Born in Westphalia in 1926, Henze received his earliest musical training against the background of the rise of Nazism in Germany; his realisation that all the modernist music, art and literature that stimulated him most profoundly had been condemned by the Nazis ingrained in him the belief in the potential of art to be genuinely subversive, inspiring a tendency that was to surface explicitly in his work thirty years later. After the Second World War he resumed his formal education by studying with Wolfgang Fortner, and composed the first pieces that he still acknowledges in an elegant neo-classical style, which mingled Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith while already demonstrating the innate lyrical gift that has characterised Henze's music in all its phases. In the late 1940s, however, he began to attend the Darmstadt summer schools and realised the value of serialism. In 1953, Henze left Germany to live in Italy. The change of scenery brought a new richness and colour into his music; in the late 1970s and early 1980s Henze turned to more traditional forms.

During his almost sixty years of collaboration with the Schott publishing house, Henze wrote over 40 works for the stage and 10 symphonies, concertos, chamber music, oratorios, song cycles and a requiem consisting of nine concertos.

Hans Werner Henze lives and works in Marino near Rome.