Hans Werner Henze (1926–2012) was a German composer whose vast output spanned opera, symphonies, ballet and chamber music, drawing on serialism, atonality, Italian and Arabic music, and jazz. He left Germany for Italy in 1953 in reaction to the country’s political climate and the intolerance he faced there, settling first on Ischia and later near Rome, and remained politically engaged throughout his career, an avowed Marxist whose works honored Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara.

Henze’s 1958 song cycle Kammermusik, dedicated to Benjamin Britten and premiered with tenor Peter Pears and guitarist Julian Bream, includes the Drei Tentos, three brief solo guitar interludes that have become a staple of the modern classical guitar repertoire and one of the most-performed 20th-century additions to the instrument’s core literature.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Werner_Henze