Hans-Heinz Dräger

Hans-Heinz Dräger (born December 6, 1909 in Stralsund , † November 9, 1968 in Austin (Texas) ; full name: Hans-Heinz Gerhard Kurt Dräger ) was a German-American musicologist .

life and work

Hans-Heinz Dräger attended the secondary school in Stralsund from 1920 to 1931. From 1931 to 1937 he studied musicology at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin with Friedrich Blume , Curt Sachs , Arnold Schering , Georg Schünemann and Erich Schumann . He also heard art history with Albert Erich Brinckmann and Wilhelm Pinder , philosophy with Max Dessoir and Nicolai Hartmann, and German studies with Herrmann.

After receiving his doctorate in 1937, he received a position as an assistant at the State Institute for German Music Research . In 1938 he became assistant to the director of the Berlin Musical Instrument Museum . In 1939 he was appointed acting director of the museum.

After the Second World War he went to Kiel University, where he received his habilitation in 1946 . In 1947 he was appointed professor at the University of Greifswald, after which he taught at the University of Rostock until 1949 . He was then a professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin until 1953. Then he left the GDR and was professor at the Free University of Berlin until 1961 . In 1955 he was hired by RIAS as a music specialist and musicologist. From September 1955 to May 1956 he was a visiting professor at Stanford University as part of the Fulbright program . In 1961 he took on a visiting professorship at the University of Texas at Austin. There he took over the chair for systematic musicology in 1963.

In 1966, Hans-Heinz Draeger received citizenship of the United States . He was chairman of the Texan Department of the American Musicological Society.

Dräger's main topic was the description and classification of musical instruments . For this purpose, he developed a set of tables in his habilitation thesis in which all musical instruments should be sorted according to a constant sequence of questions.

Works (selection)

• The development of the bow and its use in Europe. (PhD) Bärenreiter, Kassel 1937
• Articles Amati, wind instrument making, bow, Buhle, Casals, Dräger, hurdy-gurdy, dynamics, fiddle, Gagliano family, Gasparo da Salò, violin, Grancino family, Groblicz, dulcimer, instrumentation, janko, double bass, mersenne, monochord, musette, musical aesthetics A, Psalterium A and Tourte in: Friedrich Blume (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Bärenreiter, Kassel 1949–1966
• Principle of a system of musical instruments. (Habilitation) Bärenreiter, Kassel 1948

literature

• Dräger, Hans-Heinz . In: German Biographical Encyclopedia . KG Saur, Berlin, Boston 2011. (accessed via De Gruyter Online , August 9, 2015).
• Michael S. Morawski: Draeger, Hans-Heinz. In: Laurie E. Jasinski (Ed.): Handbook of Texas Music. Texas A&M University Press, 2012, ISBN 9780876112977 , ( Google Books ).
• University of Texas (Ed.): In memoriam Hans-Heinz Draeger. Austin 1968, ( Online , PDF ).

Web links

• Literature about Hans-Heinz Dräger in the state bibliography MV
• Michael Morawski: Draeger, Hans-Heinz. In: Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association, September 24, 2011, accessed December 27, 2015 .