Helmuth Osthoff

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Helmuth Osthoff (born August 13, 1896 in Bielefeld , † February 9, 1983 in Würzburg ) was a German musicologist , university professor and composer .

Life

Helmuth Osthoff, son of bank director Heinrich Osthoff and his wife Berta, b. Tepel began his musical training while still at high school, taking lessons in piano, music theory, score playing and composition with Otto Wetzel in Bielefeld and Wilhelm Niessen in Münster. After Osthoff had participated in the First World War from 1915 to 1918 , he studied musicology, art history and philosophy from 1919 first in Münster and from 1920 at the Berlin University . In 1922, as a student of Johannes Wolf with his dissertation The Lutenist Santini Garsi da Parma, he was awarded a Dr. phil. PhD . After further musical training in the subjects of composition with Wilhelm Klatte , piano with James Kwast and conducting with Gustav Brecher , which he completed both privately and at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin , he was initially from 1923 to 1926 as a répétiteur at the Leipzig Opera House under General Music Director Gustav Brecher active.

In 1926 Osthoff became assistant to Arnold Schering at the University of Halle and followed him in 1928 as his senior assistant at the Department of Music History at Berlin University. After Osthoff had completed his habilitation in 1932 with the work Die Niederländer und das deutsche Lied , he took over the music-historical editing in 1935. At the end of 1937 he was appointed to the University of Frankfurt am Main , initially as a substitute, and from 1938 as a non-scheduled professor, director of the musicological institute and university music director. In this position he headed the Collegium musicum until 1963 .

Osthoff became a member of the NSDAP with effect from May 1, 1937 ( membership number 5,377,880). He was also a member of the NSV , the RLB and the NS Lecturer Association and was the deputy head of the International Office of the NS Student Association . As a participant in the musicological conference as part of the 1938 Reichsmusiktage , Osthoff gave a lecture on the subject of the cast problem in the music of the baroque age .

Osthoff had close contacts with HERBERT GERIGK , head of the headquarters music while representatives of the leader for the monitoring of the entire intellectual and ideological training and education of the NSDAP , Alfred Rosenberg . In mid-1939, Gerigk envisaged him, alongside Friedrich Blume , Wolfgang Boetticher , Werner Danckert , Rudolf Gerber , Erich Schenk , Erich Schumann and Rudolf Sonner, as co-author of an extensive music dictionary as part of the planned high school of the NSDAP . Osthoff accepted in mid-August 1939. However, this project was dashed by the beginning of the Second World War , in which Osthoff participated as a lieutenant (reserve officer) of the Wehrmacht on the western front until 1940 . After the occupation of Belgium , Osthoff was stationed in Brussels and on July 13, 1940 received a letter from Gerigk, in which he inquired about the state of the Brussels music collections and whether the manuscript departments had remained intact. Osthoff did not mention the activities in Belgium in his self-portrayal in the MGG and only wrote: "In 1939/40 he participated in the war."

In the winter semester 1940/41 Osthoff resumed his teaching activities at Frankfurt University, but remained an employee in the main music department with the Führer’s commissioner for monitoring the entire intellectual and ideological training and education of the NSDAP. As recently as 1944, Osthoff was rated as "politically reliable" and that he was "one of the best representatives in his field".

After the end of the war and the end of the denazification process , Osthoff was able to resume teaching at the musicological seminar in Frankfurt am Main in 1948. In 1950 he became a personal professor and in 1959 a full professor. He undertook various research trips into the history of Franco-Flemish music of the 15th and 16th centuries. After his retirement in 1964, he moved to Würzburg in 1973, where he worked on a volume of cantatas for the New Bach Edition until shortly before his death .

Helmuth Osthoff is the father of the musicologist Wolfgang Osthoff (1927-2008).

Services

Helmuth Osthoff's research on Franco-Flemish music of the 15th and 16th centuries resulted in numerous individual studies and the two-volume monograph on Josquin Desprez , which, according to his biographer Wolfgang Osthoff, is still considered a standard work and is only obsolete in details. In addition to his academic and editorial work, Helmuth Osthoff composed songs, cantatas and a string quartet.

