Marius Schneider

Private photo of Schneider

Marius Karl Alfons Schneider (born July 1, 1903 in Hagenau , † July 10, 1982 in Munich ) was a German ethnomusicologist .

Life

family

Marius Schneider was born as the second child of the Hagenau hotelier Alfons Johann Schneider and his wife Maria Josefine Theresia Geiger. He himself had two children from his first marriage, Nikolaus (1932–1995) and Maria Veronika (* 1937). From 1956 until his death, Schneider was married to Birgit (born Siller, * 1922), who became an important collaborator for him as a musician.

education

Schneider studied German philology, piano and composition in Strasbourg and passed his first piano exam there in 1924. From 1924 he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris and at the music history seminar of the Sorbonne with André Pirro . Other teachers were Achille Philip , Alfred Cortot , Eugène Cools and Maurice Ravel (private). In 1927 he went to the University of Berlin to study musicology, where he received his doctorate in 1930 under Johannes Wolf on "The Ars Nova of the 14th Century in France and Italy".

The 1930s and 1940s

After completing his doctorate, Schneider worked as an assistant to Curt Sachs and Erich Moritz von Hornbostel , the co-founder and long-time director of the Berlin Phonogram Archive . In 1932 von Hornbostel Schneider transferred the deputy management of the phonogram archive. In 1933 Schneider took over the sole management of the archive, as von Hornbostel had been relieved of his office as a half-Jew and had to emigrate to Switzerland.

In 1934 Marius Schneider published two volumes of a work on the history of polyphony . Increasingly, there were conflicts with people from the National Socialist Music Staff . A habilitation Schneiders at Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelm University on the subject of history of polyphony was to appeal from the staff of Rosenberg and the National Socialist German Dozentenbund defeated 1937th In a letter to the dean of the Philosophical Faculty, which can be found in the habilitation file in the university archive, it says, among other things:

"In agreement with the representative of the National Socialist Lecturer Association, I must complete the Dr. Marianus Schneider completely reject it. Just as his national reliability is being called into question, he is still one of the outspoken opponents of National Socialism today. ... Neither character nor scientifically a favorable influence on the students from his side is to be expected, since scientifically a national German question is completely far from him ”.

Schneider then operated his call-up. His military service, which he spent with Admiral Wilhelm Canaris in the Abwehr , he was able to use for experiments on musical assimilation processes, among others in Tunisia. When Schneider returned to Berlin after the end of the Africa campaign in 1943 and was under discussion as a curator at the Institute for Music Research, two further reports were drawn up about him. It says, among other things:

“ ... that Schneider's academic qualifications are not denied, but, as far as we can see up to now, he is regarded as an alien intellectual who has no contact with the National Socialist worldview. According to the documents we already have, he is definitely out of the question as a youth educator and for a university career. ... At least it should also be informative for you to hear that Schneider dated his works in 1934 as follows: Berlin, Maria Lichtmeß 1934 and the second: Berlin, on the Feast of All Saints 1934. His thought, which is reflected in the work 'Geschichte der Polyphony 'is to explain the early days of European music by comparing it with the music of primitive peoples now recorded in phonograms. After all, there is something questionable about this idea because the racial point of view was disregarded from the outset . "

“ His appointment as custodian at the Staatl. Inst. F. I cannot support German music research in Berlin. Schneider's academic work extends to subjects of comparative musicology and research into the beginnings of polyphony. The results of his scientific work are controversial. We too made the observation that he had no point of contact with the National Socialist worldview. He is said to be a devout Catholic, and as I was assured by eyewitnesses, his apartment is full of holy images ”.

This meant that there was no longer any prospect for Marius Schneider of further academic activity in Germany. At the beginning of 1944 he took the opportunity to go to Barcelona and to set up the "sección folklore" at the Instituto Español de Musicología there. In 1947 he received a teaching position at the local university, which he held until 1955.

Further scientific career

Marius Schneider returned to Germany in the mid-1950s. In 1955 the University of Cologne accepted his habilitation. From the same year until his retirement in 1968 he was professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Cologne. His students included Robert Günther (later also a professor at the University of Cologne), Josef Kuckertz (later professor at the Georg-August University of Göttingen and the Free University of Berlin and editor of the yearbook for musical folklore and ethnology ) and Ivar Schmutz- Schwaller, who later devoted himself to researching ancient Syrian music and whose legacy is being indexed and published in the Marquartstein Institute . After his retirement, Schneider taught as a visiting professor in Amsterdam until 1970. He spent the last years of his life in Marquartstein .

Focus of scientific work

The ethnomusicological work of Marius Schneider was characterized by a synthesis of historical and comparative musicology. This is already laid out in his early works. He was probably influenced by Wolf, Hornbostel, Robert Lachmann and Sachs. The approaches of a cultural-historical ethnology and in particular the culture circle theory (among others after Bernhard Ankermann , Fritz Graebner and Father Wilhelm Schmidt ) were of great importance to him.

For the geographical and developmental classification of various forms of polyphony , Schneider in his work “History of Polyphony” from 1934 still started from the tonality circles based on a fifth layer . From 1946, however, it was increasingly myths and symbolisms in written and oral traditions that shaped Schneider's method in explaining musical phenomena. Already in El origen musical de los animales-simbolos en la mitologia y la escultura antiguas of 1946 he gave them an outstanding meaning, and from them he finally reconstructed a whole picture of the primeval world on a musical basis. Schneider proceeded from the assumption that musical symbols and cultural elements were disseminated in the course of migrations during the time of the megalithic culture and were then preserved and passed on in their successor cultures .

A decisive significance for Schneider's theories, which he had expounded in the Origen , was his deciphering of hymns, which were hidden in the animal symbols in the cloisters of the Romanesque monasteries of San Cugat and Girona in Catalonia , using these theories . These findings were published in 1955 in "Singing Stones".

After his retirement, Marius Schneider devoted a large part of his time and creativity to work on a comprehensive cosmogony , a more than 1,500-page work that he considered to be his main work. However, he could no longer finalize it and it has not yet been published. With the help of Dr. Eckart Wilkens, a pupil of Schneider, the manuscript of the cosmogony was digitized and is now available to the public in the library of the musicological institute of the University of Cologne. A 50-page summary introduction by Marius Schneider to his cosmogony was published posthumously with a foreword by Josef Kuckertz.

Schneider's cosmogony is characterized by Hans-Georg Nicklas as follows:

“ Schneider's special achievement, besides the impressive collection of sources, is his structuralist approach. Little emphasized by Schneider himself and hardly noticed by his reception, his strictly structuralist basic idea of ​​a genuine phase of the sonic in the creation myths is a highly unorthodox idea in musicology and ethnology. ... His ten phases of creation, which he lays like a foil over the cosmic representation of the astrolabe, contain parallels to the seasons, the various solstices, the signs of the zodiac, the times of day, and thus to phases of sleep and wakefulness and finally to a series of partial tones whose vibration relationships (1 : 2: 3: 4 etc.) should correspond to the ten phases. … Schneider knows how to make these seemingly bold analogies plausible through a myriad of mythological sources that are quasi mutually confirming and supporting. "

reception

The influence of the works of Marius Schneider was not limited to the German-speaking area. Translated into many languages, the Singing Stones in particular are the starting point for a far-reaching discussion of the work of Marius Schneider. Schneider's method was also used by other scholars on Romanesque cloisters.

In 1950, Jaap Kunst referred to Schneider's article The musical relationships between primitive cultures, old planters and pastoral peoples of 1939 as part of the musicological culture group theory . The classification into races based on melodic structures, rhythms and performance styles is generally rejected today.

In the Anglo-Saxon area, the composer and musicologist Jocelyn Godwin contributed to the dissemination of Schneider's ideas, in Italy it was the philosopher and religious historian Elémire Zolla .

