Michael Denhoff (born 25 April 1955 in

Ahaus Ahaus (; Westphalian: ''Ausen'') is a town in the district of Borken in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located near the border with the Netherlands, lying some 20 km south-east of Enschede and 15 km south from Gr ...

) is a German

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

and

cellist The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

Life

Denhoff has lived and worked in

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

since 1982. He studied at the

Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln The Cologne University of Music () is a public university of music and dance located in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Established in 1850 as the Conservatorium der Musik in Coeln, it is one of the largest music academies in Europe, w ...

, where his teachers included

Günter Bialas Günter Bialas (19 July 1907 – 8 July 1995) was a German composer. Life Bialas was born in Bielschowitz (today Bielszowice, a subdivision of Ruda Śląska) in Prussian Silesia. His father was the business manager of a German theatre, and his ...

and

Hans Werner Henze Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large List of compositions by Hans Werner Henze, oeuvre is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Igor Stravinsky, Stravinsky, Mu ...

(composition), Siegfried Palm and

Erling Blöndal Bengtsson Erling Blöndal Bengtsson (8 March 1932 – 6 June 2013) was a Danish cellist. Born in Copenhagen, Bengtsson gave his first public performance there in 1936, when he was four years old. He was admitted at the age of sixteen to the Curtis Institut ...

(cello) and the

Amadeus Quartet The Amadeus Quartet was a string quartet founded in 1947 and disbanded in 1987, having retained its founding members throughout its history. Noted for its smooth, sophisticated style, its seamless ensemble playing, and its sensitive interpretat ...

(chamber music). As a composer and chamber musician, he occupied various teaching posts, including a lectureship in composition at the

University of Mainz The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz () is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. It has been named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. it had approximately 32,000 students enrolled in around 100 a ...

(1984–85) and a guest professorship at the National Conservatory of

Hanoi Hanoi ( ; ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Vietnam, second-most populous city of Vietnam. The name "Hanoi" translates to "inside the river" (Hanoi is bordered by the Red River (Asia), Red and Black River (Asia), Black Riv ...

(1997–99). From 1985 to 1992 he also conducted the Akademische Orchester Bonn, which he founded. As a cellist, he formed the Denhoff Piano Trio with his brother Johannes (violin) and the pianist Richard Braun. Since 1992, he has been a member of the Ludwig Quartet of Bonn, and he also works closely with the pianist Birgitta Wollenweber. As a composer, he has won several prizes and distinctions, including the Bernd Alois Zimmermann Prize (1986) and the Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Prize (1989). Denhoff's music shows the influence of poetry and the visual arts. Several of his orchestral and chamber works have been inspired by lyrics and paintings. Thus, there are instrumental works and cycles based on pictures by

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer ( , ;; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, Old master prin ...

and especially

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...

(''El sueño de la razon produce monstruos'', 1982; ''Desastres de la guerra'', 1983; ''

Los disparates ''Los disparates'' (''The Follies''), also known as ''Proverbios'' (''Proverbs'') or ''Sueños'' (''Dreams''), is a series of prints in etching and aquatint, with retouching in drypoint and engraving, created by Spanish painter and printmaker Fr ...

'', 1988). The literary figures who have most left their mark on his music are Ranier Maria Rilke,

Paul Celan Paul Celan (; ; born Paul Antschel; 23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a German-speaking Romanian poet, Holocaust survivor, and literary translation, literary translator. He adopted his pen name (an anagram of the Romanian spelling Ancel ...

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

and

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French Symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools o ...

. Other works characteristic of his compositional thought include cycles in the form of 'musical diaries' (''Klangtagebuch'', 1984; ''Hebdomadaire'', 1990). The most significant of these works is the piano quintet ''Hauptweg und Nebenwege'' (1998), which lasts nearly three hours. This piece gathers together the essential aspects of his music, their relationship to musical tradition, and also the influences of literature and the visual arts. Denhoff's compositional vocabulary shows evidence of a sensitive feeling for harmony and form, whose roots are to be found in composers such as

Bernd Alois Zimmermann Bernd Alois Zimmermann (20 March 1918 – 10 August 1970) was a German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera ''Die Soldaten'', which is regarded as one of the most important German operas of the 20th century, after those of Berg. Hi ...

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an ou ...

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminacy in music, a development associated with the experimental New York School o ...

and

György Kurtág György Kurtág (; born 19 February 1926) is a Hungarian composer of contemporary classical music and pianist. According to ''Grove Music Online'', with a style that draws on " Bartók, Webern and, to a lesser extent, Stravinsky, his work is c ...

. CDs featuring Denhoff's works are available on the WERGO, Col Legno and

Cybele Cybele ( ; Phrygian: ''Matar Kubileya, Kubeleya'' "Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian: ''Kuvava''; ''Kybélē'', ''Kybēbē'', ''Kybelis'') is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest ...

labels.

