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Engelbert Humperdinck is a German composer. He was born on September 1, 1854 in Siegburg, Germany. He died on 27 September 1921 in Neustrelitz, Germany
People mostly remember Humperdinck for his first opera the much loved 'Hänsel und Gretel'. His later, more ambitious operas never quite succeeded in gaining a firm place in repertory. He began his musical education with piano lessons at the age of seven.
His first experience of opera was in 1868 when he heard Lortzing's Undine. The consequences were immediate: in the same year he began working on two Singspiels, 'Perla and Claudine von Villa Bella', and on the music drama 'Harziperes'.In later life, Humperdinck continued to refer to Lortzing as one of his models. His father alarmed by these distractions from serious study, but on the enthusiastic advice of the composer Ferdinand Hiller, agreed to let his son enter the Cologne Conservatory in 1872. Humperdinck was most successful as a music student, winning the Mozart Prize of Frankfurt in 1876, the Mendelssohn Prize of Berlin in 1879 and the Meyerbeer Prize of Berlin in 1881. With the aid of its financial award, he moved to the Munich Konigliche Musikschule in 1877 where he first studied with Franz Lachner and then with Rheinberger. At that time, new influences began to disturb his adherence to the Schumannesque traditions of his teachers. He heard Wagner's Ring in 1878 and joined the Munich Wagnerian society 'Orden vom Gral.' While enrolled there (1877 - 79), he won an award from the Mendelssohn Foundation of Berlin.
A visit to Wagner in 1880 during Humperdinck's scholarship tour of Italy proved even more decisive; Wagner invited him to come to Bayreuth in 1881 to help with the first production of Parsifal. Later, Humperdinck became the music tutor to Richard Wagner's son Siegfried Wagner. Though friends feared such contact would inhibit Humperdinck's creativity, the composer said he would willingly give up originality if it meant he could write choruses like those in Parsifal. He also pointed out that there were lighter sides to Wagner's writing not compatible with his own more Mendelssohnian inclinations.It was ten years before Humperdinck was able to show the fruit of these new influences. Although he successfully pursued his career as a teacher and critic, becoming a lecturer at the Cologne Conservatory in 1887 and later at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, all his operatic plans came to nothing.
Significantly, the inhibition caused by Wagner overcame by a request from Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Wette , to set some folksongs for Hänsel and Gretel. Adelheid Wette wrote Hänsel and Gretel to a libretto. She added characters and scenes to expand the little story to operatic dimensions, Hänsel und Gretel premièred in Weimar in December of 1893. They quickly programmed in opera houses all over Europe, representing the perfect antidote to the chill eristic winds blowing out of Italy at the time. Ostensibly, a work for children, the opera has always found favor with audiences of all ages thanks to its odd blend of fable-like innocence and Wagnerian weight. Humperdinck's successful blending of a children's story with his own, rather monumental, orchestral world has made Hänsel und Gretel the only post-Wagnerian work to consider a successful synthesis of the German master's style.The simplicity of the proposal suited the composer's unpretentious nature. As the opera, Hänsel and Gretel developed from folksongs to a Singspiel and finally to opera, the composer began to question the aesthetic wisdom of his choice. The public's response to the work, however, confirmed that its spontaneity and naivety were among its greatest assets.
The immense success of 'Hänsel and Gretel' proved difficult for Humperdinck to follow. At first, he continued to produce works in the fairy-tale genre, including 'Die sieben Geislein', 'Konigskinder', and the 'Sleeping Beauty' story 'Dornroschen'. However, he never matched the success of Hänsel and Gretel and turned to comic opera. Neither: 'Die Heirat wider Willen', 'Die Marketenderin' nor 'Das Mirakel' met with much success. While the adaptation of his own 'Konigskinder' from melodrama to opera met with critical acclaim, it never matched the popularity of Hänsel and Gretel, which remains his musical legacy.
The operatic version of Königskinder, another characteristic piece in his naïve, folklike style, premièred in New York in 1910; like Hänsel und Gretel it started from simple song settings and went through an intermediate stage to a full opera, showing Wagnerian harmonic and textural influences.
He enjoyed a fruitful collaboration in the theatre with Max Reinhardt, providing incidental music for a number of Shakespearean productions in Berlin.
During the course of his musical career, Humperdinck supplemented his compositional activities with turns as a music editor, critic, and, at various times, a music teacher; Wagner's son Siegfried was one of his pupils. His other works, particularly the pleasant 1880 Humoreske for orchestra in E major, find occasional performances today.
