Reinhold Brinkmann (21 August 1934,

Wildeshausen Wildeshausen (; Low Saxon: ''Wilshusen'') is a town and the capital of the Oldenburg district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated by the river Hunte. History In the 1648 Peace of Westphalia which ended the Thirty Years' War Sweden gained lar ...

, Oldenburg, Lower Saxony – 10 October 2010, Eckernförde,

Rendsburg-Eckernförde Rendsburg-Eckernförde (; ) is a district in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is bounded by (from the east and clockwise) the city of Kiel, the district of Plön, the city of Neumünster, the districts of Segeberg, Steinburg, Dithmarschen and S ...

, Schleswig-Holstein) was a German musicologist. Brinkmann was born in

and studied at

Freiburg im Breisgau Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

. His dissertation was about

Arnold Schönberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

's Klavierstücke op. 11. He started working on the faculty of

Freie Universität 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 ...

in 1970. From 1972 to 1980 he taught at Philipps-Universität Marburg, and then until 1985 again in Berlin, at the Universität der Künste Berlin. After 1985 he taught at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, as the James Edward Ditson professor, and chair of the department of music. In 2001 he was honored with the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. In 2006 he was elected Honorary Member of the

American Musicological Society The American Musicological Society (AMS) is a musicological organization which researches, promotes and produces publications on music. Founded in 1934, the AMS was begun by leading American musicologists of the time, and was crucial in legiti ...

. His research has included widely diverse publications in all areas of

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, ...

and

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

from the 18th to the 20th centuries, with particular emphasis on interdisciplinary aspects. His writings examined subjects such as the

Second Viennese School The Second Viennese School () was the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, particularly Alban Berg and Anton Webern, and close associates in early 20th-century Vienna. Their music was initially characterized by late ...

(especially

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

), the Romantic

Lied In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...

tradition,

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

Alexander Scriabin Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, scientific transliteration: ''Aleksandr Nikolaevič Skrjabin''; also transliterated variously as Skriabin, Skryabin, and (in French) Scriabine. The composer himselused the French spelling "Scriabine" which was a ...

Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French and American composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; h ...

Hanns Eisler Hanns Eisler (6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was a German-Austrian composer. He is best known for composing the national anthem of East Germany, for his long artistic association with Bertolt Brecht, and for the scores he wrote for films. The ...

, and

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored d ...

. His last, unfinished project, which drew Brinkmann back to Berlin, according to the ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'', had the working title "Das verzerrte Sublime: eine Analyse des Umgangs mit der großen musikalischen Überlieferung im Dritten Reich."

Selected writings

*''Richard Wagner: Von der Oper zum Musikdrama''. Bern: Francke 1978. *(ed.) ''Improvisation und neue Musik. 8 Kongressreferate.'' Mainz: Schott 1979. *(ed.) ''Musik im Alltag. 10 Kongressbeiträge.'' Mainz: Schott 1980.
''Late Idyll: The Second Symphony of Johannes Brahms''
translated by Peter Palmer,

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

, 1997. *''Arnold Schönberg: Drei Klavierstücke Op. 11. Studien zur frühen Atonalität bei Schönberg. 2., durchges. Aufl. mit einem neuen Vorwort''. Stuttgart: Steiner 2000. *"Musik nachdenken." Reinhold Brinkmann und Wolfgang Rihm im Gespräch. Regensburg: ConBrio 2001.
''Music of My Future: The Schoenberg Quartets and Trio''
edited by Reinhold Brinkmann and Christoph Wolff, Harvard University Press, 2001. *''Vom Pfeifen und von alten Dampfmaschinen. Aufsätze zur Musik von Beethoven bis Rihm''. Wien: Zsolnay 2006.

References

External links

*
Interview with Reinhold Brinkmann

Obituary, ''Harvard Gazette''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brinkmann, Reinhold 1934 births 2010 deaths People from Wildeshausen German musicologists People from Oldenburg (state) Harvard University faculty Ernst von Siemens Music Prize winners Berg scholars Brahms scholars Ives scholars Schoenberg scholars Scriabin scholars Wagner scholars Webern scholars