Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel: Prelude

Until the early seventies, I genuinely thought Engelbert Humperdinck was just one person - the singer behind “Release Me” and other swooning ballads that filled the airwaves. I had no idea he, Gerry Dorsey, had borrowed his name from a 19th-century German composer whose Hänsel und Gretel helped shape Romantic opera. It was a strange moment of realisation: the pop crooner, all suave charm, and smooth melodies, had nothing to do with the richly orchestrated fairy-tale world of the original Humperdinck. Two artists, separated by nearly a century and a world of style - one defining easy listening, the other steeped in Wagnerian grandeur.

The elder Engelbert Humperdinck was born on 1 September 1854, in Siegburg on the Rhine. He began his musical education at the Cologne Conservatory and quickly excelled in composition, winning the Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Meyerbeer scholarships. These allowed him to study further in Munich and Italy. In Naples in 1880, he caught the attention of Richard Wagner, who later invited him to Venice for a performance of Wagner’s only symphony.

In 1885, he moved to Barcelona to teach composition and lead a quartet at the Royal Conservatory. He returned to Cologne in 1887 and, from 1890, became associated with the Conservatory in Frankfurt. As well as several operas, Humperdinck’s catalogue include songs, piano pieces, and some chamber music. Once upon a time, he was regarded as the individual most likely to carry forward Wagner’s vision of the music-drama. Engelbert Humperdinck died on 27 September 1921 at Neustrelitz, Germany.

Hänsel und Gretel, premiered in 1893 under the baton of Richard Strauss, remains his most enduring work. Originally conceived as a family entertainment with songs for his sister’s children, it evolved into a full-scale opera that captured audiences with its enchanting melodies, vivid orchestration, and dramatic consistency. The score’s use of folk-like tunes, such as the “Evening Prayer,” alongside sophisticated harmonic textures, exemplifies Humperdinck’s unique synthesis of popular and high art traditions.

Often performed around Christmas, this opera captures the wonder and peril of childhood, the warmth of familial love, and the triumph of cleverness over evil - all wrapped in a musically enchanting package.

The opera is based on the Grimm Brothers’ story, adapted by Humperdinck’s sister, Adelheid Wette.

Act I opens in the humble home of Peter the broom-maker. His children, Hansel and Gretel, are left alone and end up dancing instead of working. Their mother scolds them and sends them into the forest to pick strawberries. When Peter returns and learns they have wandered off, he warns of a witch who lures children with sweets and turns them into gingerbread.

Act II finds the children lost in the woods. After a playful duet and growing fear, the Sandman appears and sings them to sleep. In a dreamlike sequence, angels descend to protect them.

Act III begins at dawn. The children discover the witch’s candy-covered house and are captured. But with clever teamwork, they push the witch into her own oven. Freed gingerbread children celebrate, and the reunited family sings a hymn of gratitude.

The American journalist and author described the Prelude:

[It] opens with a prayer theme given out by four horns and two bassoons, which is developed by the strings and other instruments, closing pianissimo. The movement now changes to a Vivace. Accompanied by the wood winds and strings pizzicato, the trumpet sounds a vigorous passage, and as it comes to a close the strings and woodwinds announce a new theme of a nature clearly indicating the nightly orgies of the witch, pierced through at intervals by the trumpet blast. It gradually works up to a climax for full orchestra, leading to a very melodious theme, and this in turn to a dance tempo. These are developed, and the prelude Closes pianissimo with the contents of the introduction.

George P Upton, The Standard Concert Guide, New York, Blue Ribbon Books, 1930

Listen to the Prelude to Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel with Sir Georg Solti conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker on YouTube, here.