In Spain, where Schneider himself had worked for a number of years, the essayist and art critic Juan-Eduardo Cirlot dedicated his “Diccionario de Símbolos” from 1958 to him. Cirlot also wrote several poems, e. B. La Dama de Vallcarca from 1957 and Bronwyn from 1971, based on Schneider's Urweltbild. Via Juan-Eduardo Cirlot, Schneider's ideas found their way into art history, literary studies (e.g. with Victoria Cirlot) and symbol research (e.g. with Jaime D. Parra) in Spain and in some cases continue to have an impact today.

Publications (selection)

A systematic directory of Schneider’s scientific publications was drawn up by Norbert Weiss in 1968 on the occasion of Schneider’s 65th birthday. It lists 248 titles 14 years before Schneider's death. A year later, Robert Günther lists 176 titles by Marius Schneider in an article in the ethnomusicology journal Ethnomusicology . But even after his retirement, Marius Schneider continued to publish the third part of his history of polyphony in 1969, and a year before his death a contribution on Gregorian chant.

• The ars nova of the 14th century , inaugural dissertation , Potsdam 1930
• Ars nova in France and Italy. Wolfenbüttel 1931.
• History of polyphony . Historical and phenomenological studies. Berlin
  • 1st part: The primitive peoples. 1934.
  • Part 2: The Beginnings in Europe. 1935.
• A proposito del influjo arabe. Ensayo de etnografia musical de la España medieval. Anuario Musical. Vol. 1. 1946, pp. 31-139.
• The original musical de los animales-simbolos en la mitologia y la escultura antiguas. Ensayo historico-etnografico sobre la subestructura totemistica y megalitica de las altas culturas y su supervivencia en el folklore espanol , Barcelona, ​​1946, (New edition: Madrid 1998, it.Gli Animali simbolici e la loro origine musicale nella mitologia e nella scultura antiche. Trans . dallo spagnolo, Milano 1986)
• La danza de espadas y la tarantela. Barcelona 1948.
• Los Cantos de Lluvia. Annuario musicál IV, 1949.
• García Matos, Manuel - Cancionero popular de la provincia de Madrid. Edición critica por Marius Schneider y José Romeu Figueras. Barcelona / Madrid, Instituto Español de Musicología, 1951.
• The historical foundations of musical symbolism. In: Die Musikforschung 4. 1951, pp. 113–44.
• Singing stones. Rhythm studies on 3 Catalan Romanesque cloisters. Bärenreiter, Kassel / Basel 1955 (revised new edition 1978, French Le chant des pierres, Milano, 1976; Italian Pietre che cantano: Studi sul Ritmo di tre chiostri catalani di stile romanic, Milano 1976)
• Primitive Music. In: E. Wellesz (Ed.): New Oxford Hist. of Music. 1: Ancient and Oriental Music. 1957, pp. 1-82.
• L'esprit de la musique et l'origine du symbols. Diogène, Gallimard , Paris, 1959 numéro 27.
• The basics of the musical harmony of the spheres. ( Acta Musicologica . 32) 1960.
• Le rôle de la musique dans la mythologie et les rites des civilizations non européennes. In: Histoire de la musique. I / 1: Encyclopédie de la Pléiade. Paris 1960, pp. 131-214.
• Lamentations of the people in the art music of the Italian Ars nova. (Acta Musicologica 33). 1961.
• The nature of the song of praise. In: Basilienses De Musica Orationes, ed. v. L. Schrade , H. 2, 1964, pp. 5-21.
• Le rythme de la musique artistique espagnole du XVIe siècle vu à travers la chanson popular. Budapest 1965.
• Consideraciones acerca del canto gregoriano y la voz humana. Arbor nº 48, Buenos Aires, enero y febrero 1965.
• An anamitic lullaby. A contribution to the relationship between music and language. Kassel 1966.
• History of polyphony. Historical and phenomenological studies. Part III, Tutzing 1969.
• About the growth of the rhythm in music as form and experience. Festschrift for Walter Graf, Vienna 1970.
• Il Significato della Musica, Simboli, Forme, Valori Del Linguaggio Musicale. ed. v. E. Zolla, 1970.
• Nature and origin of the symbol. Journal for Holistic Research , Vienna 1971.
• Non-European folklore and art music - with 321 sheet music samples from Africa, Asia, Melanesia and the South Seas, Australia, North America, South America. in: Das Musikwerk, edited by Karl Gustav Fellerer , Volume 44, Arno Volk-Verlag, Cologne 1972.
• La danza delle spade e la tarentella, saggio musicologico, etnografico e archeologico sui riti di medicina. Milano 1972.
• The basics of the cult language in the cosmogonies. 12th Salzburg Religious Discussions, Ed. Th. Michel, Salzburg 1973.
• The genre in the music of primitive peoples. in: Memorial for L. Schrade, 1973.
• La coppia simbólica «musica e pietra». Conoscenza religiosa, 1973.
• Sound symbolism in foreign cultures. In: Contributions to basic harmonic research, Issue 11, Lafite, Vienna 1979.
• The praise offering - sacrificum laudis . From Gregorian chant and the symbolism of musical instruments. In: Bruno Moser (Ed.): The Christian Universe . Illustrated history of Christianity, Munich 1981, p. 14ff.
• Cosmogony. In: Yearbook for musical folk and ethnology, Volume 14, 1989, pp. 9–51.
• La musica primitiva. Milano 1992.
• Musique et langage sacrés dans la tradition védique. Cahiers de Musiques Traditionnelles n ° 5 - Musiques Rituelles, 1992.
• Cosmic Music: Musical Keys to the Interpretation of Reality. Joscelyn Godwin (Editor), Rudolf Haase, Hans Erhard Lauer, Marius Schneider, Inner Traditions International, 1992.

