Leichtentritt, Hugo
Leichtentritt, Hugo
Leichtentritt, Hugo, eminent German-American music scholar; b. Pleschen, Posen, Jan. 1, 1874; d. Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 13, 1951. He studied with J. K. Paine at Harvard Univ. (B.A., 1894); continued his studies in Paris (1894-95) and at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik (1895-98); obtained his Ph.D. at the Univ. of Berlin in 1901 with the diss. Reinhard Keiser in seinen Opern: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der frühen deutschen Oper (publ. in Berlin, 1901); he subsequently taught at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Cons. in Berlin (1901-24) and wrote music criticism for German and American publications. In 1933 he left Germany and became a lecturer on music at Harvard Univ. (until 1940); then taught at Radcliffe Coll. and N.Y.U. (1940-44). Although known chiefly as a scholar, he also composed a comic opera, Der Sizilianer (Freiburg im Breisgau, May 28, 1920); Sym.; Violin Concerto; Cello Concerto; Piano Concerto; much chamber music; several song cycles; numerous piano pieces. His MSS are in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Writings
Frédéric Chopin (Berlin, 1905; 3rd ed., 1949); Geschichte der Musik (Berlin, 1905; Eng. ed., N.Y., 1938, as Everybody’s Little History of Music); Geschichte der Motette (Leipzig, 1908); Musikalische Formenlehre (Leipzig, 1911; 5th ed., 1952; Eng. ed., Cambridge, Mass., 1951 as Musical Form); Erwin Lendvai (Berlin, 1912); Ferruccio Busoni (Leipzig, 1916); Analyse der Chopin’sehen Klavierwerke (2 vols., Berlin, 1921-22); Ignatz Waghalter (N.Y., 1924); Händel (Berlin and Stuttgart, 1924); Music, History, and Ideas (Cambridge, Mass., 1938); Serge Koussevitzky, The Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New American Music (Cambridge, Mass., 1946); Music of the Western Nations (ed. and amplified by N. Slonimsky; Cambridge, Mass., 1956).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire