Humperdinck, Engelbert

1854-

Gennan composer, critic and teacher; born in Siegburg s near Bonn, in the Rhine provinces. He had intended architecture to be his life-work, but Ferdinand Hiller persuaded him to take up music. He afterwards became a pupil of Hiller in the Cologne Conservatory. He won many prizes there which enabled him to continue his study in Munich, under Franz Lachner and Josef Rheinberger at the Royal Music School. In 1878 he won the Mendelssohn prize in Berlin and with this money (3000 marks) he went to Italy. There he met Wagner and began that friendship and mutual interest which was to last until Wagner's death. Going together to Bayreuth, Humperdinck materially assisted him in the production of Parsifal by preparing and coaching the cast. Wagner selected him to write the piano arrangements of his music dramas because he was so in touch with the great composer's ideas. He was also an instructor of Siegfried Wagner. He left Bayreuth, having won the Meyerbeer prize in 1881, and traveled again in Italy, France and Spain. He taught theory of music for two years in the Conservatory at Barcelona. In 1887 he returned to Cologne, teaching there, and from 1890 to 1896 he was a professor in the Hoch Conservatory, Frankfort. In the latter city he was also a teacher in Stockhausen's Vocal School, concertmaster at the opera, and musical critic for the Zeitung. The Kaiser created him professor in 1896, and in 1900 he was called to Berlin as a member of the Academy of Fine Arts and as the head of a master-school for composition.

Humperdinck seems to be fond of children, as most of his operas were written for the amusement of youthful relatives at the family reunions. Some of them are Dornroschen; Saint-Cyr; Die Sieben Geislein; and Die Konigskinder, which was given in England and America under the title of The Children of the King.

His greatest work, Hansel and Gretel, appeared in 1893 and immediately became world-famous. It was performed in London in 1895, being rendered into English by Constance Bach, and in the fall of the same year had its first representation in New York, at Daly's Theatre. This opera is shorter than the hitherto four-horn style and may be said to begin the new romantic school of Germany. Other of his compositions include a Humoreske, and Moorish Rhapsodic for orchestra; a choral work, Das Glück von Edenhall; a choral ballade, Die Wallfahrt Nach Keylaar; and music for male or mixed choirs.