Publications (selection)

  • The lutenist Santino Garsi da Parma: a contribution to the history of Northern Italian lute music at the exit d. Late renaissance; with an overview of the musical relations of Parma in the 16th century and 58 previously unpublished compositions of the time. Breitkopf & Härtel , Leipzig 1926. Facsimile reprint: Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 1973.
  • The Dutch and the German Song (1400–1640). Junker and Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1938, facsimile reprint with afterword, corrections and additions by the author, H. Schneider, Tutzing 1967.
  • Johannes Brahms and his mission . Published in the series of war lectures at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn a. Rh. , Bonner Universitätsbuchdruck, Bonn 1942.
  • Josquin Desprez. Volume 1. H. Schneider, Tutzing 1962.
  • Josquin Desprez. Volume 2. H. Schneider, Tutzing 1965.
  • numerous special studies on Josquin Desprez.
Essays during the Nazi era
  • The beginnings of d. Music historiography in Germany. In: Acta Musicologica V, 1933, pp. 97-107.
  • Actions d. Counter-Reformation to the music of the 16th century. In: Jb. Peters f. 1934, pp. 32-50.
  • Frederick the Great as a composer. In: Zeitschrift für Musik 103, 1936, pp. 917–20, again in: Friedrich d. Gr., Ruler between tradition and Progress, 1985, p. 179 ff.
  • German songs and chants in medieval drama. In: Archiv f. Music research. VI, 1942, pp. 65-81.
  • The music in the drama of the German Middle Ages. In: Deutsche Musikkultur 1943, pp. 29–40.
Editions (selection)
  • Adam Krieger (1634-1666): New contributions to the history of the German song in the 17th century. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1929.
  • Rogier Michael , The Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1602. 1937, new edition: Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel 1953.
  • Rogier Michael, The conception of our Lord Jesus Christ 1602. 1937 (both also in: Handbuch der deutschen Evangelischen Kirchenmusik, 1935 ff.).
  • Johann Sigismund Kusser , arias, duets a. Choirs from "Erindo". In: The legacy of German music , landscape monuments Schleswig-Holstein a. Hanseatic Cities III, 1938;
  • The German choral song from the 16th century to the present, in the series: Das Musikwerk , Arno Volk-Verlag, Cologne 1955, new edition: Arno Volk-Verlag, Cologne 1960.
  • JS Bach , New Edition of All Works I / 23: Cantatas for the 16th and 17th Sunday after Trinity , 1982 (one of the cantatas edited by R. Hallmark).
estate
  • Letters from H. Osthoff from 1936 to 1948 are in the holdings of the Leipzig music publisher CFPeters in the Leipzig State Archives .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians , pp. 5057-5058.
  2. ↑ Willem de Vries: Art theft in the west 1940-1945. Alfred Rosenberg and the "Special Staff Music" . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-596-14768-9 , pp. 108–111, especially p. 110.
  3. ^ Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians , pp. 1996–1997.
  4. ↑ Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians , p. 1997 with reference to the source BA NS 15/26.
  5. ↑ Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians , pp. 5057–5058, source: BA NS 30/65.
  6. ^ Quote from Helmuth Osthoff, entry in: MGG, CD-Rom edition, p. 57.194, see also MGG vol. 10, p. 451, Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel 1962.
  7. ^ Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 445, with reference to Willem de Vries: Kunstraub im Westen 1940–1945. Alfred Rosenberg and the special staff for music. Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-596-14768-9 , p. 111.
  8. ↑ Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians , p. 5058 with reference to RPA Hessen, Dept. Personnel, to RMVP, 13 / VI / 44, telex. Source: BA R 55/13. Sheet 135.
  9. ^ Wolfgang Osthoff:  Osthoff, Helmuth. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 626 f. ( Digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Osthoff, Helmuth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musicologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Bielefeld
DATE OF DEATH February 9, 1983
Place of death Wurzburg