Hans Werner Henze

Born in 1926, Hans Werner Henze discovered his passion for music at an early age. At the same time, his childhood and youth were deeply influenced by traumatic experiences under National Socialism, which were to make him a staunch anti-fascist. After the war, he found musical inspiration in the avantgarde, but quickly realised that its then dogmatically strict rules of composition were not for him. This led to a scandal in 1957 at the Donaueschingen Music Festival, the most important new music festival in Germany: Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono and Karlheinz Stockhausen left the hall after just a few bars of a premiere by Henze. »There was no end to the head-shaking over my cultural lapses that evening. It was actually funny and ethically questionable: where was the cultural freedom? Who or what allowed themselves to mix moral criteria with aesthetic ones?« Henze wrote in his autobiography.

It is therefore hardly surprising that Henze turned his back on his homeland in the 1950s and settled in Italy. From there, he quickly enjoyed international success: his 15 operas and 10 symphonies are still regularly featured on concert programmes today, as is his chamber music. As a conductor, teacher and festival founder, he returned to Germany time and again – most recently to Dresden as Capell-Compositeur of the Sächsische Staatskapelle shortly before his death in 2012.