Hugo Wolf

Hugo Wolf (March 13, 1860 – February 22, 1903) was a Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or Lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in conciseness but utterly unrelated in technique.

Biography

Early life (1860 – 1887)

Wolf was born in Windischgraz (now Slovenj Gradec), part of a German-speaking enclave within Slovenia, to a Slovene mother (Katherina Orehovnik) and a Germanic father (Philipp Wolf). His family was originally named 'Vouks', but they changed the surname to the German form 'Wolf'. Hugo Wolf is regarded as an Austrian composer since he rejected his provincial or peasant origins and spent most of his life in Vienna, becoming a representative of "New German" trend in Lieder, a trend which followed from the expressive, chromatic, and dramatic musical innovations of Richard Wagner.

Related Topics:
Slovenj Gradec - Slovenia - Austrian - Vienna - Lieder - Chromatic - Richard Wagner

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A child prodigy, Wolf was taught piano and violin by his father beginning at the age of four, and once in primary school studied piano and music theory with Sebastian Weixler. However, subjects other than music failed to hold his interest; he was dismissed from the first secondary school he attended as being "wholly inadequate", left another over his difficulties in the compulsory Latin studies, and after a falling-out with a professor who commented on his "damned music", quit the last. From there, he went to the Vienna Conservatory to the disappointment of his father, who had hoped Wolf would not try to make his living from music; again, however, he was dismissed for "breach of discipline", though the often-rebellious Wolf would claim he quit in frustration with the school's conservatism.

Related Topics:
Child prodigy - Piano - Violin - Music theory - Sebastian Weixler - Vienna Conservatory

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After eight months with his family, he returned to Vienna to teach music. Though his fiery temperament was not ideally suited to teaching, Wolf's musical gifts—as well as his personal charm—earned him attention and patronage. This support of his benefactors allowed him to make a living as a composer, and a family member of one of his greatest benefactors, inspired him to write: Vally Franck was Wolf's first love with whom he was involved for three years. During their relationship, hints of his mature style would become evident in his Lieder. Wolf was prone to depression and wide mood swings, which would affect him all through his life. When Franck left him just before his 21st birthday, he was despondent; he returned home, though his family relationships were also strained; his father remained convinced that Wolf was a ne'er-do-well. His brief and undistinguished tenure as second Kapellmeister at Salzburg only reinforced this opinion—Wolf had neither the temperament, the conducting technique, nor the affinity for the decidedly non-Wagnerian repertoire to be successful, and within a year had again returned to Vienna to teach in much the same circumstances as before.

Related Topics:
Vally Franck - Kapellmeister - Salzburg

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Wagner's death was another tragic event in the life of the young composer. The song "Zur Ruh, zur Ruh" was composed shortly afterward and is considered to be the best of his early works; it is speculated that this is intended to be an elegy for Wagner. Wolf often despaired of his own future in the years following, in a world where his idol had gone, leaving tremendous footsteps to follow and no guidance on how to do so. This left him even more temperamental that he usually was, alienating friends and patrons, though his noted charm kept him more than his actions likely merited. His songs meanwhile had caught the attention of Franz Liszt, whom he respected greatly, and who like Wolf's previous mentors advised him to pursue larger forms; advice he this time followed with the symphonic tone poem on Penthesilea. Wolf's activities as a critic began to pick up; he was merciless in his criticism of the inferior works he saw taking over the musical atmosphere of the time (Anton Rubinstein in particular is one composer he considered odious) and fervent in his support of the genius of Liszt, Schubert, and Chopin. Known as "Wild Wolf" for the intensity and expressive strength of his convictions, his vitriol made him a few enemies. Though he composed little during this time, what he did write he could not get performed: the Rosé Quartet would not even look at his work after being picked apart in a column, and the premiere of Penthesilea was met by the orchestra with nothing but derision for he who had dared to criticize Brahms.

Related Topics:
Franz Liszt - Anton Rubinstein - Rosé Quartet

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He abandoned his activities as a critic in 1887 as he began composing once more; perhaps not unexpectedly, the first songs following his compositional hiatus are settings of texts by Goethe, Eichendorff, and von Scheffel on the subject of strength and resolve faced with adversity. Shortly thereafter Wolf would complete the Italienische Serenade, which is regarded as one of the first works of his mature style as a composer. Only a week later his father died, leaving Wolf devastated, and he did not compose for the remainder of the year.

