Norbert von Hannenheim

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Norbert Han von Hannenheim (born 1898 in Hermannstadt, Transylvania (now Sibiu) – died in Berlin (?), 1945) was a German-Romanian composer who was one of the most brilliant later pupils of Arnold Schoenberg.

Hannenheim was born into the Germanic Siebenbürger community of northern Romania. He studied in Graz, Austria in 1922-23 and subsequently with Paul Graener in Leipzig. He was then a pupil in Schoenberg’s Berlin Composition Masterclass at the Prussian Academy of Art from 1929 to 1932. Schoenberg regarded him highly, calling him 'one of the most interesting personalities I have ever met'. Hannenheim was a prolific composer and espoused the twelve-note technique even as a student. His works were performed at concerts in the Academy of Art (for example, he conducted the Berlin Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of a Symphony in a concert devoted to Schoenberg's pupils on 20 May 1930 — it shared the programme with works by his fellow-students Winfried Zillig and Nikos Skalkottas). He also had works performed at pre-war ISCM Festivals (as a Romanian composer, since the ISCM was formally proscribed by the Nazi musical authorities). It was long believed that Hannenheim perished in an air-raid on Berlin and that all his scores were destroyed, but numerous songs, piano sonatas and string quartets have come to light in recent years, and it now appears that Hannenheim, who had intermittent but acute psychological problems, died in a German mental hospital.