Prelude to Hansel and Gretel
Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921)

THE STORY

In the wake of Wagner’s monumental influence on late 19th-century opera and amid the sustained power of Italian operas, one German composer managed to occupy a small corner of the terrain: Engelbert Humperdinck. The Siegburgborn
composer had worked closely with Wagner at Bayreuth—as an ardent admirer, copyist, and tutor for the composer’s son Siegfried—before turning to his most famous composition, Hänsel und Gretel. The choice of a homey children’s tale from the Brothers Grimm, initially requested by Humperdinck’s sister for her new infant, was a far cry from lofty mythological romances—yet the humble and familiar Märchenoper (fairy-tale opera) enchanted German audiences, critics, and composers alike.

Sending the composer a tantalizing gingerbread house on Christmas Eve, Cosima Wagner (the wife of Richard) added a note that “in an era when the Germans follow [the Italians] Mascagni and Leoncavallo… you offer them this delicious and delicate score.” Richard Strauss, who conducted the premiere in Weimar in 1893, raved: “What refreshing humor, what deliciously innocent melody, what skill and creativity in the treatment of the orchestra, what perfection in the arrangement of the whole, what fertile invention, what splendid polyphony—and all so original, new, and authentically German!” Brahms personally paid a visit to the composer after hearing the Viennese premiere: “Hänsel und Gretel was quite beautifully done and unbelievably well received. … I certainly had not expected such a satisfying evening.”

LISTEN FOR

• The warm, inviting tones of the opening horns
• A lively section with chromatic scales tip-toeing in staccato that gradually build toward the climax
• A celebratory melody firmly arriving in C major that quietly recedes for the opening act of the opera

INSTRUMENTATION

Piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, strings