"I would like to consider a composer as analogous to an architect who builds a house... Just as the architect draws the plans for the house, so do I lay down the architectonic framework for the construction of the piece. This planning makes my work easier, since - just like the architect - I also need reference points, stable parameters ... similar to the scaffolding poles of a house."

Foto © by Barbara Haas, Munich

1921	Born in Darmstadt on 8 September
1945-1947	Studies architecture
1947	Begins studying composition with Wolfgang Fortner; Takes part in the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Kranichstein/Darmstadt for the first time (courses with Ernst Krenek and René Leibowitz); studies musicology (with Gennrich, Osthoff), philosophy (with Adorno, Horkheimer, Gadamer), German literature and art history in Frankfurt am Main
1949	Receives a fellowship for Harvard University
1951	Doctoral dissertation on "Béla Bartók's Microcosmos"
1953	Extended stay in Reykjavik (Iceland) for study purposes
1954	Selected for the "Tribune internationale des compositeurs"
1954-1961	Musical adviser, drama producer and assistant producer to Gustav Rudolf Sellner at the Hessisches Landestheater in Darmstadt
1955	Composition prize of the Cultural Circle in the Federal Association of German Industry
1960, 1967, 1983	Rome Awards of the Villa Massimo
1960	"Prix Lidice", Radio prague's international radio award
1960-1968	Gives a number of courses at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt; guest lecturer in Scandinavia (Oslo, Bergen, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Tampere)
1961-1969	Dramaturgical associate at the National Theater in Mannheim
1969-1986	Professor of composition at the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt am Main
1969	Composition prize of the German Radio Industry
1971	Johann Heinrich Merck Award, Darmstadt
1972/1973	Artistic adviser at the Theater of Bonn
1977	Guest professorship at the University of Ghent
1978/1979	Guest professorship at the University of Frankfurt am Main (music pedagogy)
1979-1984	Guest professorship at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach
since 1982	Member of the GEMA Work Committee
1983	Guest professorship at the University of Tel Aviv and the Rubin Academy, Jerusalem
1984	Composition seminar in Amsterdam (Gaudeamus Foundation)
1985	Seminars in Moscow and Vilnius
1986	Goethe Medal of the state of Hessen
1986, 1987, 1991	Composition courses at "Jeunesses Musicales" in Weikersheim
1987	Composition course in Bourges (France)
1991	Awarded the "Bundesverdienstkreuz" of the Federal Republic of Germany Lecturer at Darmstadt's "Jazz Forum"
1993	Lecturer at the Pedagogical Music Days in Darmstadt
1994	Curator of the Academie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt
1995	Lecturer at the Columbia University (USA) - Missouri
since 1995	Chairman of the GEMA Work Committee
1997	Hassian order for merits

"The first one to have fun is the composer, this homo ludens who gets to play with the construction material." These words pinpoint one of the fundamental aspects of Hans Ulrich Engelmann's life as a creative artist, as one who has succeeded like few others in uniting sensuous expressiveness and logical calculation on a high level in his music. Engelmann has always taken a great delight in conceiving and bringing together small modules and things that might seem disparate at first glance. His supple imagination and his inexhaustible, child-like inquisitiveness and vitality have always been a boon to him here. He can change perspectives with playful ease. He can see musical material with the eyes of a draftsman, and intervals as colorful building blocks. He can observe rhythms from the viewpoint of the scientist, sounds from that of the linguist and philosopher - and can observe everything from the opposite viewpoint as well. Engelmann has developed and refined this uncommon gift into a superior skill, now honed to mellow perfection, in the course of his career as a highly committed musician and teacher who has progressed through a number of stylistic phases. But this gift is grounded in the composer's amiably open, undogmatic and optimistic personality.
Engelmann was only 20 years old when he gave the title "Kaleidoskop" to one of his early orchestral pieces, no doubt in a totally impartial spirit. Yet the title is virtually programmatic for his future artistic development. What do we think of when hear about these optical toys? Color, fluid lines, statics and motion, chance and law - a colorful mixture of particles whose aleatoric image (it falls into place without aim) is interwoven into filigree symmetries through the laws of the mirror. And we also think of transitoriness, since once a kaleidoscopic image is lost, it is lost for ever. The kaleidoscope is sometimes more than a toy - it is a symbol of things physical, playful and evolutionary, an emblem which stands for art and life. But let us begin by the beginning.

