Hanns Wolf
Hanns Wolf (often written Hans Wolf) was a German composer, pianist, and music teacher who lived from 1894 to 1968. He wrote in a late-Romantic and early-modern style. Most of his music was lost after World War II, and he nearly vanished from memory until 1996 when Karl Urlberger rediscovered him.
Wolf was born in Bamberg, Germany. From 1908 to 1912 he studied at the Würzburg Conservatory, learning composition with Max Meyer-Olbersleben and piano with Henryk van Zeyl (a pupil of Liszt). From 1912 to 1924 he taught piano and organ—first in Essen, then in Aschaffenburg—where he helped organize concerts and became a popular teacher. He taught Ottmar Geißler during this period. In 1924 he became a professor at Augsburg’s music college (now the Leopold Mozart Centre).
As a pianist he played across Europe, performing works by Dobrowen and Wladigeroff. World War II kept him in Germany, but he continued teaching until 1945, after which he worked as an independent composer and pianist. He died in Füssen in 1968.
Much of Wolf’s music was destroyed or lost after the war, for reasons that are not fully clear. In 1996 Karl Urlberger brought his music back to light, and five of his pieces were recorded in 1997. He wrote mainly piano music, including a piano concerto thought to be written in 1929, which was performed in Coburg in the 1930s and revived in later years. Thanks to these rediscoveries, Wolf is now remembered as a significant, if little-known, figure of his era.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 23:51 (CET).