Alfred Dürr

This article deals with the musicologist Alfred Dürr. Further meanings can be found under Alfred Dürr (disambiguation) .

Alfred Dürr (born March 3, 1918 in Berlin-Charlottenburg ; † April 7, 2011 in Göttingen ) was a German musicologist who contributed significantly to the understanding of the genesis and tradition of Johann Sebastian Bach's works .

Live and act

Dürr studied musicology and classical philology at the University of Göttingen from 1945 to 1950 and received his doctorate in 1950 under Rudolf Gerber with a thesis on the early cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach. From 1951 until his retirement in 1983 he was an employee of the Johann Sebastian Bach Institute in Göttingen, from 1962 to 1981 its deputy director.

For many decades, Dürr dealt intensively with the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. The focus was on the genesis of the works, which Dürr tried to elucidate with the help of a meticulous examination of the sources. He was co-editor of the New Bach Edition , a historical-critical complete edition of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, which was completed in 2007, and from 1953 to 1974 with Werner Neumann editor of the Bach Yearbook . Dürr wrote books on JS Bach's cantatas and on the Well-Tempered Clavier , which were also well received by a wider audience beyond the musicological world.

Honors

Alfred Dürr had been a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences since 1976 as well as honorary doctorates from the Humboldt University in Berlin , the University of Oxford and the Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea (Ohio) .

Publications (selection)

• Studies of Johann Sebastian Bach's early cantatas. Book edition of the dissertation. Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 1951. 2nd expanded and improved edition 1977.
• Johann Sebastian Bach. The cantatas. 1st edition: Bärenreiter & dtv, Kassel etc. 1971.
  • 11th edition: Bärenreiter, Kassel 2013 (1037 pages).
  • From the 5th edition onwards with the title addition "... with their texts."
  • Translations into English (Oxford University Press) and Hungarian.
• Johann Sebastian Bach - The St. John Passion: Origin, Tradition, Work Introduction . 6th edition: Bärenreiter, Kassel 2011.
  • Translation into English (Oxford University Press).
• Johann Sebastian Bach. The well-tempered piano . 1st edition 1998. 5th edition: Bärenreiter, Kassel 2016.

literature

• Wolfgang Rehm (Ed.): Bachiana et alia Musicologica. Festschrift Alfred Dürr for his 65th birthday on March 3, 1983. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1983, ISBN 3-7618-0683-3 .
• Martin Staehelin : Obituary for Alfred Dürr. In: Yearbook of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen. 2012, pp. 303-307.

Web links

• Literature by and about Alfred Dürr in the catalog of the German National Library
• The well-known Bach researcher Alfred Dürr died on April 7, 2011 . on meinhardo.wordpress.com, April 13, 2011 (with picture)