Salzer, Felix

Salzer, Felix , distinguished Austrian-born American music theorist and pedagogue; b. Vienna, June 13, 1904; d. N.Y., Aug. 12, 1986. He studied musicology with Guido Adler at the Univ. of Vienna (Ph.D., 1926, with the diss. Die Sonatenform bei Schubert), and concurrently studied theory and analysis with Weise and Schenker; later received a conducting diploma from the Vienna Academy of Music (1935). With O. Jonas, he was founder-ed. of the journal Der Dreiklang (1937–39). He emigrated to the U.S. in 1939 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1945; taught at N.Y.’s Mannes Coll. of Music (1940–56), serving as its executive director (1948–55); was again a teacher there (1962–81); was also a prof. of music at Queens Coll. of the City Univ. of N.Y. (from 1963). He was a leading “Schenkerian” theorist and was instrumental in bringing the views of his teacher to the attention of American musicians; his own contribution was in the expansion and application of Schenker’s concepts (previously restricted to a narrow range of tonal music) to Renaissance, medieval, and some 20^th-century music. He publ. a number of important books on music theory: Sinn und Wesen der abenlän-dischen Mehrstimmigkeit (Vienna, 1935), Structural Hearing (2 vols., N.Y., 1952; new ed., N.Y, 1962), and Counterpoint in Composition: The Study of Voice Leading (with C. Schachter; N.Y., 1969), and also ed. (with William Mitchell) Music Forum (N.Y, from 1967), a hardcover periodical.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire