Ursula Günther

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Ursula Günther , née Röse (born June 15, 1927 in Hamburg ; † November 21, 2006 there ) was a German musicologist .

Life

After studying piano with Detlef Kraus and HE Riebensahm and studying music theory with H. Stahmer, she completed her studies as a music teacher in Hamburg in 1947. Since 1947, officially since 1948, she studied musicology with Heinrich Husmann at the University of Hamburg with many minor subjects such as art history, German and Romance literature, philosophy and finally psychology and phonetics. In 1957 Husmann received her doctorate in Hamburg, also supported by Heinrich Besseler , who also wrote the co-lecture, with a thesis on the change in style of the French song in the second half of the 14th century, which was based on the estate of Friedrich Ludwig. After a long period of research, during which she was supported morally by Gilbert Reaney and Armen Carapetyan and financially by her husband and only once in 1962 by the German Research Foundation, she accepted a position as a teacher in Ahrensburg in 1968 because she wanted to complete her habilitation which had been rejected by some German professors. Encouraged by her French colleagues and Oliver Strunk , she joined the Center National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris in 1969 as Attaché de recherche, finally (until 1975) as Chargé de recherche with Jacques Chailley , supported by Nanie Bridgeman , where she also worked from 1969 until 1971 taught as a lecturer at the Sorbonne to prepare her “Doctorat d'état” on Verdi's French years. After completing her habilitation in 1972 in Göttingen with an edition of motets from the 14th century (published in 1965 by A. Carapetayan in CMM 39), she only taught one semester as a private lecturer in Göttingen to do her work as a “charge de recherche” in Paris to resume. In the summer of 1973 she was visiting professor at New York University and was invited to give lectures by numerous American universities: Princeton, Harvard, Brandeis, Philadelphia, Maryland, Bloomington, UC Davis and Los Angeles. Then she was hired as “Chargé de cours” at the Free University of Brussels to teach “Histoire de la notation musicale et transcription”. In 1973 she turned down an offer from Brandeis University and took a position as a lecturer at the University of Göttingen in 1975, was appointed professor in 1977 and finally gave up her post at the CNRS while continuing to teach in Brussels. The new university law of the state of Lower Saxony made it possible for her to be director of the musicological seminar in Göttingen for some time. In 1977 she held summer courses on Verdi research at Northwestern University at Evenston IL. In 1992 she retired and has since lived in Ahrensburg near Hamburg and in Cyprus.

Honors

In 1982 she was honored by France as “Chevalier des Palmes académiques” and since 1992 she has been honorary professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles . In 1994 she was elected a Corresponding Member of the American Musicological Society. Since 1976 she has served on the editorial board of the new critical edition of Verdi's operas and on the board of directors of the American Verdi Institute, since 1982 she has been co-editor of the Journal of Musicology and since 1989 of Musica Disciplina. Since 1994 she has been General Editor of the Musicological Studies and Documents. She has published numerous articles on composers, sources, datable compositions, the notation and style of the period which she called “Ars subtilior”, as well as Verdi's operas. Her piano reduction by Don Carlos, only published in 1980, has been used by Claudio Abbado and other conductors since 1974 .

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She became known as the namesake of the music-historical epoch of the Ars subtilior , which dates back to the late 14th century. With this term, which was not created during the period itself, she avoided the term “mannered style”, which was common until the 1960s, for this late period of Ars nova with its negative connotations and focused on the subtle, especially rhythmic, very fine procedures of these Time attentive. Ursula Günther saw that the influence of the Ars subtilior must have been Europe-wide, as the composers of the following epoch built on the innovations of the Ars subtilior in the tonal and rhythmic areas. She translated the manuscripts for this music into modern notation for the first time and published the most important source, the Codex Chantilly . She dealt several times with the change of style from Ars nova to Ars subtilior.

Another field of research was the work of Giuseppe Verdi: She published his opera Don Carlos in one edition with the five-act French original version and also with the four-act Italian version. To do this, she provided the publication of the sketches.

