Editing Hugo Wolf (section)

=== Maturity (1888–1896) ===
1888 and 1889 proved to be amazingly productive years for Wolf, and a turning point in his career. After the publication of a dozen of his songs late the preceding year, Wolf once again desired to return to composing; he travelled to the vacation home of the Werners, family friends whom Wolf had known since childhood, in [[Perchtoldsdorf]] (a short train ride from Vienna), to escape and compose in solitude. Here he composed the ''[[Eduard Mörike|Mörike]]-Lieder'' at a frenzied pace. A short break, and a change of house, this time to the vacation home of more longtime friends, the Ecksteins, and the ''[[Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff|Eichendorff]]-Lieder'' followed, then the 51 ''[[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]-Lieder'', spilling into 1889. After a summer holiday, the ''[[Spanisches Liederbuch (Wolf)|Spanisches Liederbuch]]'' was begun in October 1889;<ref>{{Britannica|1940977|Spanisches-Liederbuch}}</ref> though Spanish-flavoured compositions were in fashion in the day, Wolf sought out poems that had been neglected by other composers.

Wolf himself saw the merit of these compositions immediately, raving to friends that they were the best things he had yet composed (it was with the aid and urging of several of the more influential of them that the works were initially published). It was now that the world outside Vienna would recognize Wolf as well. Tenor [[Ferdinand Jäger]], whom Wolf had heard in ''[[Parsifal]]'' during his brief summer break from composing, was present at one of the first concerts of the Mörike works and quickly became a champion of his music, performing a recital of only Wolf and [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] in December 1888. His works were praised in reviews, including one in the ''[[Münchener Allgemeine Zeitung]]'', a widely read German newspaper. (The recognition was not always positive; [[Johannes Brahms|Brahms]]'s adherents, still smarting from Wolf's merciless reviews, returned the favor—when they would have anything to do with him at all. Brahms's biographer [[Max Kalbeck]] ridiculed Wolf for his immature writing and odd tonalities; another composer refused to share a program with him, while [[Amalie Materna]], a [[Richard Wagner|Wagnerian]] singer, had to cancel her Wolf recital when allegedly faced with the threat of being on the critics' blacklist if she went on.)

Only a few more settings, completing the first half of the ''[[Italienisches Liederbuch (Wolf)|Italienisches Liederbuch]]'', were composed in 1891 before Wolf's mental and physical health once again took a downturn at the end of the year; exhaustion from his prolific past few years combined with the effects of syphilis and his depressive temperament caused him to stop composing for the next several years. Continuing concerts of his works in Austria and Germany spread his growing fame; even Brahms and the critics who had previously reviled Wolf gave favorable reviews. However, Wolf was consumed with depression, which stopped him from writing—which only left him more depressed. He completed orchestrations of previous works, but new compositions were not forthcoming, and certainly not the opera which he was now fixated on composing, still convinced that success in the larger forms was the mark of compositional greatness.

Wolf had scornfully rejected the libretto to ''[[Der Corregidor]]'' when it was first presented to him in 1890, but his determination to compose an opera blinded him to its faults upon second glance. Based on ''[[The Three-Cornered Hat]]'', by [[Pedro Antonio de Alarcón]], the darkly humorous story about an adulterous love triangle is one that Wolf could identify with: he had been in love with Melanie Köchert, married to his friend Heinrich Köchert, for several years. (It is speculated that their romance began in earnest in 1884, when Wolf accompanied the Köcherts on holiday; though Heinrich discovered the affair in 1893 he remained Wolf's patron and Melanie's husband.) The opera was completed in nine months and was initially met with success, but Wolf's musical setting could not compensate for the weakness of the text, and it was doomed to failure; it has not yet been successfully revived.

A renewal of creative activity resulted in Wolf's completion of the ''Italienisches Liederbuch'' with two dozen songs written in March and April 1896, the composition of three ''Michelangelo Lieder'' in March, 1897 (a group of six had been projected) and preliminary work during that year on an opera, ''Manuel Venegas''.<ref>Erik Sams, ''The Songs of Hugo Wolf'', Oxford University Press, 1961.</ref>