This is the definitive biography of the composer Hugo Wolf (1860-1903), who was among the greatest Romantic song composers. Frank Walker spent nearly fifteen years researching and writing this authoritative work, drawing on inter views with dozens of Wolf's friends, relatives, and fellow musicians and on the letters, diaries, and documents he uncovered to create a portrait of this head strong and fascinating man. Wolf was a passionate advocate of Wagner, whom he first met by befriending a chambermaid in a Vienna hotel to gain an introduction to his idol. Like Wagner, Wolf was a combative personality, and he would become almost as notorious for his outbursts of temper and scathing critiques as he was for his over two hundred masterful settings of poetry by Goethe, Mrike, and others. His songs were composed during periods of intense inspiration that were followed by lengthy fallow periods. Walker vividly portrays the extremes to which the composer was prone and interweaves an account of Wolf's creative triumphs with the tale of his life.