Hugo Wolf
Austrian composer (1860–1903)
Hugo Philipp Jacob Wolf (; German: [vɔlf]; 13 March 1860 – 22 February 1903) was an Austrian composer, particularly noted for his art songs, or Lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but diverging greatly in technique.
Though he had several bursts of extraordinary productivity, particularly in 1888 and 1889, depression frequently interrupted his creative periods, and his last composition was written in 1898, before he suffered a mental collapse caused by syphilis.
Life
Early life (1860–1887)
Hugo Wolf was born in Windischgrätz in the Duchy of Styria (now Slovenj Gradec, Slovenia), then a part of the Austrian Empire. His baptismal entry records him as Hugo Philip. Jacob. Wolf, the son of Filip Wolf and Katharina (née Nußbaumer) Wolf. Herbert von Karajan was related to him on his maternal side. He spent most of his life in Vienna, becoming a representative of a "New German" trend in Lieder, a trend which followed from the expressive, chromatic and dramatic musical innovations of Richard Wagner.
A child prodigy, Wolf was taught piano and violin by his father beginning at the age of four, and once in primary school studied piano and music theory with Sebastian Weixler.
The public source identifies “Hugo Wolf” as austrian composer (1860–1903). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hugo, Wolf and Austrian.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q215747. VIAF identifies the subject as 120704169. The Library of Congress control number is n79124575. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1860, 1903, 1888 and 1889.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hugo Wolf” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.