literature

• Thomas Phleps : A quiet, dogged and tenacious struggle for continuity - musicology in Nazi Germany and coping with past politics. In: Isolde v. Foerster et al. (Ed.), Music Research - National Socialism - Fascism. Mainz 2001, pp. 471-488. online Uni Giessen
• Jocelyn Godwin: The Revival of Speculative Music. In: Musical Quarterly. LXVIII (3), 1982, pp. 373-89. (on-line)
• Josef Kuckertz : In memoriam Marius Schneider . In: Josef Kuckertz (Hrsg.): Yearbook for musical folk and ethnology . tape 12 . Breitkopf & Härtle, Wiesbaden 1985, ISBN 3-7651-0214-6  ( formally incorrect ) , p. 9-11 .
• Jocelyn Godwin: Cosmic Music, Musical Keys to the Interpretation of Reality. Essays by MS, Rudolf Haase, Hans Erhard Lauer, Rochester 1989 (online)
• Albrecht Schneider: Musikwiss. in exile. In: H.-W. Heister, C. Maurer-Zenck, P. Petersen (Ed.): Musikwiss. in d. Emigration. 1993, pp. 187-211.
• Victoria Cirlot : Notas sobre MS y JE Cirlot. In: Rosa Cúbica. 10, Primavera 1993, pp. 93-99.
• Hans-Georg Nicklaus: The “cosmogony” of Marius Schneider, science, philosophy, myth? In: Peter Neubäcker (Ed.): Harmonik u. Glass bead game. 1995, pp. 191-213. (online) (PDF file; 383 kB)
• Jaime D. Parra: Cirlot y Schneider, la ciencia de los símbolos. In: Anuari De Filología XXI. Secció G, número 9, 1998/99, pp. 79-90.
• Bernhard Bleibinger: Foundations and Effects of the Symbolist Approaches by Marius Schneider. Colloquium of the working group "Ethnic Music" of the Society for Music Research, Göttingen, July 3-4, 1999.
• Bernhard Bleibinger: A choir book in the monastery archive at Laufen an der Salzach. In: Music in Bavaria. 59, 2000, pp. 57-92.
• Elémire Zolla: El simbolismo musical de Marius Schneider. In: JD Parra (ed.): La Simbología, Grandes Figuras De La Ciencia De Los Símbolos. Montesinos / Biblioteca de Divulgación Temática 71, Enero 2001, pp. 177-88 (P)
• Bernhard Bleibinger: On the 100th birthday of Marius Schneider: European and non-European issues in Marius Schneider's research on the Middle Ages. International Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference in Jena, 2003.
• Bernhard Bleibinger: Marius Schneider and the Simbolismo, Ensayo musicológico y etnológico sobre un buscador de símbolos . (also Phil. Diss. Univ. Munich 2003). Alteritas, Münchner Ethnologische Impressionen, Vol. 2, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-9809131-8-X .
• Bernhard Bleibinger: Etnología simbólica, MS In: A. Otiz-Osés, P. Lanceros: Claves de Hermenéutica. 2005, pp. 134-42; New Grove2; MGG2.
• Bernhard Bleibinger:  Schneider, Marius Karl Alfons. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 302 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Giangiuseppe Bonardi: Marius Schneider e la Musicoterapia. Assisi 2008 (online) ( Memento from January 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
