Richard Johannes Petzoldt (12 November 1907 – 14 January 1974) 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 ...

and

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 ...

Life

Petzoldt was born in

Plauen Plauen (; ; ) is a town in Saxony, Germany with a population of around 65,000. It is Saxony's 5th most populated city after Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Zwickau, the second-largest city of the Vogtland after Gera, as well as the largest cit ...

in 1907 as the son of a merchant and grew up in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. After graduating from high school, he studied musicology at the Friedrich Wilhelms University with Johannes Wolf,

Hermann Abert Hermann Abert (; 25 March 1871 – 13 August 1927) was a German historian of music. Life Abert was born in Stuttgart, the son of Johann Josef Abert (1832–1915), the '' Hofkapellmeister'' of that city. From 1890 to 1896 he studied classical ...

Arnold Schering Arnold Schering (2 April 1877 in Breslau, German Empire – 7 March 1941 in Berlin) was a German musicologist. He grew up in Dresden as the son of an art publisher. He learned violin at the from which he graduated in 1896. Thereafter he studied ...

, Hans Joachim Moser,

Friedrich Blume Friedrich Blume (5 January 1893, in Schlüchtern, Hesse-Nassau – 22 November 1975, in Schlüchtern) was professor of musicology at the University of Kiel from 1938 to 1958. He was a student in Munich, Berlin and Leipzig, and taught in the last ...

Erich von Hornbostel Erich Moritz von Hornbostel (25 February 1877 – 28 November 1935) was an Austrian ethnomusicologist, comparative musicologist, and scholar of music. He is remembered for his pioneering work in the field of ethnomusicology, and for the Sachs� ...

Curt Sachs Curt Sachs (; 29 June 1881 – 5 February 1959) was a German musicologist. He was one of the founders of modern organology (the study of musical instruments). Among his contributions was the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which he created with Eric ...

and

Georg Schünemann Georg Schünemann (13 March 1884 – 2 January 1945) was a German musicologist. Life Born in Berlin, Schünemann, the son of a rector, was awarded a doctorate after studying music in 1907 with his dissertation on the ''history of conducting''. ...

. In 1933, he received his PhD from Arnold Schering with his dissertation ''The church compositions and secular cantatas of

Reinhard Keiser Reinhard Keiser (9 January 1674 – 12 September 1739) was a German opera composer based in Hamburg. He wrote over a hundred operas. Johann Adolf Scheibe (writing in 1745) considered him an equal to Johann Kuhnau, George Frideric Handel and Georg ...

''. From 1934 he worked as an editor for the ''Allgemeine Musikzeitung'' in Berlin, later Leipzig. In 1939 he became their

chief editor An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's Editing, editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is hel ...

. He also wrote for the ''

Berliner Tageblatt The ''Berliner Tageblatt'' or ''BT'' was a German language newspaper published in Berlin from 1872 to 1939. Along with the '' Frankfurter Zeitung'', it became one of the most important liberal German newspapers of its time. History The ''Berli ...

''. From 1940 to 1945 he did military service. After the Second World War he worked as a music critic for various newspapers and magazines and as an employee of the Cultural Office of the City of Leipzig. In 1945 he was briefly director of the municipal music library in Leipzig. He took over the rebuilding and provisional management of the and the

Museum of Musical Instruments of Leipzig University The Museum of Musical Instruments of the University of Leipzig () is a museum in Leipzig, Germany. It is located on Johannisplatz, near the city centre. The museum belongs to the University of Leipzig and is also part of the Grassi Museum, whose ...

. From 1946 to 1952 he taught music history at the

University of Music and Theatre Leipzig The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig () is a public university in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn as the Conservatorium der Musik (Conservatory of Music), it is the oldest univ ...

. From 1949 he was also

dramaturg A dramaturge or dramaturg (from Ancient Greek δραματουργός – dramatourgós) is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and pr ...

at the

Leipzig Opera The Leipzig Opera () is an opera house and opera company located at the Augustusplatz and the Inner City Ring Road at its east side in Leipzig's district Mitte, Germany. History Performances of opera in Leipzig trace back to Singspiel perfo ...

and editor-in-chief of the magazine ''Musik in der Schule''. In 1952 he became professor with a teaching assignment for music history and director of the Institute for Music Education and deputy director of the Institute for Musicology at the University of Leipzig. In 1967 he became director of the Museum of Musical Instruments and in 1969 full professor of musicology in the section of cultural studies and German studies. In 1973 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 ...

. Petzoldt died in Leipzig in 1974 at the age of 66. He is buried at the Leipziger Südfriedhof.

Publications

* ''Ludwig van Beethoven''. (1938) * ''Johann Sebastian Bach'' (Neuaufl., 1950) * ''Franz Schubert – Sein Leben in Bildern''. (1953) * ''Peter Tschaikowski – Sein Leben in Bildern''. (1953) * ''Die Oper in ihrer Zeit''. (1956) * ''Giuseppe Verdi'' (new edition, 1959) * ''Geschichte der Musikerziehung'' (1962) * ''Der Leipziger Thomanerchor''.(1962) * ''Wegweiser zur Musik''. (1962) * ''Georg Friedrich Händel : sein Leben in Bildern''.''Georg Friedrich Händel : sein Leben in Bildern''
on WorldCat (1965)

Literature

* Gabriele Baumgartner: ''Petzoldt, Richard''. In Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (ed.): ''Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ/DDR. 1945–1990.'' Volume 2: ''Maassen – Zylla.'' K. G. Saur, Munich 1997, , .

References

External links

* *

Dieter Härtwig Dieter Härtwig (18 July 1934 – 30 December 2022) was a German dramaturge, musicologist and author of numerous writings on Dresden's music history and its personalities. Biography Dieter Härtwig was born in Dresden on 18 July 1934. After gai ...

Petzoldt Richard Johannes
in (ed.):

Sächsische Biografie ''Sächsische Biografie'' (''SäBi)'' axon biographyis a biographical dictionary of noteworthy persons in the history of Saxony from the 10th century to the present. As of 2014 it contained entries for about 10,500 persons and about 1,250 biogra ...

.
Richard Petzoldt
in the {{DEFAULTSORT:Petzoldt, Richard German music historians 20th-century German musicologists German music critics German music journalists German dramaturges 20th-century German librarians Academic staff of the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig Academic staff of Leipzig University 1907 births 1974 deaths People from Plauen