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Maturity (1888 – 1896)

1888 and 1889 proved to be amazingly productive years for Wolf, and a turning point in his career. After the publication of a dozen of his songs late the preceding year, Wolf once again desired to return to composing, and travelled to the vacation home of the Werners—family friends whom Wolf had known since childhood—in Perchtoldsdorf (a short train ride from Vienna), in order to escape and compose in solitude. Here he composed the Mörike-Lieder at a frenzied pace. A short break, and a change of house, this time to the vacation home of more longtime friends, the Ecksteins, and the Eichendorff-lieder followed, then the 51 Goethe-lieder, spilling into 1889. After a summer holiday, the Spanisches Liederbuch was begun in October 1889; though Spanish-flavoured compositions were in fashion in the day, Wolf sought out poems that had been neglected by other composers.

Related Topics:
Mörike - Eichendorff

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Wolf himself saw the merit of these compositions immediately, raving to friends that they were the best things he had yet composed (it was with the aid and urging of several of the more influential of them that the works were initially published). It was now that the world outside Vienna would recognize Wolf as well. Tenor Ferdinand Jäger, whom Wolf had heard in Parsifal during his brief summer break from composing, was present at one of the first concerts of the Mörike works and quickly became a champion of his music, performing a recital of only Wolf and Beethoven in December 1888. His works were praised in reviews, including one in the Münchener allgemeine Zeitung, a widely-read German newspaper. (Of course the recognition was not always positive; Brahms adherents, still smarting from Wolf's merciless reviews, returned the favor—when they would have anything to do with him at all. Brahms' biographer Max Kalbeck ridiculed Wolf for his immature writing and odd tonalities; another composer refused to share a program with him, while Amalie Materna, a Wagnerian singer, had to cancel her Wolf recital faced with the threat of being on the critics' blacklist if she went on.)

Related Topics:
Ferdinand Jäger - Parsifal - Münchener allgemeine Zeitung - Max Kalbeck - Amalie Materna

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Only a few more settings were completed in 1891 before Wolf's mental and physical health one again took a downturn at the end of the year; exhaustion from his prolific past few years combined with the effects of syphilis and his depressive temperament caused him to stop composing for the next several years. Continuing concerts of his works in Austria and Germany spread his growing fame; even Brahms and the critics who had previously reviled Wolf had favorable reviews. Wolf, however, was consumed with depression, which stopped him from writing—which only left him more depressed. He completed orchestrations of previous works, but new compositions were not forthcoming, and certainly not the opera which he was now fixated on composing, still convinced that success in the larger forms was the mark of compositional greatness.

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Wolf had scornfully rejected the libretto to Der Corregidor when it was first presented to him in 1890, but his fixation on the idea of composing an opera blinded him to its faults upon second look. Based on El sombrero de tres picos, by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, the darkly humorous story about an adulterous love triangle is one that Wolf could identify with: he had been in love with Melanie Köchert, married to his friend Heinrich Köchert, for several years. (It is speculated that their romance began in earnest in 1884, when Wolf accompanied the Köcherts on holiday; though Heinrich discovered the affair in 1893 he remained Wolf's patron and Melanie's husband.) The opera was completed in nine months and was met with success at the outset, but Wolf's musical setting could not compensate for the weakness of the text, and it was doomed to failure; it has not yet been successfully revived.

Related Topics:
El sombrero de tres picos - Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

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Final years (1897 – 1903)

Wolf's last concert appearance, which included his early champion Jäger, was in February 1897. Shortly thereafter Wolf slipped into syphilitic insanity, with only occasional spells of wellness. He left sixty pages for an unfinished opera, Manuel Venegas, in 1897, in a desperate attempt to finish before he lost his mind completely; after mid-1899 he could make no music at all, and once tried to drown himself, after which he was placed in a Vienna asylum at his own insistence. Melanie visited him faithfully during his decline until his death on February 22, 1903; her lack of faith to her husband, however, tortured her, and she killed herself in 1906.

Related Topics:
February 22 - 1903

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