Hugo Leichtentritt

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Hugo Leichtentritt (born January 1, 1874 in Pleschen near Posen , † November 13, 1951 in Cambridge, Massachusetts ) was a German musicologist .

From the Henri Musielak collection

Life

Born and raised in Germany, Hugo Leichtentritt was sent to America at the age of 15. There he attended high school in Somerville, Massachusetts. He then studied at the Berlin University of Music. He was then a student of John Knowles Paine at Harvard University . After receiving his BA here in 1894, he continued his studies in Germany at the Royal University of Berlin and received his doctorate in 1901 with the dissertation Reinhard Keizer in his operas .

From 1901 to 1924 he taught composition, music history and aesthetics at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory . He also wrote music reviews for Die Musik , Allgemeine Musikzeitung , Vossische Zeitung and Signals for the musical world and worked as a correspondent for the New York Musical Courier and the London Musical Times . As a guest author, he also worked on the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in the 1920s . In 1917/18 he served in the German army as a clerk. He then gave composition lessons in Berlin, almost exclusively as a private teacher.

As a Jew , Leichtentritt was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and emigrated to the USA, where he settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Until his retirement in 1940 he was a professor at Harvard University , but until 1944 he also lectured at New York University .

meaning

Leichtentritt had a high degree of general education and had a fundamental knowledge of literature , languages and philosophy , which enabled him to present music in world-historical contexts. As a historian, his occupations with the motet , the madrigal and the German opera are of particular importance. He also followed contemporary music with great interest. For a long time his History of the Motet (1908) and his Theory of Musical Forms (1911) were considered standard works. His most outstanding writings include his Music, History, and Ideas (1938), written in the USA , and Music of the Western Nations , published posthumously in 1956 , which represent a synthesis of his musical ideas.

Leichtentritt composed two operas, of which The Sicilian was premiered in Freiburg in 1920 . He wrote a symphony , solo concerts , chamber music and songs in the neo-baroque style with an impressionist touch. With these mostly unpublished works, however, he never received much attention.

Fonts

Books

  • Reinhard Keizer in his operas. A contribution to the history of early German opera . Dissertation Berlin 1901, Berlin 1901.
  • Friedrich Chopin . Berlin 1905.
  • Friedrich Chopin . 2nd improved edition, Berlin 1920. Dutch: The Hague 1926.
  • History of music . Berlin 1905.
  • History of the motet . Leipzig 1908.
  • Musical theory of forms . Leipzig 1911, English: Musical Form Cambridge / Massachusetts 1951.
  • Erwin Lendvai . Berlin 1912.
  • Ferruccio Busoni . Leipzig 1916.
  • Analysis of Chopin's piano works . 2 volumes. Berlin 1921.
  • Handel . Stuttgart / Berlin 1924.
  • Ignatz Waghalter . New York 1924.
  • The Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory of Music . Berlin 1881–1931 . Berlin 1931.
  • The Complete Pianoforte Sonatas of Beethoven . New York 1936.
  • Everybody's Little History of Music . New York 1938.
  • Music, History, and Ideas . Cambridge / Massachusetts 1938; Spanish Buenos Aires 1945; Japanese Tokyo 1970.
  • Serge Koussevitzky , the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the New American Music . Cambridge / Massachusetts 1946.
  • Music of the Western Nations . Edited and expanded by Nicolas Slonimsky . Cambridge / Massachusetts 1956 (posthumously).

Essays

  • An ancestor of Berlioz's Requiem . In: Allgemeine Musikzeitung . 30, 1903, pp. 677-681.
  • About maintaining old vocal music . In: Journal of the International Music Society . 6, 1904/05, pp. 192-202.
  • Performances of older music in Berlin . In: Journal of the International Music Society . 7, 1905/06, pp. 368-372.
  • What do the sculptures of the 14th – 17th centuries teach us? Century about the instrumental music of their time? In: Anthologies of the International Music Society . 7, 1915, pp. 604-622.
  • The Renaissance Attitude toward Music . In: Musical Quarterly . 1, 1915, pp. 604-622.
  • The sources of the new in music . In: Melos . 1, 1920, pp. 28-33.
  • Nationalism and Internationalism in Music . In: Sackbut . 2, 1921/22, issue 12, pp. 13-16.
  • Philipp Jarnach . In: Musikblätter des Anbruch . 5, 1923, pp. 258-262.
  • The Handel's operatic work . In: The music . 16, 1923/24, pp. 551-557.
  • German Music of the Last Decade . In: The Musical Quarterly . 10, 1924, pp. 193-218.
  • Harmonic Daring in the 16th Century . In: Modern Music . 5, 1927/28, No. 1, pp. 12-21.
  • Schoenberg and Tonality . In: Modern Music . 5, 1927/28, No. 4, pp. 3-10.
  • Schubert’s Early Operas . In: The Musical Quarterly . 14, 1928, pp. 620-638.
  • Arnold Schönberg's op.19 . In: Die Musik 25, 1932/33, pp. 405–412.
  • Bartok and the Hungarian Folk Song . In: Modern Music . 10, 1932/33, pp. 130-139.
  • Handel’s Harmonic Art . In: The Musical Quarterly . 21, 1935, pp. 208-223.
  • On Editing Netherlands Music . In: Musical Mercury 2, 1935, pp. 5-11.
  • On the Prologue in Early Opera . In: Papers of the American Musicological Society . 1936, pp. 88-95.
  • The Reform of Trent and Its Effect on Music . In: The Musical Quarterly . 30, 1944, pp. 319-328.

Editions

grades

Books

  • Ludwig Bussler , Practical Harmony (1875), expanded Berlin 1903
  • L. Bussler, The strict sentence in musical composition theory (1877), 2nd expanded edition, rev. u. with explanatory notes, Berlin 1905
  • L. Bussler, Musical Forms (1878), expanded Berlin 1909
  • August Wilhelm Ambros , History of Music , Volume 4 (1878, posthumously), Leipzig 1909
  • L. Bussler, Counterpoint and Fugue in Free (Modern) Composition (1878), expanded Berlin 1912
  • Ludwig van Beethoven , letters , Leipzig 1912
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , letters , Leipzig 1912
  • Johann Christian Lobe , Catechism of Music (1851), Leipzig 1913

literature

personal data
SURNAME Take it easy, Hugo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musicologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Pleschen near Poznan
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 1951
Place of death Cambridge , Massachusetts