Herzogenberg, Heinrich von

Heinrich von Herzogenberg –– Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 50 (1885)

(b. Graz, Austria, 10 June 1843 – d. Wiesbaden, Germany, 9 October 1900)

I. Adagio. Allegro
II. Adagio, ma non troppo
III. Allegro agitato
IV. Allegro

Preface
In the annals of music, the name Herzogenberg is known principally through an association with Johannes Brahms. Heinrich was a productive composer and teacher but is virtually unknown today. We remember him through his wife Elisabet’s voluminous correspondence with Brahms, which documents a decades-long friendship. Brahms dedicated his Two Rhapsodies (1879) to Elisabet, a talented amateur pianist and, for a short time, his pupil. Rich with insights on the creation and contemporary reception of Brahms’s music, their letters have guided researchers for well over a century.

Heinrich (Picot de Peccaduc) Freiherr von Herzogenberg was descended from French nobility. His family adopted the name “Herzogenberg” as the German equivalent of the French “Peccaduc” when they settled in Austria. His father served as Royal Treasurer and State Secretary in the Austrian court while his mother was a Silesian countess. Herzogenberg pursued law studies at the University of Vienna in 1862 but shifted his attention fully to music the following year. He enrolled in the Vienna Conservatory, then part of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, where his teachers included Otto Dessoff and Simon Sechter. After completing his studies in 1868, he moved to Graz to work as a freelance composer, and that November, he married the daughter of a Hessian noble family, Elisabet von Stockhausen. Her father was as an ambassador at the Vienna court and had been well acquainted with Frédéric Chopin and Giacomo Meyerbeer in Paris during the 1830s. The Stockhausens were also friendly with Brahms and Joseph Joachim. Heinrich and Elisabet thus had much in common, both in terms of their social status and passion for music. …

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