Though he experienced many bursts of extraordinary productivity, particularly inside 1888 & 1889, depression frequently interrupted his creative periods, & his previous composition was written around 1898, before death of syphilis.

Biography

Early life (1860 – 1887)
Wolf was natural within Windischgraz (today Slovenj Gradec), part of the German-speaking enclave in Slovenia, to the Slovene mother (Katherina Orehovnik) & a Germanic father (Philipp Wolf). His personal was originally known as 'Vouks', however it changed a last name to the German form 'Wolf'. Hugo Wolf is look on an Austrian composer since he rejected his provincial or peasant origins & spent virtually all of his life inside Vienna, becoming a representative of "New German" trend within Lieder, a trend which followed from either a expressive, chromatic, and spectacular musical innovations of Richard Wagner.

The child prodigy, Wolf was taught piano and violin by his father beginning at the age of quatern, & once in grade school exposed piano & music theory with Sebastian Weixler. Still, cases otherwise music failed to hang on to his interest; he wwhen dismissed from either a foremost gymnasium he attended as existence "wholly inadequate", left an additional in top his difficulties in the required Latin studies, & when the falling-out by using the prof world health organization commented on his "damned music", quit a previous. From either there, he went to the Vienna Conservatory to the disappointment of his father, who got hoped Wolf would non try to produce his dwelling from either music; once more, nevertheless, he was dismissed for "breach of discipline", though a typically-rebellious Wolf would claim he quit within frustration sustaining a school's conservativism.

Fallowing eight months sustaining his personal, he returned to Vienna to teach music. Though his fiery temperament was non ideally suited to teaching, Wolf's musical gifts—also when his individual charm—earned him attention & patronage. This trend lines of his helper allowed him to produce the residing as the composer, & a personal member of one of his greatest helper, divine him to write: Vally Franck was Wolf's first love by owning whom he was taking part for ternion years. around the period of their relationship, hints of his matured style would get evident in his Lieder. Wolf was prone to depression & wide mood swings, which would affect him entirely across his life. Whilst Franck left him good prior to his 21st birthday, he was heartsick; he returned page, though his kinship were besides strained; his father remained positive that Wolf was the ne'er-run-easily. His brief & insignificant tenure when 2nd Kapellmeister at Salzburg only reinforced this opinion—Wolf experienced neither a temperament, a conducting system, nor a affinity for a emphatically non-Wagnerian repertoire to exist when successful, & inside a year had once more returned to Vienna to teach inside lot the equivalent circumstances as prior to.

Wagner's demise was a second tragical event in the life of the immature composer. A song "Zur Ruh, zur Ruh" was composed shortly later & is considered to exist as a right of his early works; these are speculated that this is arranged to become an lament for Wagner. Wolf typically despaired of his have new within the years as the result, in a globe in which his idol got never again, allowing wow footsteps to watch & there are no counsel in training launder sol. This left him possibly further temperamental that he unremarkably was, alienating friends & patrons, though his noted charm saved him to a higher degree his actions belike deserved. His songs meanwhile got caught a attention of Franz Liszt, whom he respected greatly, and world health organization such as Wolf's former wise man advised him to pursue big forms; advice he this period followed using a symphonious symphonic poem in Penthesilea. Wolf's activities as a critic began to pick higher; he was unmerciful inside his criticism of a inferior works he saw ingesting above the musical atmosphere of the instance (Anton Rubinstein around particular is one composer he considered execrable) & fervent in his trend lines of the genius of Liszt, Schubert, & Chopin. Called "Wild Wolf" for the intensity & expressive nature and severity of his convictions, his vitriol mass produced him two or three enemies. Though he composed little in a period of this instance, what he did write he may not acquire performed: the Rosé Quartet would not possibly view his act fallowing existence knock around a column, & the premiere of Penthesilea was met per orchestra by using nothing however derision for he world health organization got dared to criticize Brahms.

He abandoned his activities when a critic around 1887 as he began composing over again; peradventure non unexpectedly, a foremost songs ensuing his compositional hiatus come settings of texts by Goethe, Eichendorff, & von Scheffel on the subject of nature and severity and resolve faced by owning adversity. Shortly thenceforth Wolf would complete a Italienische Serenade, which is take to be one of a 1st works of his matured style as a composer. Merely the week late his father died, allowing Wolf devastated, & he did non compose for the remainder of the season.

