano (Berlin, Dec. 19, 1895). incidental music: To Rosmer’s Königskinder (Munich, Jan. 23, 1897; later expanded into an opera); for the Berlin productions of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (Nov. 5, 1905), The Winter’s Tale (Sept. 15, 1906), The Tempest (Oct. 26, 1906), Romeo and Juliet (Jan. 29, 1907), and Twelfth Night (Oct. 17, 1907); also to Aristophanes’s Lysis-trata (Berlin, Feb. 27, 1908) and Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird (Berlin, Dec. 23, 1912), as well as for Reinhardt’s production of The Miracle (London, Dec. 23, 1911). OTHER: Die Wallfahrt nach Kevelaar for Chorus (1878); Humoreske for Orch. (1879); Das Glück von Edenhall for Chorus (Munich, July 15, 1879; 2nd version, 1882-83); Die maurische Rhapsodie for Orch. (1898); 4 Kinderlieder (1901).
Bibliography
O. Besch, E. H (Leipzig, 1914); H. Kuhlmann, Stil und Form in der Musik von H.s Oper “Hansel und Gretel” (Borna and Leipzig, 1930); L. Kirsten, Motivik und Form in der Musik zu E. H.s Oper “Königskinder” (diss., Univ. of Jena, 1942); K. Pullen, Die Schauspielmusiken H.s (diss., Univ. of Cologne, 1951); E. Thamm, Der Bestand der lyrischen Werke E. H.s (diss., Univ. of Mainz, 1951); W. Humperdinck, E. H. (Frankfurt am Main, 1965); H. Irmen, Die Odyssee des E. H: Eine biographische Dokumentation (Siegburg, 1975); idem, ed., E. H.: Briefe und Tagebücher (Cologne, 1976); E. Humperdinck and J. Nickel, E. H. zum 70. Todestag (Siegburg, 1992); W. Humperdinck, E. H: Das Leben meines Vaters (Koblenz, 1993); E. Humperdinck, E. H. Werkverzeichnis: Zum 140 Geburtstag: Seinem Andenken gewidmet (Koblenz, 1994).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire