Hermann Abert

Hermann Abert (25 March 1871 — 13 August 1927) was a German historian of music.

Life

Hermann Abert was born in Stuttgart, the son of Johann Josef Abert, the Hofkapellmeister of that city.

From 1890 to 1896 he studied classical philology at the Universities of Tübingen, Berlin and Leipzig. While at Tübingen he joined the Akademische Gesellschaft Stuttgardia, a student association with political views shaped by the liberalism of southern Germany. His philological studies ended in 1896 at Halle, where he had done work on Ancient Greek music. For the next three years he studied music theory at Berlin. In 1902 he qualified as lecturer by presenting his thesis on music of the Middle Ages at the University of Halle.

Abert stayed on at Halle as a lecturer, becoming a senior lecturer (or associate professor) in 1910 and a full professor in 1918. In this capacity he moved the next year to the University of Heidelberg. But after just one year Abert took up a post at Leipzig and in 1920 he became the successor of the music theorist Hugo Riemann. In 1923 he was called to the University of Berlin, where he was seen as the most suitable successor to Hermann Kretzschmar, also a music theorist. It was there that he worked, with Friedrich Blume, Rudolf Gerber, Hans Hoffmann and Theodor Schwartzkopff, on the illustrated Dictionary of Music which was discovered to contain plagiarisms of Alfred Einstein's Neues Musiklexikon und Hugo-Riemann-Musiklexikon.

In 1925 was admitted to the Prussian Academy of Sciences, the first music theorist to be granted this honour.

On 13 August 1927, Prof. Dr. Hermann Abert died at Stuttgart, aged 56.

Works

• Die ästhetischen Grundsätze der mittelalterlichen Melodienbildung. ("The aesthetic foundations of medieval melody") Univ. Habil., Halle/Saale, 1902.
• Gesammelte Schriften und Vorträge. ("Collected writings and lectures") Schneider, Tutzing 1968. (Reprint of Halle ed., 1929.)
• Johann Josef Abert: sein Leben und seine Werke. ("J. J. Abert: his Life and Work") Pfaehler, Bad Neustadt 1983. (Reprint of Leipzig ed., 1916.) ISBN 3-922923-26-7
• Die Lehre vom Ethos in der griechischen Musik. (Dissertation, "The Teaching of Ethics in Greek music") Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, 1899.
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: eine Biographie. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, 1920. (Vol. 1, 1756–1782; Vol. 2, 1783–1791)
• Illustriertes Musik-Lexikon. J. Engelhorns Nachfahren, Stuttgart, 1927.

Bibliography

• Friedrich Blume. (ed.) Gedenkfeier für Hermann Abert. ("Tribute to Hermann Abert") Schneider, Tutzing 1974 (Reprint of Halle ed., 1928)
• Robert Schmitt Scheubel. Chronik einer Fälschung. Studie und Materialien zu Hermann Aberts Illustriertem Musiklexikon. ("Chronicle of a Forgery: Resources on Hermann Abert's Illustrated Dictionary of Music") Berlin, 2005. ISBN 3-937416-01-3