- Henze lived with his partner Fausto Moroni from the early sixties and Moroni planned and planted the celebrated hillside garden around La Leprara. Moroni cared for the composer when he suffered a spectacular emotional collapse during which he barely spoke and had to be encouraged to eat, living as though in a coma. Shortly after Henze's sudden recovery in 2007 Moroni died after a lengthy battle with cancer. Elogium Musicum (2008) for large orchestra and chorus singing a text in Latin of Henze's own is an obituary to his partner of more than 40 years.
- One of the most influential composers of the late 20th century, Henze wrote 10 symphonies and was especially known for his works for music theatre.
- He was noted for his many operas and ballets, and for a commitment to political art, which informs much of his work.
- He was one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. He wrote 10 symphonies and several works for musical theatre. He was noted for his many operas and ballets, and for his commitment to political art.
- His father was killed on the Eastern Front in WWII. Hans was drafted into the army in 1944, ending the war in a British prisoner-of-war camp. His experiences left him with a lifelong hatred of fascism.
- After the war, while studying in Heidelberg, he was influenced by the works of composers like Bartok, Berg, and, most importantly, Stravinsky.
- German avant-garde composer with strong leaning towards Marxism. He was interned as a POW in Britain during World War II. In 1953, he settled in Italy and composed primarily for opera. His works include ten symphonies, chamber music, Lieder and music for ballet, theatre and film.
- He left Germany for Italy in 1953 because of a perceived intolerance towards his leftist politics and homosexuality.
- His large oeuvre is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as traditional schools of German composition.
- His stage works reflect "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life".
- From 1962 until 1967, Henze taught masterclasses in composition at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and in 1967 he became a visiting professor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. One of his greatest successes was the premiere of the opera Die Bassariden at the Salzburg Festival.
- Shortly before Henze's death Donald Macleod interviewed him for the BBC Radio 3 series Composer of the Week (broadcast ca 2010, including recordings of Henze's works). Shortly before Henze's death Donald Macleod interviewed him for the BBC Radio 3 series Composer of the Week (broadcast ca 2010, including recordings of Henze's works).
- In 1950 he became ballet conductor at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden in Wiesbaden, where he composed two operas for radio, his First Piano Concerto, as well as his first stage work of real note, the jazz-influenced opera Boulevard Solitude, a modern recasting of the traditional Manon Lescaut story. His ballet Ondine was composed for the English Royal Balllet and choreographed by Ashton, for production in 1958.
- In 1975 he became an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, London.
- His political critique reached its high point in 1976 with the premiere of his opera We Come to the River.
- On 7 November 2004, Henze received an honorary doctorate in Musicology from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München (University for Music and Performing Arts, Munich).
- At the 1968 Hamburg premiere of his requiem for Che Guevara, titled Das Floß der Medusa (The Raft of Medusa), the placing of a red flag on the stage sparked a riot and the arrest of several people, including the librettist.
- Henze spent a year from 1969 to 1970 teaching in Cuba.
- In 1995 Henze received the Westphalian Music Prize, which has carried his name since 2001.
- The English version of his autobiography, Bohemian Fifths, was published in 1998.
- Franz Henze rejoined the army in 1943 and he was sent to the Eastern front, where he died.
- Henze had to break off his studies after being conscripted into the army in 1944, towards the end of the Second World War.
- Henze began studies at the state music school of Braunschweig in 1942, where he studied piano, percussion, and theory.
- In 1945 he became an accompanist in the Bielefeld City Theatre, and continued his studies under Wolfgang Fortner at Heidelberg University in 1946.
- Late in life he lived in the village of Marino in the central Italian region of Lazio, and in his final years still travelled extensively, in particular to Britain and Germany, as part of his work.
- He was trained as a radio operator.
- The first ballet he saw was Frederick Ashton's Scènes de Ballet. He wrote a letter of appreciation to Ashton, introducing himself as a 22-year-old composer. The next time he wrote to Ashton he enclosed the score of his Ballett-Variationen, which he hoped Ashton might find of interest. This work was first performed in Düsseldorf in September 1949 and staged for the first time in Wuppertal in 1958.
- Henze lived with his partner Fausto Moroni from the early sixties, and Moroni planned and planted the hillside garden around La Leprara. Moroni cared for the composer when he suffered a nervous breakdown during which he barely spoke and had to be encouraged to eat. In 2007, shortly after Henze's sudden recovery, Moroni died after a lengthy battle with cancer. Elogium Musicum (2008), for large orchestra and chorus singing Henze's own Latin text, is a memorial to his partner of more than forty years.
- An avowed Marxist and member of the Italian Communist Party, Henze produced compositions honoring Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara.
- Sadler's Wells Ballet visited Hamburg in 1948; this inspired Henze to write a choreographic poem, Ballett-Variationen, which he completed in 1949.
- In his early years he worked with twelve-tone technique, for example in his First Symphony and First Violin Concerto of 1947.
- Henze had some successful performances at Darmstadt, including an immediate success in 1946 with a neo-baroque work for piano, flute and strings, that brought him to the attention of Schott's, the music publishers. He also took part in the famous Darmstadt New Music Summer School, a key vehicle for the propagation of avant-garde techniques.
- He was captured by the British and held in a prisoner-of-war camp for the remainder of the war.
- Invited by Walter Fink, he was the tenth composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2000, but owing to illness he did not attend. The music included his "Requiem".
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