Hensel, Walther(real name, Julius Janiczek)
Hensel, Walther(real name, Julius Janiczek)
Hensel, Walther(real name, Julius Janiczek), Bohemian-born music educator; b. Moravska Trebova, Sept. 8, 1887; d. Munich, Sept. 5, 1956. He studied in Vienna, Prague, and Freibourg, where he obtained his Ph.D. (1911). He taught languages in Prague (1912–18). He traveled in Europe (1918–25) as an organizer of folk-song activities, with the aim of raising the standards of choral music for the young. From 1925 to 1929 he was head of the Jugendmusik School at the Dortmund Cons. In 1930 he went to Stuttgart, where he organized an educational program for the promotion of folk music. In 1938 he returned to Prague and taught at the German Univ. there. After 1945 he went to Munich. He ed. a number of folk-song collections, and publ. Lied und Volk, Eine Streitschrift wider das falsche deutsche Lied (1921), Im Zeichen des Volksliedes (1922; 2nd ed., 1936), Musikalische Grundlehre (1937), and Auf den Spuren des Volksliedes (1944).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire