Heinrich von Herzogenberg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Heinrich Picot de Peccaduc, Freiherr von Herzogenberg (born in Graz on 10 June 1843, died in Wiesbaden 9 October 1900) was an Austrian composer and conductor descended from a French aristocratic family. He studied law and music in Vienna, the latter including composition under Felix Otto Dessoff. He was early attracted to the music of Wagner, but through the study of J. S. Bach he was led to a strong attachment to the classical tradition and became an ardent admirer of Brahms. He married Elisabet von Stockhausen, who had been a piano pupil of Brahms; Brahms's letters to and from both Herzogenbergs form one of the most delightful sections of his correspondence. In 1874, with the Bach scholar Philipp Spitta, he founded the Leipzig Bach-Verein, which concerned itself with the revival of Bach’s cantatas. Herzogenberg was its artistic director for ten years, during which time Ethel Smyth was one of his composition pupils. From 1885 he was Professor of Composition at the Hochschule fur Musik in Berlin: it was in this capacity that he advised the young Ralph Vaughan Williams to study with Max Bruch. He died aged 57; in his last years he was confined to a wheelchair due to necrosis of the joints.

Herzogenberg was a learned composer of definite gifts, and was the first to write a set of Variations on a theme of Brahms (his op.23, for four hands at one piano, composed in 1876 on the Brahms song Die Traurende, op.7 no.5), but despite Elisabet's cajoling Brahms almost never expressed approval of his works. It has been theorized that he was picqued that Herzogenberg had married Elisabet, of whom he was himself extremely fond. Toward the end of his life, Brahms grudingly relented somewhat writing, "Herzogenberg is able to do more than any of the others."

While Herzogenberg has tended to be characterized as a mere epigone of Brahms, many of his compositions show little or no overt Brahmsian influence, for example his two string trios Op.27 Nos. 1 & 2, while some early compositions pre-dating his acquaintance with Brahms have features in common with the older composer. He wrote much choral, orchestral, instrumental and chamber music, including eight symphonies (one being a programmatic symphony entitled Odysseus). His early Theme and Variations, op.13, for two pianos (1870) is a notable work in its genre. Important works choral include the cantata Todtenfeier, op.80 (1893) in memory of his wife; Mass in E minor, op.97 (1894) in memory of Spitta and the oratorio Die Geburt Christi, op.90 (1894) with a libretto by Spitta’s brother Friedrich. He wrote a great deal of chamber music: 2 string trios Opp.27 Nos 1 & 2, 5 string quartets Opp.18, 42 Nos.1-3, and 63; a string quintet (with 2 violas) Op.17, 2 piano quartets Opp.75 & 95, 2 piano trios Opp.24 & 36, a trio for piano, oboe & horn, Op.61 and several sonatas for various instruments. Today, the general consensus of critics and scholars is that his contribution in this area is his most important.

Towards the end of his life he concentrated on providing music for communal worship in the Lutheran Evangelical Church, though he himself remained a Catholic. Several of Herzogenberg’s major works were thought to have been destroyed during World War II but resurfaced during the 1990s.

[edit] References

Johannes Brahms. The Herzogenberg Correspondence edited by Max Kalbeck, translated by Hannah Bryant (London, 1909)
Cobbett Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music, 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press 1963