Hans Ulrich Engelmann was born in Darmstadt in 1921. Blessed with a strong and spontaneous imagination and a natural feel for the sensuous quality of sounds and rhythms, he began to compose in his youth. At that time, heroism and sentimentality were being cultivated in the arts, including music, and were enjoying an ill-fated boom. Though still in secondary school, Engelmann took a secret delight in his experimentations with the colorful palettes of a Debussy, the rhythms of a Stravinsky, the neo-classical spirit and the forbidden vitality of jazz. (The latter was to play a prominent and recurring role in his later oeuvre as well.) Looking back, Engelmann says: "At the beginning, I was still very far from thinking structurally." And there were many other things which fascinated the sensitive young man: painting, theater, literature, architecture ... His father's rational considerations resulted in cutting short his son's indecisiveness about a career choice: Engelmann began to study architecture in 1945. This was also the time in which he became friends with Wolfgang Steinecke, who had founded the "Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik" in Darmstadt and managed them for several years. (Engelmann thus had the good fortune to see his native city turn into a mecca for the international musical avant-garde and to be able to experience world premiere performances that took place practically at his doorstep every year.) In 1947 he began studying musicology, philosophy and literature in Frankfurt, and concluded his studies with a dissertation on Bela Bartok's "Microcosmos". (Doesn't his interest in this cycle, so rich in cross-references and in which the smallest elements correspond to the largest, also point to Engelmann's predilection for the phenomenology of play?) In addition to his university studies, the young man began to devote himself seriously to the study of composition in 1947. "You are already fluent in rhythm and tone color", his teachers told him, "now you have to do something else." Engelmann went to Heidelberg to study with Wolfgang Fortner at the same time as Hans-Werner Henze. Exercises in strict counterpoint, along with Schoenberg's twelve-tone system imparted by René Leibowitz and Ernst Krenek had a structuring effect on his oeuvre, a little like a "cure for hypertrophy". These were dynamic years which made a strong and lasting impression on him. He exchanged views with the leading minds of the time, including Boulez, Stockhausen, Varèse and Adorno; and he was friends with B. A. Zimmermann, Maderna, Evangelisti and Nono.

Like the latter four composers, Engelmann also refused to be totally sucked into the orbit of constructivism. He relied once again on his instinct for play to guide him, and it stimulated him to lighten the combinatory possibilities of the new material order with a certain detachment and an occasional touch of light-heartedness.
In addition, Engelmann's work as a Gustav Rudolf Sellner's theater composer and directorial assistant at the Hessisches Landestheater in Darmstadt (1954-61) functioned as an important regulative with respect to theories that were all too heavily formalistic or esoteric. Whether writing a revue with big band numbers based on the collage technique or a hermetic instrumental piece evocative of Joseph Matthias Hauer; whether using a graphic, quasi labyrinthine notational system for an aleatoric work or pre-producing a piece for tape recorder: with his art firmly grounded in a supple treatment of the row technique, this contemporary master considered - and still considers today - his profession as a composer to be an active one in the most fundamental sense of the word. He brings elements together. It is a neurotic compulsion as well as a categorical imperative - thus, the ethical and moral obligation to continue the search.

However, Hans Ulrich Engelmann was never interested in proselytizing or spreading a message. This will be quickly affirmed by the many pupils to whom he was an unorthodox and creative composition teacher for many years at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule. He did not refrain from occasionally taking a committed stance on humanitarian and political issues as an artist and contemporary, for example through the pluralistic forms of the stage works "Commedia humana" and "Der Fall van Damm". Most of his latest works, however, are sound-structure compositions which take their place in the cosmos of absolute music. A look at the evocative notation of some of the scores will suffice to convey the impression of a personal language of gestures which has its roots in objectivity. Here, play manifests itself as the masterful treatment of material that can be awakened to life.
Though he may be a skeptical observer of the ways of today's world, with all of its potential and real abysses, Hans Ulrich Engelmann still remains inquisitive. In his dealings with young artists (and not only with them), he remains an inspiring homo ludens, whose personality and music radiate both fire and fascination.

Helmut Rohm (2001)
(Translation: Roger Clément)

Writings from Hans Ulrich Engelmann

a) Vergangenheitsgegenwart (Autobiographie), Darmstadt: Justus von Liebig-Verlag, 2001

b) Essays on the Music
- Dodekaphonie und Musikgeschichte, in: Melos 10/1952, S. 273-276
- Bela Bartoks Mikrokosmos. Versuch einer Typologie Neuer Musik, Diss. Würzburg 1953
- Dallapiccolas "Canti di Liberazione", in: Melos 3/1956, S. 73-76
- Verlust der Heiterkeit?, in: Melos 11/1956, S. 305-307
- Kurt Weill heute, in: Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik, Bd. 2, Mainz 1960
- Fragen serieller Kompositionsverfahren, in: Bericht zum Internationalen Musikwissenschaftskongress, Kassel 1962, S. 375-379
- Joseph Berglinger und Adrian Leverkühn oder: Über die Wärme und über die Kälte, in:
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 12/1963, S. 470-472
- Inspiration - Idee - Imagination, in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 10/1964, S. 420-422
- Oper und Musiktheater heute, in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 9/1965, S. 43-45
- Akustische Bausteine des Schauspiels, in: Melos 1/1966, S. 1-5
- Rhythmus und bildnerisches Denken, in: Melos 9/1966, S. 261-267
- Schönbergs Variationen für Orchester, in: Melos 12/1966, S. 396-400
- Musik - Mode - Politik, in: Melos 12/1967, S. 444-449
- Selbstgespräch über die Funkoper, in: Melos 11/1968, S. 418-423
- Musik und Technologie, in: Publikationen der Hochschule für Gestaltung, Offenbach
1981, S. 37-44
- William Hogarth - Igor Strawinsky, in: Ausstellungskatalog "William Hogarth", Kunsthalle Darmstadt 1981, S. 44-47
- Künstlerische Existenz - Moderne - Freizeitkultur, in: Publikationen der Hochschule für Gestaltung, Offenbach 1983, S. 101-104
- Über Paul Hindemith, in: Die großen Frankfurter, Frankfurt am Main 1994, S. 236-245


