Austrian composer, born in Windischgraz (now Slovenjgradec, Slovenia), and educated at the Vienna Conservatory. In 1884 he became a music critic for the Salonblatt, a Viennese magazine. Beginning in 1887 he devoted himself wholly to musical composition and study. In 1897 he became mentally ill and passed most of the rest of his life in an institution.
Wolf, who brought the German lied, or art song, to new heights of subtlety and complexity, achieved in his nearly 300 songs a striking synthesis of poetic and musical elements. Wolf used for his texts works of eminent German poets, including Eduard Mörike, Joseph von Eichendorff, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. His Spanisches Liederbuch (1891) and Italienisches Liederbuch (2 vol.; 1891, 1896) contain songs set to German poems with Spanish and Italian themes. Wolf's few works in other forms include a string quartet (1879-80), the Italienische Serenade (1892), and the opera Der Corregidor (The Governor, 1895).