Herbert Eimert (8 April 1897 – 15 December 1972) was a German
music theorist
Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the " rudiments", that ...
,
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 ...
, journalist,
music critic
'' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...
,
editor
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...
,
radio producer
A radio producer oversees the making of a radio show. The job title covers several different job descriptions:
*Content producers or executive producers oversee and orchestrate a radio show or feature. The content producer might organize music cho ...
, and composer.
Education
Herbert Eimert was born in
Bad Kreuznach
Bad Kreuznach () is a town in the Bad Kreuznach (district), Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is a spa town, known for its medieval bridge dating from around 1300, the Alte Nahebrücke (Bad Kreuznach), Alte Nahebrücke, ...
. He studied music theory and composition from 1919 to 1924 at the
Cologne Musikhochschule with
Hermann Abendroth, , and
August von Othegraven. In 1924, while still a student, he published an ''Atonale Musiklehre'' (Atonal Music Theory Text) which, together with a
twelve-tone
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale ...
string quartet
The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...
composed for the end-of-term examination concert, led to an altercation with Bölsche, who withdrew the quartet from the program and expelled Eimert from his composition class.
In 1924, he began studies in musicology at the
University of Cologne
The University of Cologne () is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in 1388. It closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany with around 45,187 students. The Universit ...
with
Ernst Bücken,
Willi Kahl, and
Georg Kinsky, and read philosophy with
Max Scheler
Max Ferdinand Scheler (; 22 August 1874 – 19 May 1928) was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Considered in his lifetime one of the most prominent German philosophers,Davis, Zacha ...
(a pupil of
Husserl) and
Nicolai Hartmann
Paul Nicolai Hartmann (; 20 February 1882 – 9 October 1950) was a German philosopher. He is regarded as a key representative of critical realism and as one of the most important twentieth-century metaphysicians.
Biography
Hartmann was born a ...
. He attained his doctorate in 1931 with a dissertation titled ''Musikalische Formstrukturen im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Versuch einer Formbeschreibung'' (Musical Form Structures in the 17th and 18th Century. Attempt at a Description of Form).
Career
From 1927 until 1933 he was employed at the
Cologne Radio and wrote for music magazines such as ' and the ''
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
The New Journal of Music (, and abbreviated to NZM) is a music magazine, co-founded in Leipzig by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, Julius Knorr and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke. Its first issue appe ...
''. In 1930 he became a music critic for the ''
Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger'', and from 1935 until 1945 worked as an editor at the '.
In 1945, he became the first salaried staff member of the Cologne Radio (
NWDR), administered by the
British occupation forces. In 1947, he took over the NWDR Department of Cultural Reporting, and, in 1948, initiated the ''Musikalische Nachtprogramme'' (late-night music programs), which he directed until 1965. In 1951, Eimert and
Werner Meyer-Eppler
Werner Meyer-Eppler (30 April 1913 – 8 July 1960), was a Belgian-born German physicist, experimental acoustician, phoneticist and information theorist.
Meyer-Eppler was born in Antwerp. He studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry, ...
persuaded the director of NWDR, Hanns Hartmann, to create a
Studio for Electronic Music, which Eimert directed until 1962. This became the most influential studio in the world during the 1950s and 1960s, with composers such as
Michael von Biel,
Konrad Boehmer,
Herbert Brün,
Jean-Claude Éloy,
Péter Eötvös,
Franco Evangelisti,
Luc Ferrari,
Johannes Fritsch
Johannes Georg Fritsch (27 July 1941 – 29 April 2010) was a German composer.
At the age of seven, Fritsch found a violin in the attic of his uncle's house in Bensheim-Auerbach, Germany, and began lessons with a village music teacher named Kna ...
,
Rolf Gehlhaar,
Karel Goeyvaerts
Karel August Goeyvaerts (8 June 1923 – 3 February 1993) was a Belgian composer.
Life
Goeyvaerts was born in Antwerp, where he studied at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory; he later studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analysi ...
,
Hermann Heiss,
York Höller,
Maki Ishii,
David C. Johnson,
Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Raúl Kagel (; 24 December 1931 – 18 September 2008) was an Argentine-German composer and academic teacher.
