Ludwig Finscher (14 March 193030 June 2020) was a German musicologist. He was a professor of music history at the University of Heidelberg from 1981 to 1995 and editor of the encyclopedia Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.
Life and career
Born in
Kassel, the youngest of five siblings,
Finscher studied
musicology, English, German and philosophy at the University of Göttingen from 1949 to 1954.
Students at the same time included
Gerhard Croll,
Carl Dahlhaus and
Rudolf Stephan.
He earned a
doctorate with a thesis about the masses and
by Loyset Compère, with advisor
Rudolf Gerber.
From 1954, he worked for the Deutsches Volksliedarchiv (German archive of folk songs) in Freiburg im Breisgau.
He returned to Göttingen in 1955, working as a freelance journalist and music critic.
He became a scientific assistant to
Walter Wiora in 1960, first at the University of Kiel and from 1965 at the University of Saarbrücken.
In 1967 he obtained his
habilitation in Saarbrücken with the work
Das klassische Streichquartett und seine Grundlegung durch Joseph Haydn (The classical
string quartet and its foundation by
Joseph Haydn).
From 1968 to 1981, he held a chair for musicology at the University of Frankfurt, and from 1981 until his retirement in 1995 the same position at the University of Heidelberg.
Finscher was president of the Gesellschaft für Musikforschung (Society for music research) from 1974 to 1977 and the International Musicological Society from 1977 to 1981.
He died in Wolfenbüttel on 30 June 2020 at the age of 90.
Research work
One of Finscher's most important accomplishments was his editing, beginning in 1994, of the new edition of the encyclopaedia
Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart in 28 volumes, for which he wrote or updated some 40 articles.
His extensive works on
,
chamber music and
Joseph Haydn are regarded as musicological standards,
as is the two-volume
Music of the 15th and 16th centuries.
Finscher contributed to the complete editions of the works of Christoph Willibald Gluck, W. A. Mozart, and Paul Hindemith.
His approach was described by the Balzan Prize:
Publications
Awards
-
1994 Pour le Mérite
-
1997 Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
-
2003 Honorary doctorate of the University of Zürich
-
2006 Balzan Prize, awarded on 24 November 2006 by the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano in Rome
-
:
External links