• Giangiuseppe Bonardi: Suoni e significati nel pensiero di Marius Schneider. Assisi 2009 (online) ( Memento from December 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
• Antonello Colimberti: Anima mundi. Ritratto di Marius Schneider. 14/10/2009 (online)
• Schneider, Marius , in: Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Eds.), International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.2. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , pp. 1043f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Marius Schneider in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Bleibinger 2007, p. 302.
2. ↑ Kuckertz 1985, p. 9.
3. ↑ Inc. Laudt: Letter of September 7, 1936 to the dean of the philosopher. Faculty; archived in: Humboldt University of Berlin , archive, Phil. Fac. 1366, p. 17.132
4. ↑ Report to the party chancellery Munich 33. (Reprinted to the main science office of the Reichsleiter Rosenberg's offices), December 11, 1943; archived in: Institute for Contemporary History , Munich, Archive, MA 116/15
5. ↑ Herbert Gerigk: Report to the main science office in the house. January 4, 1944; archived in: Institute for Contemporary History , Munich, Archive, MA 116/15
6. ↑ ^{a b} Kuckertz 1985, p. 10.
7. ↑ [1]
8. ^ Marius Schneider: Cosmogony . In: Josef Kuckertz (Hrsg.): Yearbook for musical folk and ethnology . tape 14 . Bärenreiter-Verlag Karl Vötterle, Kassel 1989, ISBN 3-7618-0970-0 , p. 9-51 .
9. ↑ Hans-Georg Nicklaus: The machine of the sky . On the cosmology and aesthetics of sound. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7705-2899-9 , p. 55 f . ( web ).
10. ↑ ^{a b} Hans-Georg Nicklaus: The machine of the sky . On the cosmology and aesthetics of sound. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7705-2899-9 , p. 57 ( web ).
11. ↑ z. B. Rainer Straub: The singing stones from Moissac . Deciphering the mysterious programs in one of the most beautiful cloisters in Europe. 1st edition. Verlag Anton Pustet, Salzburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7025-0611-7 (photographer: Bernd Pommer).
12. ^ Marius Schneider: The musical relationships between primitive cultures, old planters and pastoral peoples. Journal for Ethnology, Volume 70, 1939, pp. 287-306.
13. ^ Walter Zimmermann : Key without ethos. The music researcher Marius Schneider. (PDF file; 263 kB)
14. ↑ Bernhard lead Binger: From megalithic head hunters, medieval Kriegem, Charlton Heston and film analysis . Influences of a prehistoric music ethnology in the work of Juan-Eduardo Cirlot. In: Anuario Musical. No 60, 2005, pp. 253-272 ( web )
15. ↑ Bleibinger 2007, p. 303.
16. ^ Norbert Weiss: Systematic directory of the scientific work of Marius Schneider. In: Mitt. D. German Ges. Fd Musik d. Orient. 7, 1968, pp. 11-20.
17. ^ Robert Günther: Special Bibliography. In: Ethnomusicology. Volume XIII, No. 3, September 1969, pp. 518-526.