Life and career Early life and education
Mauricio Raúl Kagel was born on 24 December 1931 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into an ...
,
Gottfried Michael Koenig,
Petr Kotik,
Włodzimierz Kotoński,
Ernst Krenek,
Ladislav Kupkovič,
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde music, avant-garde composers in the latter half of the ...
,
Mesías Maiguashca,
Bo Nilsson,
Henri Pousseur
Henri Léon Marie-Thérèse Pousseur (; 23 June 1929 – 6 March 2009) was a Belgian classical composer, teacher, and music theorist.
Biography
Pousseur was born in Malmedy and studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 19 ...
,
Roger Smalley,
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...
(who succeeded Eimert as director),
Dimitri Terzakis,
Iannis Xenakis, and
Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann (20 March 1918 – 10 August 1970) was a German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera ''Die Soldaten'', which is regarded as one of the most important German operas of the 20th century, after those of Berg. Hi ...
working there.
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental mu ...
also worked there in 1958. The last composer invited by Eimert to work in the Studio was
Konrad Boehmer, recruited in 1959 when he was still a "school boy."
In 1950, he published the ''Lehrbuch zur Zwölftonmusik'', which became one of the best-known introductory texts on
Schoenbergian twelve-tone technique
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale ...
, and was translated into Italian, Spanish, and Hungarian. From 1955 until 1962 he edited in conjunction with
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...
the influential journal ''
Die Reihe''. His book ''Grundlagen der musikalischen Reihentechnik'' appeared in 1964. From 1951 until 1957 he lectured at the
Darmstadt International Vacation Courses for New Music. In 1965 he became professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne and directed their Studio for Electronic Music until 1971. Together with Hans Ulrich Humpert, his successor at the electronic studio of the Musikhochschule, he worked on the ''Lexikon der elektronischen Musik'' (Dictionary of Electronic Music). Just short of completing the manuscript, Eimert died on 15 December 1972, either in Düsseldorf or Cologne.
Among Eimert's notable students was
Clarence Barlow.
Compositions (selective list)
* String Quartet (1923–25)
* ''Der weiße Schwan'' for saxophon, flute, and specially made noise instruments (1926)
* ''Kammerkonzert'' for five instruments (1926)
* Suite for chamber orchestra (1929)
* ''Musik für Violine und Violoncello'' (1931)
* Second String Quartet (1939)
* Variations for piano (1943)
* Trio for violin, viola, and cello (1944)
* ''Bläsermusik'' (1947)
* Four Pieces (jointly composed with ) (1953)
* ''Struktur 8'',
electronic music
Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...
(1953)
* ''Glockenspiel'', electronic music (1953)
* ''Etüde über Tongemische'', electronic music (1954)
* Five Pieces, electronic music (1956)
* ''Zu Ehren von Igor Strawinsky'' (1957)
* ''Selektion I'' (1960)
* ''Epitaph für Aikichi Kuboyama'', for speaker and electronically transformed speech sounds (1962)
* Six Studies, electronic music (1962)
Principal writings
* 1924. ''Atonale Musiklehre''. Leipzig: Verlag von Breitkopf & Härtel.
* 1932. ''Musikalische Formstrukturen im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert; Versuch einer Formbeschreibung''. Augsburg: B. Filser.
* 1950. ''Lehrbuch der Zwöfltontechnik''. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel.
*1955a. "Die sieben Stücke" ''
Die Reihe'' 1: "Elektronische Musik": 8–13
ot included in the English edition
*1955b. "Die notwendige Korrektur" ''Die Reihe'' 2: "
Anton Webern
Anton Webern (; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its lyric poetry, lyrical, poetic concision and use of then novel atonality, aton ...
": 35–41
nglish edition 1958, as "A Change of Focus",
* 1955c. "Intervallproportionen (Streichquartett, 1. Satz)." ''Die Reihe'' 2: "Anton Webern": 97–102
nglish edition 1958, as "Interval Proportions", pp. 93–99
* 1957a. "Von der Entscheidungsfreiheit des Komponisten." ''Die Reihe'' 3: "Musikalische Handwerk": 5–12
nglish edition 1959, as "The Composer's Freedom of Choice," pp. 1–9
* 1957b. "Debussys ''
Jeux''." ''Die Reihe'' 5: "Berichte—Analyse": 5–22
nglish edition 1961, as "Debussy's ''Jeux''," pp. 3–20
* 1957c. "What is Electronic Music?" ''Die Reihe'' 1: "Electronic Music" (English edition only): 1–10.
* 1958. "Intermezzo II." ''Die Reihe'' 4: "Junge Komponisten": 81–84
nglish edition 1960, pp. 81–84
* 1962. "Nachruf auf
Werner Meyer-Eppler
Werner Meyer-Eppler (30 April 1913 – 8 July 1960), was a Belgian-born German physicist, experimental acoustician, phoneticist and information theorist.
Meyer-Eppler was born in Antwerp. He studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry, ...
." ''Die Reihe'' 8: "Rückblicke": 5–6
nglish ed. 1968, as "Werner Meyer-Eppler," pp. 5–6
* 1964. ''Grundlagen der musikalischen Reihentechnik''. Bücher der Reihe. Vienna: Universal Edition.
* 1972. "So begann die elektronische Musik." ''Melos'' 39, no. 1 (January/February): 42–44.
ranslated into English as "How Electronic Music Began," ''The Musical Times'' 113, no. 1550 (April 1972): 347–49.]
* 1973. ''Lexikon der elektronischen Musik'' (with Hans Ulrich Humpert). Regensburg: Bosse.
References
Cited sources
*
*
*
*
Further reading
* Blüggel, Christian. 2002. ''E.=Ethik+Ästhetik: Zur Musikkritik Herbert Eimerts''. Saarbrücken: Pfau. .
* Fricke, Stefan. 1997. "Herbert Eimert: Keiner unter vielen—Rückblick auf ein Leben für die (elektronische) Neue Musik". ''
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
The New Journal of Music (, and abbreviated to NZM) is a music magazine, co-founded in Leipzig by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, Julius Knorr and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke. Its first issue appe ...
'' 158, no. 5 (September/October): 28–30.
* Grant, M
rag J
sephine 2001. ''Serial Music, Serial Aesthetics: Compositional Theory in Post-war Europe''. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press.
* Kämper, Dietrich. 1997. "Pionier der Neuen Musik: Herbert Eimert—Journalist, Komponist, Organisator und Förderer" ''MusikTexte: Zeitschrift für Neue Musik'', no. 69–70 (April): 36–40.
* Kautny, Oliver. 2001. "Pionierzeit der elektronischen Musik: Werner Meyer-Epplers Einfluss auf Herbert Eimert." In ''Musik im Spektrum von Kultur und Gesellschaft:
Festschrift
In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...
für Brunhilde Sonntag'', Osnabrücker Beiträge zur Musik und Musikerziehung 1, edited by Bernhard Müssgens, Oliver Kautny, and Martin Gieseking, 314–37. Osnabrück: Electronic Publishing. .
*
Kirchmeyer, Helmut. 1998. ''Kleine Monographie über Herbert Eimert''. Abhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-Historische Klasse 75,6. Stuttgart: Hirzel. .
* Kirchmeyer, Helmut. 2009. "Stockhausens Elektronische Messe nebst einem Vorspann unveröffentlichter Briefe aus seiner Pariser Zeit an Herbert Eimert". ''
Archiv für Musikwissenschaft'' 66, no. 3:234–59.
* . 1974. "Herbert Eimert: Pionier der Zwolftontechnik." ''Melos'' 41, no. 4 (July–August): 211–14.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eimert, Herbert
1897 births
1972 deaths
20th-century German classical composers
German music critics
People from Bad Kreuznach
Musicians from the Rhine Province
Academic staff of the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln
Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln alumni
German male non-fiction writers
German male classical composers
20th-century German musicologists
20th-century German male musicians
Austrian magazine founders
Cage scholars
Debussy scholars
Schoenberg scholars
Stravinsky scholars
Webern scholars