Selected works

Music theatre

* DER PELIKAN – Kammeroper nach Strindberg op. 64

Oratorios

* TRAUMBUCH EINES GEFANGENEN für Bariton, Sprecher, Chor und Orchester op. 51 * IN UNUM DEUM – Credo für Sopran, Bariton, Chor, Orgel und kleines Orchester op. 93 * MAGNIFICAT für Chor mit zwei Soloquartetten, Saxophonquartett und vier Schlagzeuger op. 98

Choral music

* VOZ MIA, CANTA, CANTA op. 37 Liederzyklus nach Gedichten von Juan Ramón Jiménez * THE DIMENSION OF STILLNESS op. 58 * CREDO op. 93a

Vocal music

* WIE EINE LINIE DUNKELBLAUEN SCHWEIGENS op. 80 - Sieben Gesänge nach Gedichten von Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger für Mezzosopran und Akkordeon * SILENCE, ET PUIS op. 101 - Fragmente nach letzten Notaten von Marguerite Duras für Altstimme und Viola

Orchestral music

* MELANCOLIA - Annäherungen an einen Kupferstich von Dürer op. 26 * EINSAMKEIT - in memoriam W. Buchebner op. 33 * DESASTRES DE LA GUERRA – Orchesterbilder nach Goya op. 36 * NACHTBILD (Mahler-Momente) op. 57 * INNENRÄUME…ERINNERND op. 71 * MATCH für Saxophonorchester und gr. Trommel op. 90

Concertos

* UMBRAE - in memoriam B. A. Zimmermann - für Violine, Violoncello und Orchester op. 13 * OMAGGIO für Violine, Oboe und Orchester op. 40 * REMARKS AND REVIEWS für Saxophonquartett und Orchester op. 68

Chamber music

* 9 String Quartets (Opp. 1, 19, 30, 55, 66a, 70, 73, 79, 83a) * 5 Piano Trios (Opp. 7, 27, 74-1, 74-2, 83b) * 4 Saxophone Quartets ("gegen-sätze" Op.39, "svolgimenti" Op.46, "pnoxoud" Op.59, Fünf geistliche Gesänge Op.98a) * ''Moment Musical'' for Viola and Piano (1973) * ''Champs de Mars'', Inventions after Marc Chagall for Viola and Piano, Op.9 (1975) * ''Los Disparates'', Sketches after Goya for Viola, Cello and Double Bass, Op.54 (1988) * ''Two Once So One'' for String Quartet, Viola and Cello, Op.66 (1992) * ''Mallarmé-Zyklus'', 12 Quartets for 12 Musicians, Op.75 (1995–1996) * ''Tenebrae'' for Viola and Piano, Op.82 (1997) * ''Hauptweg und Nebenwege'', Aufzeichnungen für Streichquartett und Klavier, Op.83 (1998) * ''To and Fro in Shadow'', "Nebenweg IV" for Viola and Piano, Op.83d (1998–1999) * ''Igitur'', Lesart für Kammerensemble, Op.85 (1998) * ''Sounds and Shadows'' for Piano, String Quartet and Viola (or Clarinet), Op.86 (1999) * ''...Ins Ungewisse...'' (Luigi Nono In Memoriam) for Violin and Double Bass, Op.97 (2004) * ''...Ouvert...'', Meditation für variable Besetzung, Op.99 (2005) * ''Maramba'' (zur Erinnerung an Paula Köhlmeier) for Flute (also Bass Flute) and Celesta, Op.100 (2005) * ''Silence, et puis'' for Alto Voice and Viola, Op.101 (2006) * ''Rue Sedaine, 11 P.M.'' for Ensemble, Op.104 (2007) * ''Zwei Stücke'' (Two Pieces) for Viola and Cello (2007)

Solo works

* NACHTFANTASIEN (zu Rilke-Gedichten) für Gitarre op. 31 * AUS TIEFER NOT - Anrufung für Orgel op. 41 * ATEMWENDE – Klavierzyklus nach Paul Celan op. 49, 1-7 * MONOLOGE I – V für fünf Solisten op. 50, 1-5 * HEBDOMADAIRE – 52 Stücke vom Jahr für einen Pianisten op. 62 * SKULPTUREN I – V für Klavier op. 76, 1-5 * INVENTIONEN I – XII für Player-Piano op. 88, 1-12 * ...AL NIENTE... für Klavier op. 95 * NACHTSCHATTENGEWÄCHSE - neun Stücke für Klavier op. 96

Writings

*Stille und Umkehr - Betrachtungen zum Phänomen Zeit, in: MusikTexte, Heft 24 (1988), S. 27 - 38 *Rituel von Pierre Boulez - Anmerkungen zur Raum- und Zeitkonzeption, in: Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Prof. Dr.

Emil Platen Emil Platen (born 16 September 1925) is a German musicologist and conductor. Life Born in Düsseldorf, Platen received his first music lessons at the Jugendmusikschule Düsseldorf in the disciplines violin and music theory/composition (with Re ...

, Bonn (1985), S. 208 - 219 *Max Reger. Ein für die Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts zu Recht unterschätzter Komponist?! Eine Musikbefragung, in: REGER-STUDIEN 4, Breitkopf & Härtel (1989), S. 105 – 124, 233 – 253 *Vom Bild-Klang zum Klang-Bild - zum Verhältnis von Bild und Musik in meinen Stücken, in: NZfM 1993 / 6, S. 14 - 19

Literature

External links

Michael Denhoff - Homepage

Michael Denhoff on MySpace

Website Classical Composers Database

DENHOFF, Michael Komponistenlexikon - Deutscher Komponistenverband

*http://www.haiku-heute.de/Impressum/Mitarbeiterseiten_Haiku_heute/Michael_Denhoff/michael_denhoff.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Denhoff, Michael 1955 births Living people People from Ahaus 20th-century German classical composers 21st-century German classical composers German classical cellists Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln alumni German male classical composers 20th-century German male musicians 21st-century German male musicians Academic staff of Robert Schumann Hochschule 20th-century German cellists 21st-century cellists Academic staff of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz