Henschel, Sir (Isidor) George (actually, Georg)

Henschel, Sir (Isidor) George (actually, Georg), esteemed German-born English baritone, pianist, conductor, teacher, and composer; b. Breslau, Feb. 18, 1850; d. Aviemore, Scotland, Sept. 10, 1934. His parents were of Polish-Jewish descent but he converted to Christianity when young. He was a student of Julius Shaffer in Breslau, of Moscheles (piano), Götze (voice), Papperitz (organ), and Reinecke (theory) at the Leipzig Cons. (1867–70), and of Kiel (composition) and Adolf Schulze (voice) at the Berlin Cons. He gave concerts as a tenor before making his debut as a pianist in Berlin in 1862. In 1866 he first appeared as a bass in Hirschberg, and then as a baritone as Hans Sachs in a concert performance in Leipzig in 1868. He subsequently sang throughout Europe. In 1881 he was selected as the first conductor of the Boston Sym. Orch., which post he held until 1884; he also appeared as a concert singer in Boston and N.Y. He then settled in England, where he was founder-conductor of the London Sym. Concerts (1886–97). He taught voice at the Royal Coll. of Music in London (1886–88) and was conductor of the Scottish Orch. in Glasgow (1891–95); later he taught voice at the Inst. of Musical Art in N.Y. (1905–08). In 1928, at the age of 78, he sang Schubert lieder in London in commemoration of the 100^th anniversary of the composer’s death. In 1931 he was invited to conduct the 50^th anniversary concert of the Boston Sym. Orch. In 1881 he married Lillian June Henschel (née Bailey). In 1890 he became a naturalized British subject and in 1914 he was knighted. He publ. Personal Recollections of Johannes Brahms (1907), Musings and Memories of a Musician (1918), and Articulation in Singing (1926). His compositions were in the German Romantic tradition. They included the opera Nubia (Dresden, Dec. 9, 1899), Stabat Mater (Birmingham, Oct. 4, 1894), Requiem (Boston, Dec. 2, 1902), Mass (London, June 1, 1916), String Quartet, and about 200 songs.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire