Celebrated German composer Hans Werner Henze died in Dresden on Saturday. He was 86.
“With the death of Hans Werner Henze we have lost one of the most important and influential composers of our time,” reads an announcement on the website of his long-time publisher, Schott Music.
Over the course of his career, the prolific composer created over 40 stage works, 10 symphonies, concertos, chamber works, oratorios, song cycles and a requiem created out of nine Sacred Concertos.
His operas ranged from the 1950s Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor), based on a story by Franz Kafka, to musical dramas Elegy for Young Lovers and The Bassarids.
A former prisoner of war in fascist Germany, Henze was also known for his strong Marxist views, and penned compositions in honour of Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara. The Hamburg premiere of Das Floß der Medusa led to a disturbance and several arrests – including the librettist – after a red flag was placed on stage.
Henze's political convictions also found musical expression in We come to the River (1974-76), which he created with writer Edward Bond, and in Sinfonia N. 9 (1995-97), a choral symphony in seven movements that Henze dedicated to "the heroes and martyrs of German anti-fascism."
As well as composing, Henze taught in Austria, the U.S., Cuba and Germany, and served as composer-in-residence at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, and at the Berlin Philharmonic. Henze also founded the Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte festival and summer school in Montepulciano, Italy.
Having left Germany in 1953, Henze settled in the Albani hills outside Rome, where “he found his own harmonious balance of art and life,” and divided his time between composing, entertaining friends and spending time with his partner of 50 years, Fausto Moroni.
According to Schott, Moroni also cared for the composer when he suffered a major emotional collapse during which he barely spoke and had to be encouraged to eat. Shortly after Henze's sudden recovery in 2007, Moroni died of cancer.
Henze’s most recent success was the 2003 opera L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe (The Hoopoe and the Triumph of Filial Love), which was based on a Syrian fairy tale and premiered at the Salzburg Festival.
Completed in 2000, his final symphony, Sinfonia No. 10, was premiered by Sir Simon Rattle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
The Semperoper opera house in Dresden recently kicked off a tribute to Henze with a performance of We come to the River.
“With the unshakable courage of his convictions, but also with his joi de vivre, his love of beautiful things and of nature, Henze's restless spirit reveals to us a man who never lost sight of his artistic aspirations, despite many personal sufferings, and historical dangers,” reads the Schott statement.
“To him, composing was both an ethical commitment and personal expression. He had to write, with relentless self-discipline, and when times were hard it threw him the anchor he needed and saved him from his darkest moments.
“Hans Werner Henze once said that music 'is the opposite of sin – it is redemption, the Promised Land.’"