Publications

To the 14th century

  • The musical style change of the French art of song in the second half of the 14th century: depicted in Virelais, ballads and rondeaux by Machaut as well as datable cantilas by his contemporaries and direct successors. Dissertation. Hamburg 1957.
  • (Ed.): Ten datable compositions of the Ars nova. Musicological Institute of the University of Hamburg, Hamburg 1959 ( series of publications by the Musicological Institute of the University of Hamburg. Issue 2).
  • The end of the Ars Nova. In: Mf. 16, 1963, pp. 105-120.
  • On the biography of some composers of the Ars Subtilior. In: Archives for Musicology . XXI, 1964, pp. 172-199.
  • (Ed.): The Motets of the Manuscripts Chantilly, Musée Condé, 564 (olim 1047) and Modena, Biblioteca Estense , α M. 5,24 (olim lat. 568). American Institute of Musicology, 1965 ( Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae. 39).
  • with Ludwig Finscher (Ed.): Aspects of music in church, court, and town from the 13th to the 15th century. MD XXXVIII, 1984 (contains the article Unusual Phenomena in the Transmission of Late 14th Century Polyphonic Music. Pp. 87-118).
  • with Ludwig Finscher (Ed.): 1380–1420: An international style? MD XLI, 1987 (contains the essay Magister Dominus Paulus Abbas de Florentia , written with J. Nádas and JA Stinson : New Documentary Evidence. Pp. 203–246).
  • with Ludwig Finscher (Ed.): Music and text in the polyphony of the 14th and 15th centuries. Lectures of the guest symposium in the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel, 8. – 12. Sept. 1980 Bärenreiter, Kassel a. a. 1984, ISBN 3-7618-0744-9 ( Göttingen musicological works. 10).
  • The ars subtilior. In: Hamburger Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft. 11, 1991, pp. 277-288.
  • with Ludwig Finscher (Ed.): The Cypriot-French Repertory of the Manuscript Torino J.II.9. Report of the International Musicological Congress, Paphos 20. – 25. March 1992. American Institute of Musicology, ISBN 3-7751-2501-9 .
  • with Ludwig Finscher, Jeffrey J. Dean: Modality in the Music of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: Modality in the music of the 14th and 15th centuries. American Institute of Musicology, Hänssler, 1996, ISBN 3-7751-2423-3 , ( Musicological studies and documents. 49).
  • Polymetric Rondeaux from Machaut to Dufay: Some Style-Analytical Observations. In: Studies in Musical Sources and Style. Fs. La Rue, Madison 1990, pp. 75-108.
  • Notes on the Motet of the Early and Middle Trecento. In: The Motet. Mainz, 1992, pp. 29-39.
  • La fine dell'Ars nova. In: Il canto delle pietre 1992. Como 1992, pp. 71-87.
  • Composers at the Court of the Antipopes in Avignon: Research in the Vatican Archives. In: B. Haggh et al. (Ed.): Musicology and Archival Research (= Archives et Bibliothèques de Belgique. 46). Brussels 1994, pp. 328-337.

To Giuseppe Verdi

  • La genèse de Don Carlos, opéra en cinq actes de Giuseppe Verdi, représenté pour la première fois à Paris on 11 mars 1867. In: RdM. LVIII, 1972, pp. 16-64 and LX, 1974, pp. 87-158.
  • Documents inconnus concernant les relations de Verdi avec l'Opéra de Paris. In: Il Teatro e la musica di Giuseppe Verdi. Parma 1974, pp. 564-583.
  • Difficulty with an opera. On the different versions of Don Carlos. In: Yearbook of the Hamburg State Opera. 6, 1977/1978, pp. 136-152.
  • L'edizione integrale del Don Carlos di Giuseppe Verdi: The complete edition of Don Carlos by Giuseppe Verdi. Ricordi, Milan 1977.
    The complete edition of Don Carlos di Giuseppe Verdi. 1978.
  • On the revision of Don Carlos. Postscript to Part II. In: An Mc. XIX, 1979, pp. 373-377.
  • Giuseppe Verdi: Don Carlos, Edizione integrale delle varie versioni in cinque e in quattro atti. Revision based on sources by Usula Günther and Luciano Petazzoni. Ricordi, Milan 1980.
  • La genèse du Don Carlos de Verdi: Nouveaux documents. In: RdM. LXXII, 1986, pp. 104-117.
  • Le Don Carlos de 1883. œuvre française également. In: Verdi. Don Carlos (= L'Avant Scène Opéra. 90/91). Paris 1986, pp. 36-43.
    German: The Don Carlos from 1883. Also a French work. In: Verdi. Don Carlos (= The Opera Guide. 1/2). Taufkirchen 1988, pp. 28-39.
  • Don Carlos: Edizione Integrale - Critical edition. In: Nuove prospettive nella ricerca verdiana. Atti del convegno internazionale in occasione della prima del "Rigoletto" in edizione critica. Vienna 1983, Milan 1987, pp. 29-48.
  • Rigoletto in Paris. In: L'opera tra Venezia e Parigi. Florence 1988, pp. 269-314.

To Friedrich Ludwig

  • Friedrich Ludwig in Göttingen. In: Musicology and music care at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Göttingen 1987, pp. 152-175.

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personal data
SURNAME Günther, Ursula
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Steed, Ursula (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musicologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 2006
Place of death Hamburg