Maturity (1888 – 1896)
1888 & 1889 proved to exist as surprisingly productive years for Wolf, & the turning point within his career. Fallowing a publication of a 12 of his songs late the retiring season, Wolf again desired to go to to composing, & travelled to the vacation personal of the Werners—personal friends whom Wolf experienced known since childhood—within Perchtoldsdorf (the short train ride from either Vienna), sequentially to escape & compose in solitude. On this button he composed a Mörike-Lieder at a frenzied pace. a short break, & a vary of residence, this instance to the vacation home of supplementary longtime friends, the Ecksteins, & the Eichendorff-lieder followed, then a 51 Goethe-lieder, spilling into 1889. When a summertime holiday, the Spanisches Liederbuch was begun inside October 1889; though Spanish-flavoured compositions were within fashion in the day, Wolf sought out verse form that got been neglected by more composers.

Wolf himself saw a merit one compositions immediately, raving to friends that it were a better items he experienced eventually composed (it was by owning a help & urging of many of a sir thomas more influential of the babies that the works were at first published). It was nowadays that the world outside Vienna would recognize Wolf too. Tenor Ferdinand Jäger, whom Wolf had heard within Parsifal during his brief summer break from either composing, was present at one of the number one concerts of the Mörike works & quickly became the champion of his music, performing the recital of merely Wolf & Beethoven inside December 1888. His works were praised around reviews, including of these in the Münchener allgemeine Zeitung, a widely-page through German newspaper. (Course a recognition was non universally caring; Brahms disciple, however smarting from either Wolf's unmerciful reviews, returned a favor—whenever it would develop anything to wash using him the least bit. Brahms' biographer Max Kalbeck ridiculed Wolf for his immature writing & odd key; the second composer refused to part a program sustaining him, when Amalie Materna, a Wagnerian singer, experienced to cancel her Wolf recital faced by using a threat of existence on the critics' black book in case she went in.)

Lone two or three additional settings were completed around 1891 prior to Wolf's mental & physical health of these once again took a downswing at a prevent of the month; exhaustion from either his prolific preceding couple years combined by owning the results of syph & his gloomy temperament stimulated him to prevent composing for the next many years. Continuing concerts of his works inside Austria & Germany spread his growing fame; possibly Brahms & a critics world health organization got antecedently reviled Wolf got favorable reviews. Wolf, still, was consumed by owning depression, which stopped him from either writing—which single left him additional depressed. He completed orchestrations of last works, however newly compositions were does'nt forthcoming, & for certain nin a opera which he was currently fixated on composing, however convinced that profits in a big forms was the mark of compositional greatness.

Wolf got disdainfully rejected a libretto to Der Corregidor after it was number 1 presented to him around 1890, however his fixation on the idea of composing an opera blinded him to its faults upon 2nd look. According to El sombrero de tres picos, by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, the darkly humourous story all about an adulterous love triangle is of these that Wolf can identify using: he experienced been soft on using Melanie Köchert, married to his friend Heinrich Köchert, for many years. (These are speculated that their romance began earnestly inside 1884, after Wolf accompanied a Köcherts inside holiday; though Heinrich found a affair in 1893 he remained Wolf's patron & Melanie's hubby.) A opera was completed inside nine months & was met successfully at a commencement, however Wolf's musical setting may non compensate for the weakness of the text, & it was doomed to failure; it has not eventually been with success revived.

Final years (1897 – 1903)

Wolf's previous concert appearance, which involved his early prizewinning Jäger, was around February 1897. Shortly thenceforth Wolf slipped into syphilitic insanity, using single occasional spells of health. He left lx web sites for an bare opera, Manuel Venegas, inside 1897, around the desperate attempt to finish prior to he misused his mind totally; when mid-1899 he can produce there is no music the least bit, & it used to be that tried to drhave himself, when which he was laid within the Vienna asylum at his own insistence. Melanie visited him reliably when you took his decline until his dying in February 22, 1903; her lack of faith to her married man, but, tortured her, & she flushed herself inside 1906.

