Heinrich Besseler

Heinrich Besseler (born April 2, 1900 in Hörde , † July 25, 1969 in Leipzig ) was a German musicologist .

Life

Besseler, the son of a chemist, studied philosophy with Martin Heidegger , German studies with G. Müller, mathematics and natural sciences , in Vienna with Hans Gál and then musicology with Wilibald Gurlitt in Vienna and Freiburg after attending grammar school in Düsseldorf in Freiburg im Breisgau , Guido Adler and Wilhelm Fischer . In 1923 he received his doctorate at the University of Freiburg with the study Contributions to the style history of the German suite in the 17th century . After studying with Friedrich Ludwig in Göttingen , he completed his habilitation in Freiburg with the work The Motet Composition from Petrus de Cruce to Philipp von Vitry (approx. 1250-1350) . In 1928 he was appointed professor of musicology at the University of Heidelberg .

Heinrich Besseler's grave

After 1933 he adjusted his courses “completely to the needs of the National Socialists ”. In 1934, one year after the National Socialists " seized power ", he became a member of the SA , where he achieved the rank of Oberscharführer . In 1935 he demanded at the music days of the Hitler Youth in Erfurt “that the university's music care should be permeated by the spirit of the new Hitler Youth song.” From 1935 to 1937 (1939) he was secretary of the committee responsible for the maintenance of German musical monuments for the construction responsible for publications at the State Institute for Music Research in Berlin. On June 26, 1939, Besseler was appointed a full member of the State Institute for German Music Research by Reich Minister Bernhard Rust . With effect from May 1, 1937, SA member Besseler was accepted into the NSDAP ( membership number : 4.033.201). He got into conflicts with Herbert Gerigk , the head of the special staff music in the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR).

In the denazification proceedings after the Second World War , Besseler claimed that the Rosenberg office had persecuted him personally.

In 1945 he was dismissed by the American military government as a professor at the University of Heidelberg and tried in vain to get reinstalled.

In 1949, Besseler accepted a call to the newly established full professorship for musicology at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena , and in the early 1950s he became head of the department for philosophy and musicology and head of the musicology department. He acted as Vice Dean of the Philosophical Faculty. From 1952 Besseler was a member of the scientific advisory board for musicology at the GDR State Secretariat for Higher Education. After the cessation of musicological research in Jena, Besseler moved in 1956 (1957) as professor and director of the Institute for Musicology at the University of Leipzig . In 1960 he was honored with a festschrift (Leipzig 1961, with a list of publications and editions) and received the GDR National Prize , and in 1965 he retired. In 1967 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa by the University of Chicago .

Besseler had been a full member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences since 1955 , honorary member of the Instituto Español de Musicología , publication director of the Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae Rome and, together with Max Schneider, editor of the publication series Music History in Pictures (Leipzig from 1961).

Besseler's students include Manfred Bukofzer , Edward Lowinsky , Peter Gülke , Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune, Ursula Günther , Ingeborg Stein , Hermann Christian Polster , Winfried Schrammek and other well-known musicians and musicologists.

Posthumous

In 1970, Clytus Gottwald tried to define Heinrich Besseler as 'open to the Nazis' at the conference of the Society for Music Research in 1970; this was received as polluting the nest.

Works (selection)

As editor

• Heidelberg Studies in Musicology I - VIII . Kassel 1932 to 1939
• Current musical questions I - III . Heidelberg 1949 to 1953
• Jena contributions to music research I - III . Leipzig 1954 to 1961
• 1961 to 1968 with Max Schneider : Music history in pictures . Leipzig

Books / Articles

• Dissertation: Contributions to the style history of the German suite in the 17th century , 1923
• Habilitation thesis: The motet composition from Petrus de Cruce to Philipp von Vitry , 1925
• The music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance , Bücken, Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft, 1931
• On the problem of the tenor violin , Musikalische Gegenwartsfragen I, 1949
• Bourdon and Fauxbourdon - Studies on the Origin of Dutch Music , 1950
• Five real portraits of Johann Sebastian Bach , 1956
• The Musical Hearing of Modern Times , Academy Report, 1959
• with Peter Gülke : The typeface of polyphonic music , music history in pictures, 1973

