Introduction

Biography

Winding was the son of a cler­gy­man who col­lect­ed and ar­ranged Dan­ish folk songs and was his son’s first mu­sic teach­er. He was the hus­band of Cla­ra Hart­man, Jo­han Hart­mann’s daugh­ter (mar­ried 1864).

August had com­po­si­tion les­sons with Carl Rein­ecke at the Leipzig Con­ser­va­to­ry in 1847.

From 1848–51, he stu­died pi­ano there with Ant­on Rée (1820–1886), who had been an ac­quaint­ance of Fréd­ér­ic Cho­pin, as well as the­ory and com­po­si­tion with Niels Gade.

In 1856 he con­duct­ed fur­ther stu­dy in Leip­zig, and had les­sons with Al­ex­an­der Drey­schock in Prague.

Winding’s pub­lic ca­reer was orig­in­al­ly as a pi­an­ist. He played in ma­ny coun­tries of Eur­ope, spe­cial­iz­ing in Beet­ho­ven and Mo­zart. His call­ing card was Beet­ho­ven’s 4th Pi­ano Con­cer­to.

In 1867, he be­came a teach­er at the Roy­al Dan­ish Con­ser­va­to­ry in Co­pen­hag­en and pri­vate­ly.

In 1867, Wind­ing in­jured his arm through ov­er­work, which forced his re­tire­ment as a per­for­mer, but al­so let him de­vote him­self to com­pos­ing.

He re­sumed teach­ing at the con­ser­va­tor­ium in 1881. Be­tween 1888 and his death he gave some fur­ther con­certs.