ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK
MAKERS OF MODERN OPERA
Engelbert Humperdinck
SIX
Few composers have so suddenly sprung into fame and favor as Engelbert Humperdinck. He was born at Sigburg, Germany, in September, 1854. His musical education began in Cologne Conservatory under Hiller, and was continued in Munich under Lachner. The prizes that he won at the conservatory enabled him to go to Italy, where he met Richard Wagner at Naples, who recognized his ability and showed him many favors. Wagner took Humperdinck with him to Bayreuth and made an assistant of him. Humperdinck’s services were most valuable in the production of Wagner’s “Parsifal” in 1882. Subsequently he visited France and Spain, remaining two years in the latter country, teaching at Barcelona.
In 1887 he returned to Cologne, and shortly afterward taught music at Frankfort-on-the-Main. In 1896 the emperor secured for him an appointment as professor in Berlin, and Humperdinck moved there in 1900.
The compositions of Humperdinck are not numerous. His reputation, as far as the world at large is concerned, rests entirely on his masterpiece, “Hänsel und Gretel.” Besides this opera, he wrote incidental music for “The Children of the King,” a charming play of allegorical character, and the “Moorish Rhapsody,” an orchestral piece. These two and a few other compositions are known chiefly to music lovers, and they uphold the reputation that Humperdinck obtained by his “Hänsel und Gretel.”
The fairy opera, “Hänsel und Gretel,” is known the world over, and well beloved wherever it is heard. Its success was phenomenal from the start, the story of the opera being captivating, and the music likewise. It came at a time when the attention of the operatic world was absorbed with some of the successors of the well known Italian school, prominently Mascagni and Leoncavallo. But the little opera struck a note much higher, and so much more beautiful that before the first season was over the Italian composers found their admirers listening to and singing the music of “Hänsel und Gretel,” and leaving their intermezzi to the street organs. The eminent critic, Streatfeild, pronounced Humperdinck “the first German composer of distinct individuality since Wagner.” The close association with Wagner that Humperdinck enjoyed has shown its influence on the latter’s music; but there is a spirit and a quality in it all his own.