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WOLF, HUGO (1860-1903)

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 772 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WOLF, See also:HUGO (1860-1903) , See also:German composer, was See also:born on the 13th of See also:March 186o at Windischgraz in See also:Styria. His See also:father, who was in the See also:leather See also:trade, was a keen musician. From him Hugo learned the rudiments of the piano and the See also:violin. After an unhappy school See also:life, in which he showed little aptitude for anything but See also:music, he went in 1875 to the See also:Conservatoire. He appears to have learned very little there, and was dismissed in 1877 because of a See also:practical joke in the See also:form of a threateningletter to the director, for which he was perhaps unjustly held responsible. From the See also:age of seventeen he had to depend upon himself for his musical training. By giving lessons on the piano and with occasional small help from his father he managed to live for several years in See also:Vienna, but it was a life of extreme hardship and privation, for which his delicate constitution and his proud, sensitive and See also:nervous temperament were particularly See also:ill-suited. In 1884 he became musical critic to the Salonblatt, a Viennese society See also:paper, and contrived by his uncompromisingly trenchant and sarcastic See also:style to win a notoriety which was not helpful to his future prospects. His ardent discipleship of See also:Wagner was unfortunately linked with a See also:bitter opposition to See also:Brahms, for whose See also:works he always retained an ineradicable dislike. The publication at the end of 1887 of twelve of his songs seems to have definitely decided the course of his See also:genius, for about this See also:time he retired from the Salonblatt, and resolved to devote his whole energies to See also:song-See also:composition. The nine years which followed practically represent his life as a composer. They were marked by periods of feverish creative activity, alternating with periods of See also:mental and See also:physical exhaustion, during which he was sometimes unable even to See also:bear the See also:sound of music.

By the end of 1891 he had composed the bulk of his works, on which his fame chiefly rests, 43 See also:

Morike Lieder, 20 See also:Eichendorff Lieder, 51 See also:Goethe Lieder, 44 Lieder from See also:Geibel and See also:Heyse's Spanisches Liederspiel, and 22 from Heyse's Italienisches Liederbuch, a second See also:part consisting of 24 songs being added in 1886. Besides these were 13 settings of lyrics by different authors, incidental music to See also:Ibsen's Pest auf Solhaug, a few choral and instrumental works, an See also:opera in four acts, Der Corregidor, successfully produced at See also:Mannheim in See also:June 1896, and finally settings of three sonnets by See also:Michelangelo in March 1897. In See also:September of this See also:year the malady which had See also:long threatened descended upon him; he was placed in an See also:asylum, released in the following See also:January, only to be immured again some months later by his own wish, after an See also:attempt to drown himself in the Traunsee. Four painful years elapsed before his See also:death on the 22nd of See also:February 1903. Apart from his works and the tragedy of his last years there is little in Wolf's life to distinguish it from that of other struggling and unsuccessful musicians. His touchy and difficult temperament perpetually stood in the way of worldly success. What little he obtained was due to the persevering efforts of a small See also:band of See also:friends, critics and singers, to make his songs known, to the support of the Vienna Wagner-Verein, and to the formation in 1895 of the Hugo-Wolf-Verein in See also:Berlin. No doubt it was also a See also:good thing for his reputation that the See also:firm of Schott undertook in 1891 the publication of his songs, but the See also:financial result after five years amounted to 85 marks 35 pfennigs (about b4, 1os.). He lived in cheap lodgings till in 1896 the generosity of his friends provided him with a See also:house of his own, which he enjoyed for one year. Among the song composers who have adopted the See also:modern standpoint, according to which accepted canons of beauty and of form must yield if they interfere with a closer or more vivid realization of dramatic or emotional expression, Wolf holds a See also:place in which he has no See also:rival, not because of the daring originality of his methods and the remarkable idiosyncrasies of his style, but because these are the See also:direct outcome of rare poetical insight and imaginative See also:power. He has that See also:gift of See also:vision which makes the difference between genius and See also:talent. His frequent See also:adoption of a type of song built upon a single phrase or leit-moliv in the See also:accompaniment has led to the misleading statement that his See also:work represents merely the transference of Wagnerian principles to song.

In reality the forms of Wolf's songs vary as widely as those of the poems which he set. No less remarkable is the immense range of style at his command. But with Wolf methods of form and style are so inseparably linked with the poetical conceptions which they embody, that they can hardly be considered apart. His place among the greatest song-writers is due to the essential truth and originality of his creations, and to the vivid intensity with which he has presented them. These results depend not merely on musical gifts that are exceptional, but also upon a See also:

critical grasp of See also:poetry of the highest See also:order. No other composer has exhibited so scrupulous a reverence for the poems which he set. To displace an See also:accent was for him as heinous an See also:act of See also:sacrilege as to misinterpret a conception or to ignore an essential See also:suggestion. Fineness of declamation has never reached a higher point than in Wolf's songs. Emphasis should also be laid upon the See also:objective and dramatic attitude of his mind. He preferred to make himself the See also:mouthpiece of the poetry rather than to use his See also:art for purposes of self-See also:revelation, avoiding for his songs the works of those whom with healthy scorn he termed the Ich-Poeten. Hence the men and See also:women characterized in his songs are living realities, forming a veritable portrait See also:gallery, of which the figures, though unmistakably the work of a single See also:hand, yet maintain their own See also:separate identity. These statements can be verified as well by a reference to the simpler and more melodious of his songs, as to those which are of extreme elaboration and difficulty.

Among the former may be named Das verlassene Magdlein in der Fruhe and Der Gartner (Morike), Verschwiegene Liebe and Der Musikant (Eichendorff), Anakreons Grab (Goethe), Alle gingen, Herz, zur Ruh' and Herz, was fragst (Spanisches Liederspiel), Nos. r and 4 of the Italienisches Liederbuch, and among the latter Aeolsharfe and Der Feuerreiter (Morike), Ganymed and See also:

Prometheus (Goethe). (W. A. J.

End of Article: WOLF, HUGO (1860-1903)

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