Kretzschmar, (August Ferdinand) Hermann
Kretzschmar, (August Ferdinand) Hermann
Kretzschmar, (August Ferdinand) Hermann, eminent German musicologist; b. Olbernhau, Jan. 19, 1848; d. Nikolassee, near Berlin, May 10, 1924. He was a chorister and a pupil of Julius Otto at the Dresden Kreuzschule (1862–67), then studied with Paul, Ritschl, and Voigt at the Univ. of Leipzig (Ph.D., 1871, with the diss. De signis musicis; publ. in Leipzig, 1871). He also took courses with Paul, E.F. Richter, and Rei-necke at the Leipzig Cons. (1869–70), where he then taught organ and harmony (1871–76). He was also active as a choral conductor. In 1876 he was a theater conductor in Metz, and in 1877 he was made music director at the Univ. of Rostock, becoming municipal music director there in 1880. He returned to Leipzig as music director of the Univ. (1887). He was conductor of the Riedelverein (1888–97) and founder-conductor of the Akademische Orchesterkonzerte (1890–95), and also a founder of the Neue Bach-Gesellschaft (1900). In 1904 he went to Berlin as a prof, at the Univ., and from 1909 to 1920 he was director of the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. Kretzschmar served as general ed. of the Denkmäler Deutscher Tonkunst (1911–19). He was a thoroughly educated musician, a good organist as well as choral conductor, and composer of some secular and sacred vocal music, but his importance in musicology lies in his establishment of certain musical and esthetic concepts that elucidate the historical process. He introduced the term “Hermeneutik” (taken from theology), applying it to the explanation of musical melodies and intervallic progressions as expressive of human emotions.
Writings
(all publ. in Leipzig): Peter Cornelius (1880); Führer durch den Konzertsaal (3 vols.; I, 1887, 7th ed., 1932; Π, 1888, 5th ed., 1921; III, 1890, 5th ed., 1939); Musikalische Zeitfragen (1903); Gesammelte Aufsätze über Musik und anderes aus den Grenzboten (1910); Aus den Jahrbüchern der Musikbibliothek Peters (1911); Geschichte des neuen deutschen Liedes (1912); Geschichte der Oper (1919); Einführung in die Musikgeschichte (1920); Bach-Kolleg (1922).
Bibliography
Festschrift zu K.s 70. Geburtstag (Leipzig, 1918).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire