Schaeffner, André
Schaeffner, André
Schaeffner, André, French musicologist and ethnomusicologist; b. Paris, Feb. 7, 1895; d. there, Aug. 11, 1980. He studied composition with d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum (1921–24), ethnology with M. Mauss at the Institut d’Ethnologie (1932–33), religious science at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (1934–37; diploma, 1940), and archeology with S. Reinach at the École du Louvre in Paris. In 1929 he founded the ethnological dept. at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, which he headed until 1965. Between 1931 and 1958 he led 6 scientific excursions in Africa. From 1958 to 1961 he was president of the Société Française de Musicologie. He also took great interest in modern music and in lexicography; in addition to editing the French edition of Riemann’s Musiklexikon (Dictionnaire de musique, Paris, 1931), he brought out the books Le jazz (with A. Coeuroy; Paris, 1926), a monograph on Stravinsky (Paris, 1931), Origines des instruments de musique (Paris, 1936; new ed., 1994), Les Kissi: une Société noire et ses instruments de musique (Paris, 1951), and Segalen et Claude Debussy (with A. Joly-Segalen; Monaco, 1961). His Le sistre et le hochet: Musique, théâtre et danse dans las sociétés africaines was publ, posthumously (Paris, 1990). A Festschrift was publ, in his memory in 1982.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire