Martin Ruhnke (14 June 1921 – 25 September 2004) was a German

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 ...

. His main areas of research were the

music theory 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 "Elements of music, ...

of early

baroque music Baroque music ( or ) refers to the period or dominant style of Classical music, Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance music, Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Class ...

, Italian baroque opera and the life and work of

Georg Philipp Telemann Georg Philipp Telemann (; – 25 June 1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. He is one of the most prolific composers in history, at least in terms of surviving works. Telemann was considered by his contemporaries to b ...

Life

Born in

Koszalin Koszalin (; ; , ) is a city in northwestern Poland, in Western Pomerania. It is located south of the Baltic Sea coast, and intersected by the river Dzierżęcinka. Koszalin is also a county-status city and capital of Koszalin County of West Pomera ...

, Ruhnke was appointed in Kiel where he gained his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

in 1954 with a thesis on Joachim Burmeister's

. Afterwards he was Wissenschaftlicher Assistent at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

and habilitatetd in 1961. In 1964 he was appointed to the chair of musicology at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, which he held until he became

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

in 1986. From 1968 to 1974 Ruhnke was president of the

Gesellschaft für Musikforschung The German Musicological Society (, abbreviated to GfM) is an academic society of musicologists and institutes active in study, research and teaching in Germany. It has over 1600 members. The association is based in Kassel, Hesse. History The ...

and from 1991 to 1997 president of the ''International Telemann Society''. From 1960 to 2003 he was responsible for the Telemann edition of the ''Zentrum für Telemann-Pflege und -Forschung Magdeburg''. In 1984, 1992 and 1999 his three-volume Telemann-Werke-Verzeichnis was published, in which he completed the ''Telemann-Vokalwerke-Verzeichnis'' by Werner Menke (1982/1983) with the instrumental works. Ruhnke "influenced ..Telemann research as a whole, which he introduced into academic discourse and for which he set important standards" (Ute Poetzsch).Ute Poetzsch: ''Die Editionen der Werke Georg Philipp Telemanns''
p. 190
In Reinmar Emans, Ulrich Krämer (ed.): ''Music editions in the course of history''. Berlin/Boston 2015 In 1995 he received the Georg-Philipp-Telemann-Preis der Landeshauptstadt Magdeburg. He also studied the music history of his home

Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...

and became a member of the .

References

External links

''Zum Tod von Prof. Dr. Martin Ruhnke''
(University of Erlangen, 28 September 2004) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ruhnke, Martin 20th-century German musicologists Academic staff of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg 1921 births 2004 deaths People from Koszalin