Kathi Meyer-Baer

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Kathi Meyer-Baer (born Katharina Gertrud Meyer ; born July 27, 1892 in Berlin ; † January 3, 1977 in Atlanta ) was a German-American music historian and music librarian. She was one of the first women to receive a doctorate in musicology and is still considered an eminent musicologist today. During her years in Frankfurt (1922–1938) she was in charge of Paul Hirsch's valuable music library as a librarian and research assistant, and she was the curator of the exhibition “Music in the Lives of Nations”.

Live and act

Kathi (Katharina Gertrud) Meyer was born as the daughter of the banker Martin Meyer and his wife Gertrud Meyer (née Salinger), grew up in an education-oriented house and received piano lessons. After graduating from high school in Charlottenburg, she studied musicology with Johannes Wolf and Hermann Kretzschmar at Berlin University and sound psychology with Carl Stumpf . She received her doctorate in Leipzig from Hugo Riemann with a thesis on the choral singing of women that Kretzschmar had previously rejected. After working in women's education in Munich and publications in musicological journals on music-aesthetic topics, she decided - as a woman and Jew with no chance of getting a job in the academic establishment of the Weimar Republic - to move to Frankfurt am Main in 1922 to take on the duties of a music librarian and research assistant in Paul Hirsch's private music library, famous for its extensive and valuable holdings. At the end of the 1920s, she was also able to catch up on specialist training as a music librarian, which she completed at the Prussian State Library in Berlin and the Frankfurt City Library. In the music library of Paul Hirsch (bibliophile) she was also responsible for the publication of the library catalog. It finally appeared in Berlin, Frankfurt and Cambridge between 1928 and 1947 and has served musicians and scholars to this day as an important music bibliographical reference work. Kathi Meyer also pursued extensive journalistic activities during her years in Frankfurt. a. for the Frankfurter Zeitung , and published the results of his own research in various specialist journals. In 1927 she was the chief curator and editor of the catalog for the exhibition “Music in the Lives of Nations” in Frankfurt am Main. In addition to cultural-historical aspects, the exhibition also included socio-historical, psychological, ethnological and technical aspects of music and was dubbed a “world musical exhibition”. Musicology was presented here by Kathi Meyers as a modernizing discipline.

Paul Hirsch was able to keep the library running until the end of 1935 and transfer his collection to England in 1936, from where he corresponded with Kathi Meyer for years about their joint work on the publication of the library catalog. In 1934 Kathi Meyer married the Frankfurt businessman Kurt Baer. She gave birth to their son during a visit to England in January 1936 to obtain British citizenship. The Meyer-Baer family went into exile in the spring of 1938, first to Paris, where Kathi Meyer-Baer continued her scientific publication work, then in the spring of 1940 she finally managed to flee to the USA. There, too, Kathi Meyer-Baer did not succeed in obtaining a long-term position at a research institution or library that was appropriate to her qualifications. She worked as a freelance musicologist until her death. Various grants made it possible for her to do research trips to Europe and to publish scientific papers in magazines and in book form.

Her practical library and journalistic work was aimed at cataloging and reflecting on the abundance of tradition in European music history, to preserve and interpret it. Her main focus was on the early period of the Middle Ages and the time when sheet music was printed, and she was particularly concerned with the descriptive recording of incunabula. Another focus of her music journalistic production was the discussion of music aesthetic issues, whereby she sought access from the phenomenological side and dealt critically with questions of style. Their views and the results of their research have yet to be processed by the historiography of German musicology.

Publications

Until her marriage in 1934, the musicologist published under the name Kathi Meyer.

Books

• The choral singing of women with special reference to his activities in the spiritual field up to around 1800. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1917.
• The concert. A guide through the history of music making in pictures and melodies. Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1925.
• Meaning and essence of music. The change in the meaning of music (= collection of musicological treatises 5). Heitz, Strasbourg 1932 (Reprint: Valentin Koerner, Baden-Baden 1975).
• Liturgic Music Incunabula. A descriptive catalog. The Bibliographical Society, London 1962.
• Music of the Spheres and the Dance of the Death. Studies in Musical Iconology. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1970.

As editor

• Hercole Bottrigari: Il Desiderio overo de'concerti di varii strumenti musicali (= publications of the Paul Hirsch Music Library. Series 1, edited by Johannes Wolf and Paul Hirsch, Vol. 5), Martin Breslauer, Berlin 1924.
• Catalog of the international exhibition “Music in the Lives of Nations”. Frankfurt am Main June 11th - August 28th 1927. Werner & Winter, Frankfurt am Main 1927.
• Catalog of the Paul Hirsch Music Library (= publications of the Paul Hirsch Music Library. Series 2), Frankfurt am Main (together with Paul Hirsch).
• Vol. 1: Theoretical prints up to 1800. Martin Breslauer, Berlin 1928.
• Vol. 2: Opera scores. Martin Breslauer, Berlin 1930.
• Vol. 3: Instrumental and vocal music until around 1830. Private print, Frankfurt am Main 1936.
• Vol. 4: First editions, choral works in full score, complete editions, reference works, etc., additions to vol. 1–3. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1947.

