Michael Denhoff

Michael Denhoff (born 25 April 1955 in Ahaus) is a German composer and cellist.
Denhoff has lived and worked in Bonn since 1982. He studied at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, where his teachers included Günter Bialas and Hans Werner Henze (composition), Siegfried Palm and Erling Blöndal Bengtsson (cello) and the Amadeus Quartet (chamber music). As a composer and chamber musician, he occupied various teaching posts, including a lectureship in composition at the University of Mainz (1984-85) and a guest professorship at the National Conservatory of Hanoi (1997-99). From 1985 to 1992 he also conducted the Akademische Orchester Bonn, which he founded. As a cellist, he formed the Denhoff Piano Trio with his brother Johannes (violin) and the pianist Richard Braun. Since 1992, he has been a member of the Ludwig Quartet of Bonn, and he also works closely with the pianist Birgitta Wollenweber. As a composer, he has won several prizes and distinctions, including the Bernd Alois Zimmermann Prize (1986) and the Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Prize (1989).

Denhoff's music shows the influence of poetry and the visual arts. Several of his orchestral and chamber works have been inspired by lyrics and paintings. Thus, there are instrumental works and cycles based on pictures by Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Albrecht Dürer and especially Fransisco Goya (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos, 1982; Desastres de la guerra, 1983; Los disparates, 1988). The literary figures who have most left their mark on his music are Ranier Maria Rilke, Paul Celan, Samuel Beckett and Stéphane Mallarmé. Other works characteristic of his compositional thought include cycles in the form of 'musical diaries' (Klangtagebuch, 1984; Hebdomadaire, 1990). The most significant of these works is the piano quintet Hauptweg und Nebenwege (1998), which lasts nearly three hours. This piece gathers together the essential aspects of his music, their relationship to musical tradition, and also the influences of literature and the visual arts.

Denhoff's compositional vocabulary shows evidence of a sensitive feeling for harmony and form, whose roots are to be found in composers such as Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Olivier Messiaen, Morton Feldman and György Kurtág.

CDs featuring Denhoff's works are available on the WERGO, Col Legno and Cybele labels.