Wilhelm Altmann (4 April 1862 – 25 March 1951) was a German

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

and

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 ...

Biography

Wilhelm Altmann was born on 4 April 1862 in Adelnau,

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

. He attended school in Breslau where he studied under

Otto Küstner Otto Ernst Küstner (26 August 1849, Trossin, Province of Saxony – 12 May 1931) was a German gynecologist. Initially he studied medicine in Leipzig and Berlin, and during the Franco-Prussian War was a volunteer with the ''Garde-Füsilier-Re ...

in music theory and the violin. From 1882-1885, he studied medieval history and classical philology at Marburg and Berlin. He then attended the Royal University, where he trained to be a librarian. In 1889, he moved to

Greifswald Greifswald (), officially the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald (, Low German: ''Griepswoold'') is the fourth-largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostock, Schwerin and Neubrandenburg. In 2021 it surpa ...

, Germany, where he worked at

Greifswald University The University of Greifswald (; ), formerly known as Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald, is a public university, public research university located in Greifswald, Germany, in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Founded in 14 ...

as a librarian, and lectured in medieval history. In 1900, he got a job at the Royal Library in Berlin, and was the founder of Deutsche Musik Sammlung. In 1915, he became director of the music section at Musik Sammlung, where he remained until he retired in 1927. Altmann died on 25 March 1951 in

Hildesheim Hildesheim (; or ; ) is a city in Lower Saxony, in north-central Germany with 101,693 inhabitants. It is in the district of Hildesheim (district), Hildesheim, about southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste River, a small tributary of t ...

. He was married to Marie née Louis, and they had three children.

Literary works

* ''The election of Albrecht II as Roman king.'' Dissertation (1885). * ''The Roman expedition of Ludwig of Bavaria'' (1886). * ''Acta Nicolai Gramis'' (1889). * '' Eberhard Windecke's Memoirs on the History of the Age of Emperor Sigmund.'' R. Gaertners Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin (1893). * ''The old Frankfurt German translation of the Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV'' (1897). * '' Böhmer, JF,

Regesta Imperii Papal regesta are the copies, generally entered in special registry volumes, of the papal letters and official documents that are kept in the papal archives. The name is also used to indicate subsequent publications containing such documents, in c ...

XI: The Documents of Emperor Sigmund 1410-1437, ed. by Altmann, Wilhelm, Innsbruck'' (1896–1900). * ''Public music libraries - A pious wish'', Journal of the International Music Society, H. 1, pp. 1–17. (1903). * '' Richard Wagner's letters by chronology and content'' (1905). * ''German Music Collection'' at the Königl. Library in Berlin, in: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, vol. 23, H. 2, p. 66 ff. (1906). * Selected documents on non-German constitutional history since 1776, 2nd increased edition (1913). * Selected documents on the Brandenburg-Prussian constitutional and administrative history, 1st part 15th-18th Century, 2nd edition (1914). * Selected documents on the Brandenburg-Prussian constitutional and administrative history, 2nd part 1806-1849, 2nd edition (1915). * ''The chamber music works of

Friedrich Lux Friedrich Lux (24 November 1820 – 9 July 1895) was a German conducting, conductor, composer and organist. He was born in the town of Ruhla, son of composer :de:Georg Heinrich Lux, Georg Heinrich Lux. His father gave him his first music less ...

.'' (1920). * ''Tonkünstlerlexikon'', (1926). * ''String Quartet Player's Handbook'', Vol. 1: String Quartets (1927). * ''String Quartet Player's Handbook'', Vol. 2: String Quartets (1927). * ''Handbook for String Quartet Players'', Vol. 3: String Trios, Quintets, Sextets, Octets (1929). * ''Introduction to Schubert's so-called Trout Quintet''. Op. 114 (Electrola Musikplatten EJ 334-357). (1929). * ''Handbook for String Quartet Players'', Vol. 4: Music for Strings and Winds (1930). * '' Kammermusik literature'', ⁵1931 * ''Handbook for Piano Trio Players'' (1934). * ''Handbook for Piano Quintet Players'' (1936). * ''Piano Quartet Player's Handbook'' (1937). * '' Otto Nicolai's Diaries'' (1937).

References

1862 births 1951 deaths People from Ostrów Wielkopolski County German music historians 19th-century German musicologists 20th-century German musicologists People from the Province of Posen German male non-fiction writers {{Germany-musicologist-stub