Engelbert Humperdinck - His Music and His Life
German composer Engelbert Humperdinck was born on September 1, 1854 bin Siegburg/Rheinland. He has - of course! - nothing to do with the identical pop singer. Humperdinck received innumerable awards from the Collee of Music Cologne and the Mozart Award from the Munich Academy of Tone Arts. During the Bayreuth Festival in 1882, Humperdinck became the assistant of Richard Wagner. Humperdinck's career went on as Professor of Composition in Barcelona (1885-1887) and 1890 in Frankfurt/Germany. In 1900, Humperdinck took over the master director form of the Berlin Academy of Arts. Humperdinck's compositions started with chorus ballads, simple songs, a humorous orchestral work and a tonal, fine sounding string quartet. His first opera "Hansel and Gretel" (1893) showed very well that the new generation lacks very much Richard Wagner's pathos. "Hansel and Gretel" became an utterly impossible folksong melodic "Christmas"-opera with the lyri...