Articles in scientific journals and edited volumes

• A contribution to the picture by Francesco Guardi in the older Pinakothek, in: Kunstchronik 43, 1917, pp. 516-519.
• The Amptbuch of Johannes Meyer. A contribution to the history of the music business in the monasteries of the Middle Ages, in: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 1, 1918/1919, pp. 166–178.
• A historical song from the women's monastery in St. Gallen, in: Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft 1, 1918/1919, pp. 269–277.
• Kant's position on music aesthetics, in: Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft 3, 1920/1921, pp. 470–482.
• The office and its relationship to the oratorio, in: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 3, 1921, pp. 371–404.
• The influence of the chanting regulations on the choirs and galleries in the monastery churches, in: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 4, 1921/1922, pp. 155–168.
• On the problem of style in music, in: Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft V, 1923, pp. 316–332.
• A musician of the Göttingen Hainbund. Joseph Martin Kraus, in: Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft 9, 1926/1927, pp. 468–486.
• About music bibliography, in: Musicological contributions. Festschrift for Johannes Wolf on his 60th birthday, Walter Lott, Helmuth Osthoff, Werner Wolffheim (eds.), Berlin: Martin Breslauer, 1929 (reprint 1978).
• Goethe and Music, exhibition catalog, Frankfurt 1932
• Un ballet à Cassel au XVIIe siècle, in: La revue musicale 16, 1935, pp. 195–198.
• The Printing of Music 1473-1934, in: The Dolphin 2, 1935, pp. 171-207 (with Eva Judd O'Meara).
• What are musical first editions ?, in: Philobiblon 8, 1935, pp. 181-184.
• The printed music in the liturgical incunabula by Wenssler and Kilchen, in: Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 1935, pp. 117–126.
• The Liturgical Music Incunabula in the British Museum. Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, in: The Library. Transactions of the Bibliographical Society (4th Series) 20, 1939, pp. 272-294.
• The illustrations in the music books of the 16th - 17th centuries, in: Philobiblon 12, 1940, pp. 205–212.
• Artaria Plate Numbers, in: Notes, Ser. 1, No. 15, 1942, pp. 1–22 (together with Inger M. Christensen).
• Early Breitkopf & Härtel Thematic Catalogs of Manuscript Music, in: Musical Quarterly 30, 1944, pp. 163-173.
• Michel de Toulouze. The First Printer of Measured Music ?, in: Music Review 7, 1946, pp. 178-182.
• Nicholas of Cusa on the Meaning of Music, in: Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 5, 1947, pp. 301-308.
• Musical Iconology in Raphael's Parnassus, in: Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 8, 1949, pp. 87-96.
• The Eight Gregorian Modes on the Cluny Capitals, in: Art Bulletin 34, 1952, pp. 75-94.
• Psychologic and Ontologic Ideas in Augustine's De Musica, in: Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 11, 1953, pp. 224-230.
• St. Job as a Patron of Music, in: Art Bulletin 36, 1954, pp. 21-31.
• Saints of Music, in: Musica Disciplina 9, 1955, pp. 11-33.
• Some Remarks on the Problems of the Basse-dance, in: Tijdschrift der Vereeniging voor Noord-Nederlands Muziekgeschiedenis 17, 1955, pp. 251-277.
• Music in Dante's Divina Commedia, in: Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music. A Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, Jan LaRue (ed.), New York: WW Norton, 1966, pp. 614-627.
• From the Office of the Hours to the Musical Oratorio, in: Music Review 32, 1971, pp. 156-171.

Unpublished

• Index of texts on cantatas by Georg Philipp Telemann. Manuscript, Frankfurt am Main: University Library, approx. 1930 (call number HB 20: G 920).

literature

• Pamela M. Potter: The situation of Jewish musicologists at the universities of the Weimar period. In: Horst Weber (Ed.): Music in Emigration 1933-1945. Persecution, displacement, retroactive effect. Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 1993, pp. 56-68.
• Jutta Raab Hansen: Nazi persecuted musicians in England. Traces of German and Austrian refugees in British music culture (= music in the “Third Reich” and in exile. Vol. 1). Hanns-Werner Heister, Peter Petersen (eds.), Phil. Dissertation University of Hamburg 1995, von Bockel, Hamburg 1996.
• Alec Hyatt King: Meyer-Baer [neé Meyer], Kathi. In: Stanley Sadie, John Tyrrell, George Grove (Eds.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 16, 2nd exp. and verb. Ed., Macmillan, Grove, London, New York 2001, pp. 565-566.
• David Josephson: "Why then all the difficulties!". A life of Kathi Meyer-Baer. In: Notes. Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association. Vol. 65, 2, 2008, pp. 227-267.
• Kathrin Massar: The Paul Hirsch Music Library. On the history of a Frankfurt book collection. In: Music in Frankfurt am Main. 71, Evelyn Brockhoff (ed.) (= Archive for Frankfurt's history and art. 71). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 2008, pp. 125-136.
• Hansjakob Ziemer: "Music in the life of peoples". Music and society in Frankfurt am Main around 1927. In: Music in Frankfurt am Main. Evelyn Brockhoff (ed.) (= Archive for Frankfurt's history and art. 71). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 2008, pp. 111–124.
• David Josephson: Torn Between Cultures: A Life of Kathi Meyer-Baer Pendragon Press 2012.
• Anna Langenbruch: Topographies of Musical Action in Exile in Paris. A histoire croisée of the exile of German-speaking musicians in Paris 1933–1939 (= musicological publications. 41). Olms, Hildesheim 2014.
• Meyer-Baer, ​​Kathi , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.2. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , pp. 813f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Biographical and bibliographical data taken from: Kathrin Massar: Kathi Meyer-Baer In: Lexicon of persecuted musicians from the Nazi era. (LexM) of the Institute for Historical Musicology at the University of Hamburg. Retrieved November 20, 2018.