Bücken, Ernst

Bücken, Ernst, eminent German musicologist; b. Aachen, May 2, 1884; d. Overath, near Cologne, July 28, 1949. He studied musicology at the Univ. of Munich with Sandberger and Kroyer; also took courses in composition with Courvoisier; received his Ph.D. there in 1912 with the diss. Anton Reicha; Sein Leben und seine Kompositionen (publ, in Munich, 1912); completed his Habilitation at the Univ. of Cologne in 1920 with his Der heroische SHI in der Oper (publ. in Leipzig, 1924); was a prof. there from 1925 to 1945; then retired to Overath. His elucidation of musical styles remains an important achievement in his work as a musicologist; as such, he ed. the monumental Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft in 10 vols., which began publication in 1927; for this series he contributed Musik des Rokokos und der Klassik (1927), Die Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Moderne (1929–31), and Geist und Form im musikalischen Kunstwerk (1929–32); he was also editor of the series Die Grossen Meister der Musik from 1932. His further writings include Tagebuch der Gattin Mozarts (Munich, 1915); München ais Musikstadt (Leipzig, 1923); Führer und Probleme der neuen Musik (Cologne, 1924); Musikalische Charakterköpfe (Leipzig, 1924); ed. Handbuch der Musik-erziehung (Potsdam, 1931); Ludwig van Beethoven (Potsdam, 1934); Richard Wagner (Potsdam, 1934; 2^nd ed., 1943); Deutsche Musikkunde (Potsdam, 1935); Musik aus deutscher Art (Cologne, 1936); Musik der Nationen (Leipzig, 1937; 2^nd ed., rev. as Geschichte der Musik, ed. by J. Volckers, 1951); ed. Richard Wagner: Die Haupt-schriften (Leipzig, 1937); Das deutsche Lied: Probleme und Gestalten (Hamburg, 1939); Robert Schumann (Cologne, 1940); Wörterbuch der Musik (Leipzig, 1940); Musik der Deutschen: Eine Kulturgeschichte der deutschen Musik (Cologne, 1941); Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Schöpferische Wandlungen (Hamburg, 1942); Richard Strauss (Kevelaar, 1949).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire