Hans Werner Henze

Born in Gütersloh on 1 July 1926, died in Dresden in 2012; in 1942 Hans Werner Henze began studying piano and percussion at the Staatsmusikschule Braunschweig and continued after the war in Heidelberg with Wolfgang Fortner. He worked as a répétiteur in Bielefeld and Konstanz and in 1950 became artistic director and conductor of the ballet at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden. In 1953 he moved to Ischia, lived in Naples from 1956 and later in Marino near Rome. His some 50 stage works include the operas “Der Prinz von Homburg” (1958/59) and “Der junge Lord” (1964) to libretti by Ingeborg Bachmann as well as “Elegy for Young Lovers” (1961) and “The Bassarids” (1964/65) after W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman; to these are added ten symphonies. In 1976 he founded the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte in Montepulciano, in 1988 the Münchener Biennale für neues Musiktheater; from 1980 to 1991 he taught composition at the Musikhochschule Köln. In 2000 he received the Praemium Imperiale.