Hans Mersmann (6 August 1891 – 24 June 1971) was a German

music historian Music history, sometimes called historical musicology, is a highly diverse subfield of the broader discipline of musicology that studies music from a historical point of view. In theory, "music history" could refer to the study of the history of ...

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

and teacher of music.

Life

Born in

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

, Mersmann studies in Munich and Berlin. He received his doctorate in 1914. One year later he was commissioned by the Prussian Folk Song Commission to create a folk song archive. From 1924 to 1933, he was editor-in-chief of the magazine "Melos". In 1926, he became a professor at the

Technische Hochschule A ''Technische Hochschule'' (, plural: ''Technische Hochschulen'', abbreviated ''TH'') is a type of university focusing on engineering sciences in Germany. Previously, it also existed in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands (), and Finland (, ) ...

in Charlottenburg (now

Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin; also known as Berlin Institute of Technology and Technical University of Berlin, although officially the name should not be translated) is a public university, public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was the first ...

). In 1933, after the Nazi takeover, he was dismissed from the university on the grounds that he had worked in the field of

Neue Musik Neue Musik (English ''new music'', French ''nouvelle musique'') is the collective term for a wealth of different currents in composed Western art music from around 1910 to the present. Its focus is on compositions of 20th century music. It is char ...

. He was then obliged to give private music lessons. In 1935, he was still stigmatized as " Bolshevik of Music" by the

Militant League for German Culture The Militant League for German Culture (German: ''Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur'', ''KfdK''), was a nationalistic anti-Semitic political society during the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era. It was founded in 1928 as the ''Nationalsozialistische Ge ...

. From 1947 to 1957, he taught at the

Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln The Cologne University of Music () is a public university of music and dance located in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Established in 1850 as the Conservatorium der Musik in Coeln, it is one of the largest music academies in Europe, w ...

. Mersmann died in Cologne aged 79.

Works

* ''Kulturgeschichte der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen''. Berlin 1921–25 * ''Angewandte Musikästhetik''. Berlin 1926 * ''Die Tonsprache der neuen Musik''. Mainz 1928 * ''Die Kammermusik'' (Führer durch den Konzertsaal, begonnen von Hermann Kretzschmar), 4 volumes. Leipzig 1930, also 1933. * ''Eine deutsche Musikgeschichte''. Sanssouci, Potsdam / Berlin

934 Year 934 ( CMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Spring and Summer – The Hungarians make an alliance with the Pechenegs, and fight their way through Thrace t ...

* ''Musikhören''. Sanssouci, Potsdam / Berlin 1938, 2nd edition 1952 * ''Musikgeschichte in der abendländischen Kultur''. Hans F. Menck Verlag, Frankfurt, 1955.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mersmann, Hans German music educators 20th-century German musicologists Academic staff of the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln Academic staff of Technische Universität Berlin German music historians 1891 births 1971 deaths Musicians from Potsdam

Life

Works

References

Further reading

External links