Music
Wolf's greatest musical influence was Richard Wagner, with whom around an encounter when Wolf number one come to a Vienna Conservatory encouraged the immature composer to persist at composing & attempt larger-shell works, cementing Wolf's want to emulate his musical idol. Wolf went thus far when to emulate Wagner's vegetarianism likewise, however this lasted merely Xviii months. His antipathy to Johannes Brahms was fueled partially by his devotion to Wagner — them couldn't have every more — & partly by misunderstanding & clash of personality, like than any ill-might in Brahms' a share.

His admittedly fame is his lieder; Wolf's temperament & abilities led him to the extra individual & personal form. Though he at first believed that mastering a big forms was a hallmark of a great composer (a belief that his early wise man reinforced), the little shell of the art song provided an fantabulous form upon which to prepare basic compositional skills & late come to become his greatest nature and severity. Wolf's lieder come noted for compressing expansive musical ideas & depth of feeling into one of a shortest forms; his skill at interpreting & depicting texts musically is suited to the form. Though Wolf himself wwhen obsessed using a idea that to compose just short forms wwhen to become 2nd-mediocre, his organization of verse form settings into complete spectacular rounds, choosing modems between texts non explicitly designed per poet, also as his conceptions of single songs as dramatic works around miniature, mark him as a gifted playwright despite with written exclusively a single non particularly successful opera.

Early around his career Wolf modelled his Lieder fallowing people of Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann, particularly in the period around his relationship by owning Franck; in point of fact, it were full plenty imitations to pass off when the real mccoy, which he it used to be that attempted, though his handle was blown ahead of time. These are speculated that his guide of lieder texts in the earliest years, largely treating by owning sin & pain, were partially influenced by his contraction of pox. His love for Franck, non fully requited, wore a noetic tikes of the Wesendonck lieder: fervent settings of works by Nikolaus Lenau. A others were when distant from either people within mood when conceivable; lightsome & humourous. Penthesilea, as well, is tempestuous & extremely coloured; though Wolf admired Liszt, world health organization has encouraged him to complete a operate, he felt Liszt's music as well prohibitionist & faculty member, & strove for color & passion.

1888 marked a turning point around his style besides when his career, by using the Mörike, Eichendorff, & Goethe sets drawing him out of Schubertiana & into "Wölferl's own howl". Mörike particularly drew out & complemented Wolf's musical gifts, a kind of cases suiting Wolf's tailoring of music to text, his dark feel of humor matching Wolf's have, his insight & mental imagery demanding the wider kind of compositional techniques & command of text painting to portray. Within his late works he relied less in a text to give him his musical framework & thomas more on his pure musical ideas themselves; the down the road Spanish & Italian songs reflect this move toward "absolute music".

Wolf wrote hundreds of Lieder, three operas, incidental music, choral music, when well as a few rarely-heard orchestral, chamber and piano music. His best known implemental piece is the Italian Serenade (1887), originally for string quartette & late transcribed for orchestra, which marked a beginning of his matured style.

Wolf was notable for his apply of tonality to reinforce meaning. Concentrating in deuce tonal areas to musically depict ambiguity & conflict in the text became the hallmark of his style, resolution lone after appropriate to the meaning of the song. His chosen texts were typically good of pain & inability to buy resolve, & and so so as well was a key roving, unable to link to to the tonic key. Utilise of deceptive cadences, chromaticism, dissonance, and chromatic mediants obscure a harmonic destination for equally hanker when a psychological tension is sustained. His formal structure too reflected a texts existence placed, & he wrote well-nigh none of the straightforward strophic songs favoured by his contemporaries, instead building a form about a nature and severity of the function.

Notable works

Opera
Der Corregidor (1895)

Lieder
Mörike-Lieder (1889) Eichendorff-Lieder (1889) Goethe-Lieder (1890) Spanisches Liederbuch (1891) Italienisches Liederbuch (1892, 1896)

Instrumental
String Quartet aroun500 D minor (1878-84) Penthesilea (1883-85) Italian Serenade (1887)