Writings on Hans Ulrich Engelmann

The book Commedia humana. Hans Ulrich Engelmann and his work contains a detailed collection: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1985; with contributions (by Hans Günther Bastian, Ulrich Dibelius, Ellen Kohlhaas, Claus Kühnl, Martin Kürschner, Wolf-Eberhard von Lewinski, Gerhard Müller-Hornbach and Ursula Stürzbecher) and a detailed bibliography, here are only a few newer works:

Dümling, Albrecht: Freiheit oder Beliebigkeit. Über den Komponisten Hans Ulrich Engelmann, in: Der Tagesspiegel, 9. Februar 1990
Elzenheimer, Regine: "... bei aller Kunst, die einen etwas angeht, das Gefühl der Vergeblichkeit ..." Interview mit H. U. Engelmann, in: Booklet zur CD MELISMA 07173-2 (1999)
Knauer, Wolfram: Hans Ulrich Engelmann und der Jazz, ein Dialog, in: Jazz und Komposition. Beiträge zur Jazzforschung, Bd. 2, Hofheim 1993, S. 27-36
Kohlhaas, Ellen: "Der Mut, solch zweckfreiem Tun sein Leben zu verpfänden". Portrait Hans Ulrich Engelmann, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 8. September 1991
Kopp, Jan: Hans Ulrich Engelmann, in: Komponisten der Gegenwart, München 1992ff.
Kurz, Karl Wieland: Portrait Hans Ulrich Engelmann, in: Booklet zur CD MELISMA 07173-2 (1999)
Sramek, Christoph: Portrait Hans Ulrich Engelmann, in: Konzerte des Sächsischen Musikbundes Leipzig, November 2000
Thiel, Jürgen: "Ein Baumeister der Töne", in: GEMA-Nachrichten Nr. 154, November 1996
Zietsch, Heinz: Mit dem Ohr am Puls der Zeit. Zum 80. Geburtstag des Darmstädter Komponisten Hans Ulrich Engelmann, in: GEMA-Nachrichten, Nr. 164, November 2001, S. 38-41

Dictionary Articles

Articles about Engelmann are published among others in: MGG, Brockhaus/Riemann, Honegger/ Massenkeil, Reclam's Concert Guide: "Neue Musik seit 1945", Meyers Enzyklopädisches Universallexikon, Großer Brockhaus, International "Who's who in music", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Dictionary of the 20th Century Music, Encyclopédie de la musique, International Concert Guide "Przewodnik Konzertowy"

Media vita in morte sumus (1942)
für 2 Bässe, Chor, 2 Trompeten, Orgel und Kontrabass
Selbstverlag

Floret silva (1944)
für 3 gemischte Chöre
Selbstverlag

Zwei Sonatinen für Klavier (1945)
Selbstverlag

Toccata (1948)
für Klavier
UA Frankfurt am Main 1948
Schott

99 Takte für Cembalo (1951/52)
Selbstverlag

Die Mauer (1954)
für Soli, Chor, Saxophon, Schlagzeug, Klavier und Orchester
Selbstverlag

Atlantische Ballade (1955)
für Alt- und Bariton-Solo, Streichorchester und Schlagzeug (2 Spieler)
Selbstverlag

Magog (1955/56)
für Solisten, Chor, Ballett und großes Orchester
Selbstverlag

Die Freiheit (1957)
für Soli, Chor, Schlagzeug und Streichorchester
Selbstverlag

Metall (1958)
für Soli, Chor, Schlagzeug und 2 Klaviere
Selbstverlag

Operette (1959)
für Solisten, Chor, Ballett und Orchester (variable Besetzung)
Selbstverlag

Verlorener Schatten (1960)
für Solisten, Chor, Ballett und Orchester
Selbstverlag

Serpentina (1962/63)
Ballett
Selbstverlag

Duplum (1965)
für 2 Klaviere
UA Hamburg 1965
Tonos

Manifest vom Menschen (1966)
für Soli, Chor und Orchester
Selbstverlag

Divertimento (1966)
für Flöte, Oboe, Klarinette und Fagott
Selbstverlag

Coincidentials (1971)
Ballettmusik (elektronisch)
UA Heidelberg 1971

Capriccio elettronico (1972)
elektronische Musik
UA Frankfurt am Main 1972


Engelmann also wrote incidental music to more than 20 plays (by Calderon, Molière,
Shakespeare, Strindberg, etc.) as well as music to six films