Hans Werner Henze

Hans Werner Henze combined twelve-tone procedures with other musical idioms. He grew up in Gütersloh, was conscripted in the final phase of the war, and after captivity worked at the theatre in Bielefeld before studying in Heidelberg with Wolfgang Fortner; he later worked in Wiesbaden as conductor and ballet composer. His operas include Boulevard Solitude, Der Prinz von Homburg, The Bassarids to a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, and Das verratene Meer, with Hans Magnus Enzensberger among his other collaborators. From 1953 he lived in Italy. Ten symphonies, concertos, chamber music, film scores and the oratorio Das Floß der Medusa followed, and in 1976 he founded the Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte at Montepulciano. He died in Dresden in 2012. Gisela belongs among the operas as well, and he taught composition in Salzburg and Cologne. In 1988 he founded a second institution, the Munich Biennale for new music theatre, and his Ninth Symphony turns to Anna Seghers's novel The Seventh Cross.