Carl Dahlhaus

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Dahlhaus in 1986

Carl Dahlhaus (10 June 1928 – 13 March 1989) was a German musicologist who was among the leading postwar musicologists of the mid to late 20th-century.^[1] A prolific scholar, he had broad interests, writing on the music of Josquin des Prez, Carlo Gesualdo, Johann Sebastian Bach, Arnold Schoenberg, as well as 19th- and 20th-century classical music.^[2] For the latter two, his research greatly developed the scope and framework of the disciples;^[3] however, he remains best known in the English-speaking world for his writings on Richard Wagner.^[4] Active as a historian, analyst, editor and organizer, he was massively influential and his work has since incited considerable discussion and debate.^[3]

Life and career[]

Dahlhaus was born in Hanover on 10 June 1928.^[5] The Second World War interrupted his early education; he served on the front and as an anti-aircraft auxiliary. He completed school exams through a special program designed for those engaged in combat. He showed an interest in banned literature and was exceptionally well read. After a brief stint studying law, Dahlhaus first engaged in musicology from 1947 to 1952, studying with Wilibald Gurlitt and Rudolf Gerber at the University of Freiburg and University of Göttingen respectively.^[5] His 1953 thesis at the latter concerned the masses of Josquin des Prez.^[5] In the 1950s he was a co-founder of the Darmstadt new music festival. After a period as a dramaturg at the German Theater in Göttingen from 1950 to 1958, a job obtained on the recommendation of Berthold Brecht, he became musical editor of the Stuttgarter Zeitung, a newspaper, from 1960 to 1962. From 1962 to 1966 he served as a research assistant at the state musical research center at the University of Kiel. He earned a professorial grade from that university where he investigated the origins of harmonic tonality. In 1967 was hired as professor in music history at the Berlin Institute of Technology.

Dahlhaus wrote 25 books, more than 400 articles, and contributed to 150 other works on a wide range of subjects, though the majority of these on the history of western music and particularly that of the 19th century (i.e. Romantic music). He was very interested in the work of Richard Wagner and his ideas about musical drama as a 'total artwork' and how a new language on society and politics was being formed through the work of so-called 'modernist' composers; that art was no longer just 'art for art's sake'. His other favourite topics included music theory, the aesthetics of music, and the prehistory of "new music".

Dahlhaus was honored with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Grand Cross with Star), a Blue Max, and accepted into the German Academy. In 1987, he was awarded the Frankfurter Musikpreis.

He died in Berlin.

Selected bibliography[]

• Dahlhaus, Carl. 1979. Richard Wagner's Music Dramas. Translated by Mary Whittall. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
• ———. 1980. Between Romanticism and Modernism: Four Studies in the Music of the Later Nineteenth Century. Translated by Mary Whittall. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• ———. 1982. Esthetics of music. Translated by William W. Austin. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
• ———. 1983a. Analysis and Value Judgement. Translated from the German by Siegmund Levarie. New York: Pendragon Press.
• ———. 1983b. Foundations of Music History. Translated by J. B. Robinson. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
• ———. 1985. Realism in nineteenth-century music. Translated by Mary Whittall. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
• ———. 1987. Schoenberg and the New Music: Essays. Translated by Derrick Puffett and Alfred Clayton. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
• ———. 1989. Nineteenth-Century Music. English translation by J. Bradford Robinson. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• ———. 1989. The Idea of Absolute Music. Translated by Roger Lustig. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• ———. 1990. Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality. Translated by Robert O. Gjerdingen. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press.
• ———. 1991. Ludwig van Beethoven: Approaches to His Music. Translated by Mary Whittall. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press.
• Deathridge, John, and Carl Dahlhaus. 1984. The New Grove Wagner. New York: W. W. Norton.
• Ruth Katz and Carl Dahlhaus (1987-1991): Contemplating Music (Sources in the aesthetic of music, selected, edited, annotated and introduced, with original translations, in four volumes), New York: Pendragon Press. Vol. I Substance (1987); Vol. II Import (1989); Vol. III Essence (1991); Vol. IV Community of Discourse (1991).

References[]

Sources[]

Further reading[]

External links[]

• " The Shoulders on Which We Stand". Biography in English from the TU Berlin Press Office (archive from 21 May 2013; accessed 26 June 2016).