Moser, Hans Joachim

Moser, Hans Joachim, eminent German musicologist, son of Andreas Moser and father of Edda (Elisabeth) Moser; b. Berlin, May 25, 1889; d. there, Aug. 14, 1967. He studied violin with his father, then took courses in musicology with Kretzschmar and Wolf at the Univ. of Berlin, with Schiedermair at the Univ. of Marburg, and with Riemann and Schering at the Univ. of Leipzig. He also studied voice with Oskar Noë and Felix Schmidt, and took courses in composition with H. van Eyken, Robert Kahn, and G. Jenner, receiving his Ph.D. from the Univ. of Rostock in 1910 with the diss. Die Musikergenossenschaften im deutschen Mittelalter. Returning to Berlin, he was active as a concert singer (bass-baritone), then served in the German army during World War I. He subsequently completed his Habilitation at the Univ. of Halle in 1919 with his Das Streichinstrumentenspiel im Mittelalter (pubi, in A. Moser’s Geschichte des Violinspiels, Berlin, 1923; 2^nd ed., rev. and enl., 1966–67). In 1919 he joined the faculty of the Univ. of Halle as a Privatdozent of musicology, and then became a reader there in 1922; he then was a reader at the Univ. of Heidelberg from 1925 to 1927. He was honorary prof, at the Univ. of Berlin from 1927 to 1934, and also served as director of the State Academy for Church and School Music in Berlin from 1927 to 1933; he received the degree of doctor of theology at Königsberg in 1931. He retired from his public positions in 1934 but continued his musicological pursuits in Berlin. He later served as head of the Reichsstelle für Musik-Bearbeitungen from 1940 to 1945. After World War II, he resumed teaching by accepting appointments as a prof, at the Univ. of Jena and the Hochschule für Musik in Weimar in 1947. He then served as director of the Berlin Cons, from 1950 until 1960. Moser was an outstanding music historian and lexicographer; his numerous writings are notable for their erudition. However, his unquestionable scholarship was marred by his ardent espousal of the Nazi racial philosophy; so ferocious was his anti-Semitism that he excluded Mendelssohn from his books pubi, during the 3^rd Reich. He served as ed. of a projected complete edition of Weber’s works (Augsburg and Leipzig, 1926–33), but it remains unfinished. Other works he ed. include Luthers Lieder, Werke, XXXV (Weimar, 1923; with O. Albrecht and H. Lücke); Minnesang und Volkslied (Leipzig, 1925; 2^nd ed., enl., 1933); Das Liederbuch des Amt von Aich (Kassel, 1930; with E. Bernoulli); Das deutsche Sololied und die Ballade, Das Musikwerk, XIV (1957; Eng. tr., 1958); Heinrich Schütz: Italienische Madrigale, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, XXII (Kassel, 1962). He also contributed countless articles to various German music journals, and likewise wrote novels, short stories, and a comedy. He also tried his hand at composing, producing the school opera Der Reisekamerad, choruses, and songs. He arranged operas by Handel and Weber, and also wrote an entirely new libretto for Weber’s Euryanthe and produced it under the title Die sieben Raben (Berlin, March 5, 1915).

Writings

Technik der deutschen Gesangskunst (Berlin, 1911; 3^rd ed., 1955; with Oskar Noë); Geschichte der deutschen Musik (3 vols., Stuttgart and Berlin, 1920, 1922, and 1924; 2^nded., enl., 1968); Musikalisches Wörterbuch (Leipzig and Berlin, 1923); Paul Hofhaimer: Ein Lied-und Orgelmeister des deutschen Humanismus (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1929; 2^nd ed., enl., 1966); Die Ballade (Berlin, 1930); Die Epochen der Musikgeschichte im Überblick (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1930; 2^nd ed., 1956); Die mehrstimmige Vertonung des Evangeliums (2 vols., Leipzig, 1931 and 1934); Musiklexikon (Berlin, 1932–35; 2^nd ed., 1943, withdrawn; 3^rd ed., 1951; 4^th ed., 1955; suppl., 1963); Corydon: das ist: Geschichte des mehrstimmigen Generalbass-Liedes und des Quodlibets im deutschen Barock (2 vols., Braunschweig, 1933); Die Melodien der Luther-Lieder (Leipzig and Hamburg, 1935); Johann Sebastian Bach (Berlin, 1935; 2^nd ed., 1943); Tönende Volksaltertümer (Berlin, 1935); Heinrich Schütz: Sein Leben und Werk (Kassel, 1936; 2^nd ed., rev., 1954; Eng. tr., 1959); Lehrbuch der Musikgeschichte (Berlin, 1936; 13^th ed., 1959); Das deutsche Lied seit Mozart (Berlin and Zürich, 1937; 2^nd ed., rev, 1968); Die Musikfibel (Leipzig, 1937); Kleine deutsche Musikgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1938; 4^th ed., 1955); Allgemeine Musiklehr (Berlin, 1940); Christoph Willibald Gluck (Stuttgart, 1940); Kleines Heinrich-Schütz-Buch (Kassel, 1940; Eng. tr., 1967); Carl Maria von Weber (Leipzig, 1941; 2^nd ed., 1955); George Friedrich Händel (Kassel, 1941; 2^nd ed., 1952); Goethe und die Musik (Leipzig, 1949); Lebensvolle Musikerziehung (Vienna, 1952); Musikgeschichte in hundert Lebensbildern (Stuttgart, 1952); Die evangelische Kirchenmusik in Deutschland (Berlin, 1953); Musikästhetik (Berlin, 1953); Die Musikleistung der deutschen Stämme (Vienna, 1954); Die Tonsprachen des Abendlandes (Berlin and Darmstadt, 1954); Dietrich Buxtehude (Berlin, 1957); Musik in Zeit und Raum (Berlin, 1960; collected essays); Bachs Werke: Ein Führer für Musikfreunde (Kassel, 1964); etc.

Bibliography

Festgabe für H.J. M.(Kassel, 1954; with complete list of writings).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis Mclntire