Klaus Wachsmann

Klaus Philipp Wachsmann (born March 8, 1907 in Berlin , † July 17, 1984 in Tuckingmill , Wiltshire ) was a German-British ethnomusicologist .

Life

After attending the Arndt Gymnasium in Berlin, which he left with the Abitur in 1926, Wachsmann began studying law at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau . He later moved to the University of Berlin. There he broke off his law studies to devote himself to musicology. In the following years he heard from Friedrich Blume , Arnold Schering , Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs .

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933, Wachsmann was expelled from the university because of his Jewish descent according to the National Socialist definition. He moved to Switzerland as an alternative, where he completed his studies at the University of Friborg and, in 1935 , was supervised by KG Fellerer and awarded the title summa cum laude , work on pre-aggregorian chants for Dr. phil. PhD. He then returned to Germany, where, due to his origins, he was not given a job as a teacher and, moreover, was not allowed to marry his "Aryan" fiancée.

In 1936, Wachsmann went to Great Britain. There he enrolled to study linguistics and the Bantu languages (especially Luganda and Kiswahili ) at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London .

The emigration did not prevent Wachsmann from being targeted by the National Socialist police forces. They classified him as an enemy of the state. In the spring of 1940 - since he was mistakenly suspected to be still in Great Britain - he was placed on the special wanted list by the Reich Security Main Office , a list of people who would be followed by SS special commands in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the occupying forces should be located and arrested with special priority.

In July 1937, Wachsmann and his wife Eva Buttenberg moved to Uganda with the help of the Church Missionary Society , where he stayed until 1957. There he initially worked for the Protestant Mission in Uganda, where he particularly devoted himself to researching the country's own musical culture. From 1944 to 1947 he was assistant and executive director of education for the mission. In 1948 he was appointed curator of the Uganda Museum in Kampala . In this position he supervised the construction of the museum building and set up the museum's extensive collection of East African musical instruments. In 1949, Wachsmann received funding from the British government which enabled him to record more than 1,500 recordings of performances of traditional Ugandan music in the following years (for example by Evaristo Muyinda , who became his assistant). In this way one of the largest and most important collections of African music was created .

In 1947, Wachsmann participated in the founding of the International Council for Traditional Music ( International Folk Music Council ), which held its first meeting on September 22, 1947 at the Belgian Institute in London.

From 1958 to 1963, Wachsmann was the scientific supervisor of the ethnological collection of the Wellcome Foundation in London.

In 1963, Wachsmann moved to California , where he taught at UCLA and at the Institute of Ethnomusicology as a professor until 1963. He then worked at Northwestern University in Evanston . From 1976 to 1977 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the College of the Humanities at the University of Texas in Dallas . In 1978, Wachsmann moved to the University of Cologne , where he taught as Richard Merton visiting professor at the Institute for Ethnic Music until 1979.

He also served as President of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the International Folk Music Council.

family

Wachsmann had been married to Eva Buttmann since 1936. Their son is Philipp Wachsmann .

Honors

In 1958, Wachsmann received the bronze medal of the Royal African Society for "devoted service to the African continent" ("Devoted Service to Africa"). In 1984, Wachsmann received the Great Federal Cross of Merit .

Fonts

• Investigations into pre-Gregorian chant . Regensburg, 1935. (Dissertation)
• An Equal-Stepped Tuning in a Ganda Harp. In: Nature , 1950, 165, pp. 40ff.
• Folk Musicians in Uganda: A Report Based on the Music Research Scheme . 1956.
• A Study of Norms in the Tribal Music of Uganda. In: Ethnomusicology Newsletter No. 11, 1957.
• A Century of Change in the folk Music of an African Tribe. In: Journal of the International Folk Music Council , 1958, Vol. 10, pp. 52-56.
• Human Migration and African Harps. In: Journal of the International Folk Music Council Vol. 16.
• The Primitive Musical Instruments. In: Anthony Baines (ed.): Musical Instruments through the Ages , New York 1961, 25-53.
• Some Speculations Concerning a Drum Chime in Buganda. In: Man No. 1, January / February 1965, pp. 1-8.
• Pen-equidistance and accurate pitch. A problem form the Source of the Nile. In: Ludwig Fischer, Christoph-Hellmut (Ed.): Festschrift for Walter Wiora on December 30, 1966 , 1967.
• Essays on Music and History in Africa . 1971.
• Africa . In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , Vol. 1, 1981, pp. 144-153. (in cooperation with Peter Cooke)

As editor:

• Tribal Crafts of Uganda . London 1953. (with Margaret Trowell)

literature

• Peter Cooke: The Legacy of Klaus Wachsmann. In: S. Nannyonga-Tamusuza / T. Solomon (Ed.): Ethnomusicology in East Africa. Perspectives from Uganda and Beyond , 2012, pp. 3–15.
• Samuel Kahunde: Repatriating Archival Sound Recordings to Revive Traditions. The Role of the Klaus Wachsmann Recordings in the Revival of the Royal Music of Bunyoro-Kitara, Uganda. In: Ethnomusicology Forum 212, Special Issue. Ethnomusicology, Archives and Communities. Methodologies for an Equitable Discipline , 2012, pp. 197-219.
• Sue Carol DeVale: Intrusions. A Remembrance of Klaus Wachsmann (1907-1984). In: Ethnomusicology , Vol. 29, No. 2, 1985, pp. 272-282.
• Essays for a Humanist. to Offering to Klaus Wachsmann . Town House, New York 1977.
• Klaus Philipp Wachsmann . In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . tape 17 . Bärenreiter Verlag, 2007, Sp. 262-263 .
• Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Eds.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Vol. 2, 2, Saur, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , pp. 1197f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry on Wachsmann on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London) .