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Hugo Wolf
 

Hugo Wolf

Fact Sheet

Musical genre:Classical  
Birthday13 March 1860
SignPisces
Date of deathFebruary 22, 1903 (age 42)
Hugo Wolf was a Slovene composer and writer on music, particularly noted for his songs. He brought to the form of the lieder a concentrated expressive intensity which was almost unique in late Romanticism, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in conciseness but utterly unrelated in technique.

Life

Wolf was born in Slovenj Gradec, part of a German-speaking enclave within Slovenia, to a Slovene mother (Katherina Orehovnik) and a Germanic father (Philipp Wolf). His family was originally named Vouks, but they changed the surname to the German form Wolf. Hugo Wolf is usually presented as an Austrian composer, since he rejected his provincial or peasant origin and spent most of his life in Vienna, becoming a representative of "New German" trend in lieder, a trend which followed from the expressive, chromatic, and dramatic innovations in the music of Wagner. As a child he was considered a prodigy.

He suffered from depression, which interrupted his creative periods. In 1897 he composed his last music, succumbing at last to the mental illness which had plagued him for most of his adult life; he died in a mental hospital in Vienna.

Music

Wolf wrote hundreds of songs, three operas, incidental music, choral music, as well as some rarely-heard orchestral, chamber and piano music. His most famous instrumental piece is likely the Italian Serenade (1887), originally for string quartet, and later transcribed for orchestra.



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