Henny Wolff


Henny Wolff was a German soprano concert singer and voice teacher. She made an international career, known for music by Bach and Handel, but also open to contemporary music. Composers wrote music for her and performed with her, such as Hermann Reutter. She was a voice teacher at the Bonn Conservatory, in Berlin, and from 1950 to 1964 at the Musikhochschule Hamburg. She was awarded the city's Johannes Brahms Medal.

Life

Wolff was born in Cologne, the daughter of Karl Wolff, chief editor and music critic of the journal Kölner Tageblatt, and Henriette Dwillat, a concert singer and voice teacher. She studied with her mother, then at the conservatory of her hometown from 1906 to 1912, and in Berlin with Julius von Raatz-Brockmann. She made her debut in a concert at the in Cologne in 1912. She then performed both in Germany and internationally, especially with works by Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. She was open to contemporary music. She often sang lieder by Hermann Reutter, with the composer as the accompanist. Ernst-Lothar von Knorr dedicated four songs to her in 1943, on lyrics by Friedrich Hölderlin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Maria Rilke and Stefan George.
Wolff was a voice teacher at the Bonn Conservatory from 1914 to 1916. She moved to Berlin in 1922, where she also worked as a voice pedagogue. After World War II, she moved to Hamburg. She served as a voice instructor at the first Ferienkurse für internationale neue Musik in Darmstadt in 1946, and presented lieder by Gustav Mahler, Ernst Krenek and Reutter. Wolff was a voice teacher at the Musikhochschule Hamburg from 1950, when it was founded, to 1964, as a professor from 1952. She was awarded the Johannes Brahms Medal from the city of Hamburg in 1958, on the occasion of the composer's 125th anniversary. Among her students were Judith Beckmann, Ingeborg Reichelt and Elisabeth Schärtel.
She died in Hamburg on 29 January 1965. She was buried on the Haupftfriedhof Ohlsdorf. When the gravesite expired, her remains were transferred to the, a memorial site for women.