Adolf von Henselt

Portrait of Adolf von Henselt, with scrap of music
Portrait of Adolf Henselt, composer (1814-1889), before 1889. Archivio Storico Ricordi.

Adolf von Henselt (born Georg Martin Adolf Henselt; 9 May 1814 – 10 October 1889) was a German composer and virtuoso pianist. He was a well known composer during his lifetime best known for his Douze Études caractéristiques, which were known for their difficulty. He studied under Johann Nepomuk Hummel and had many notable students of his own. He was also well known for his Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 16.

Original Church Record showing Henselt's birth as 9 May 1814

Life

Georg Martin Adolf Henselt was born at Schwabach, in Bavaria. At the age of three he began to learn the violin, and at five the piano under Josepha von Fladt (1778–1843), who had trained in composition with Franz Danzi, Abbé (George Joseph) Vogler, Joseph Graetz and studied piano with Franz Lauska (who later coached Giacomo Meyerbeer and Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn). His concert debut was at the Odeon in Munich, where he played the opening Allegro to one of Mozart's C major concertos, a free fantasy with variations on a theme from Weber's Der Freischütz, and a rondo by Kalkbrenner. It was through Fladt's influence with King Ludwig I of Bavaria that Henselt was provided the financial means to undertake further study with Johann Nepomuk Hummel in Weimar in 1832 for some months. Later that year, he went to Vienna, where, besides studying composition under Simon Sechter (the later teacher of Anton Bruckner), he was successful as a concert pianist.

In 1836, to improve his health, he made a prolonged tour through the chief German towns. In 1837, he settled at Breslau, where he had married Rosalie Vogel—but the following year migrated to Saint Petersburg, where previous visits made him welcome. He became court pianist to Alexandra Feodorovna and inspector of musical studies in the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens, and was ennobled in 1876. Henselt usually spent summer holidays in Germany. Among his many students were Heinrich Ehrlich, Nikolai Zverev, Ingeborg Bronsart von Schellendorf, Alie Lindberg, Vladimir Stasov, Nikolai Ber [ru], and Ivan Neylisov [ru]. In 1852, and again in 1867, he visited England, though in the latter year he made no public appearance. From 1872 to 1875 he was the editor of the magazine Nouvellist [ru]. Saint Petersburg was his home nearly until his death from cardiac disease during a stay at Warmbrunn, Germany (now in Poland).

Statue of Henselt in his hometown of Schwabach

To some ears, Henselt's playing combined Franz Liszt's sonority with Hummel's smoothness. It was full of poetry, remarkable for his use of extended chords and technique. His cantabile playing was highly regarded. "Find out the secret of Henselt's hands," Liszt told his pupils. Once he commented on the lengths Henselt took to achieve his famous legato, saying, "I could have had velvet paws like that if I had wanted to." Henselt's influence on the next generation of Russian pianists was immense. Henselt's playing and teaching greatly influenced the Russian school of music, developing from seeds planted by John Field. Sergei Rachmaninoff held him in very great esteem, and considered him one of his most important influences.

He excelled in his own works and in those of Carl Maria von Weber and Frédéric Chopin. His Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 16 was once frequently played in Europe, and of his many valuable studies, the Étude in F-sharp major Si oiseau j'étais, was very popular. At one time Henselt was second to Anton Rubinstein in the direction of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.

Despite his relatively long life, Henselt ceased nearly all composition by the age of thirty, for reasons that are unclear. Chronic stage fright, bordering on paranoia, caused him to withdraw from concert appearances by age thirty-three.

Works

Piano solo

(selective list)

Orchestral

Chamber

Vocal

Notes

  1. ↑ Siek, Stephen (2016-11-10). A Dictionary for the Modern Pianist. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-8108-8880-7. Henselt, Adolf von … He soon switched to piano, studying with the wife of the Bavarian Geheimrat (privy councilor), Josepha von Fladt.
  2. ↑ Cooper, John Michael (2013-10-17). Historical Dictionary of Romantic Music. Scarecrow Press. p. 277. ISBN 978-0-8108-7484-8. Josepha von Fladt, herself a student of Abbé Vogler (1749–1814).
  3. 1 2 3 4 Wikisource One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Henselt, Adolf von". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 302.
  4. ↑ Harold C. Schonberg, The Great Pianists from Mozart to the Present, 1963, p. 201
  5. ↑ Referred to as "Henselt's F-minor exercise in narcissism" by Glenn Gould in: Tim Page (ed.), The Glenn Gould Reader (Knopf, New York 1984), 74.

References