Articles in collective publications

• Johann Sebastian Bach , 1935
• Bach's time as a master craftsman in Weimar , 1950
• Character theme and form of experience in Bach , 1950
• Bach and the Middle Ages , 1951
• Johannes Ciconia , founder of choral polyphony , 1952
• The cast of the chanson in the 15th century , 1953
• Singing style and instrumental style in European music , 1954
• On the chronology of the concerts by Johann Sebastian Bach , 1955
• Mozart and the German Classic , 1958
• Influences of contrat dance music on Joseph Haydn , 1961
• The essence of music as seen today , 1966
• The Expression of Individuality in Music , 1969

Articles in magazines

• Medieval music in the Hamburg music hall , 1924/25
• Studies on the music of the Middle Ages
  • I: New sources from the 14th and early 15th centuries , 1925
  • II: The motet from Franko von Köln to Philipp von Vitry , 1926
• Basic questions of musical hearing , 1925/26
• Basic questions of musical aesthetics , 1926
• From Dufay to Josquin , 1928/29
• Friedrich Ludwig † , 1930/31
• Schiller and the musical classics , 1934/35
• The origin of the Fauxbourdons , 1948
• Dufay, creator of the Fauxbourdons , 1948
• The Lochamer songbook from Nuremberg , 1949
• The Making of the Trumpet , 1950
• Bach as a pioneer , 1955
• Play figures in instrumental music , 1956
• Popular music and performance music in the 16th century , 1959
• The bones and portraits of Johann Sebastian Bach , 1959
• Comments, Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concertos concerning , 1960
• German songs from Robert Morton to Josquin , 1971

Secondary literature

• Thomas Phleps: A quiet, dogged and tenacious struggle for continuity - musicology in Nazi Germany and coping with past politics . In: Isolde von Foerster et al. (Ed.): Music research - National Socialism - Fascism . Mainz 2001, pp. 471-488 ( online ).
• Lothar Hoffmann inheritance law: Heinrich Besseler (1900–1969). In: The music research . Volume 23, 1970, pp. 1-4.
• Eckhard John: About Germanness in Music. In: Albrecht Dümling (Ed.), Degenerate Music. An annotated reconstruction for the Düsseldorf exhibition from 1938 , Düsseldorf 1988, 200S. [on the role of the musicologists J. Müller-Blattau, W. Gurlitt and H. Besseler in National Socialism].
• Martin Geck: So it could have been ... so it must have been ... On the 25th anniversary of the death of the music researcher Heinrich Besseler . In: Musica . Volume 48, 1994, No. 4, pp. 244-245.
• Pamela M. Potter: The most German of the arts. Musicology and society from the Weimar Republic to the end of the Third Reich. Stuttgart 2000, especially pp. 104-118, 151-166, 299-310.
• Thomas Schipperges : The Heinrich Besseler files. Musicology and science policy in Germany from 1924 to 1949 (sources and studies on music in Baden-Württemberg, vol. 7). Strube, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89912-087-6 .
• Olaf Kappelt: Brown Book GDR. Nazis in the GDR . Berlin historica, 2009, ISBN 978-3-939929-12-3 , p. 272.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Horst Seeger : Musiklexikon persons A-Z . German publishing house for music, Leipzig 1981.
2. ↑ Annette Kreutziger-Herr: A dream from the Middle Ages: the rediscovery of medieval music in modern times. Böhlau, Köln Weimar 2003, ISBN 3-412-15202-1 , p. 157 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 48.
4. ^ Quote from Fred K. Prieberg , printed by Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 48.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Heinrich Besseler ( Memento of the original from October 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the Wiki of the Institute for Musicology at the University of Leipzig  
6. ↑ Between research interests and power politics ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Thomas Schipperge's "Heinrich Besseler Files" is working on a difficult chapter in German scientific history on uni-heidelberg.de from April 20, 2006  
7. ↑ Archive for Music Research, 1940, Vol. 5 (1), p. 63
8. ↑ Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 , Kiel 2004, CD-Rom-Lexikon, p. 427.
9. ↑ Thomas Schipperges: The Heinrich Besseler files . Musicology and Science Policy in Germany 1924 to 1949, Munich 2007, chap. 6 (Strube-Verlag), ISBN 3-89912-087-6
10. ↑ ^{a b} Brockhaus Riemann Musiklexikon Vol. 1 (1998) ISBN 3-254-08396-2
11. ↑ Christiane Wiesenfeldt : The Hero's Workshop (FAZ.net March 11, 2018)

Web links

• Works by and about Heinrich Besseler in the catalog of the German National Library
• Heinrich Besseler, professors at the University of Leipzig 1945–1993 , accessed on November 17, 2017