Hornbostel, Erich Moritz von

Hornbostel, Erich Moritz von

▪ Austrian musicologist
born Feb. 25, 1877, Vienna, Austria
died Nov. 28, 1935, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.

      Austrian musicologist and ethnologist.

      Brought up in a highly musical home, Hornbostel studied piano, harmony, and counterpoint. Although by his late teens he was a skilled performer and composer, his university studies (at Heidelberg, 1895–99) were in the natural sciences and philosophy, and his Ph.D. was in chemistry (Heidelberg, 1900). He then moved to Berlin, where, influenced by Carl Stumpf, he combined his musicological studies with experimental psychology, especially the phenomena of tone psychology. He became assistant to Stumpf at the Psychological Institute, and, when its archives became the foundation of the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv in 1906, Hornbostel was named its first director, a post he held until he was dismissed in 1933 by the Nazi regime. (His mother, the singer Helene Magnus, was Jewish.)

      From Germany Hornbostel went first to Switzerland, then to the United States, and finally England. Hornbostel was coeditor (with Stumpf) of the Sammelbände für vergleichende Musikwissenschaft (“Collected Volumes for Comparative Musicology”) from 1922 until his death.

      Hornbostel was a specialist in Asian, African, and other non-European music. Collaborating with Stumpf and Otto Abraham, he devised a system combining the concepts of acoustics, psychology, and physiology for the study of non-European musical cultures, a procedure that has been credited with establishing comparative musicology as a recognized discipline. With Abraham he published a series of essays on non-European music (including Japanese, Turkish, and Indian) and formulated a method for transcribing music from recordings; in 1904 they proposed an approach to the study of comparative musicology roughly parallel to that used in comparative linguistics. Hornbostel also demonstrated the importance of observable, measurable musicological data to ethnological research.

      Among his most valuable contributions to ethnomusicology are his studies on the psychology of musical perception, the relationship between a culture and its tuning system, and the innovative classification of musical instruments (with Curt Sachs, 1914).

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • HORNBOSTEL, ERICH MORITZ VON — (1877–1935), musicologist. The son of a gentile father and the singer Helene Marcus, Hornbostel was born in Vienna, and worked with Carl Strumpf at the Psychological Institute in Berlin. In 1906 he went to the United States to study the music and …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Hornbostel, Erich (Moritz) von — born Feb. 25, 1877, Vienna, Austria died Nov. 28, 1935, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng. Austrian ethnomusicologist. Born into a musical family in Vienna, he was by his teens a skilled pianist and composer. After taking a doctorate in chemistry,… …   Universalium

  • Hornbostel, Erich (Moritz) von — (25 feb. 1877, Viena, Austria–28 nov. 1935, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Inglaterra). Etnomusicólogo austríaco. Nacido en el seno de una familia de músicos vieneses, ya en su adolescencia era un pianista y compositor consumado. Después de cursar un …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Erich Moritz von Hornbostel — (* 25. Februar 1877 in Wien; † 28. November 1935 in Cambridge, England) war ein österreichischer Musikethnologe, auf den u.a. die sog. Blasqintentheorie zurückgeht. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Familie 2 Leben …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Erich M. von Hornbostel — Erich Moritz von Hornbostel (* 25. Februar 1877 in Wien; † 28. November 1935 in Cambridge) war ein österreichischer Musikethnologe. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Familie 2 Leben 3 Werke …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • von — /von/; Ger. /fawn/, unstressed /feuhn/, prep. from; of (used in German and Austrian personal names, originally to indicate place of origin and later to indicate nobility): Paul von Hindenburg. * * * (as used in expressions) Friedrich Leopold… …   Universalium

  • Moritz — Moritz, Karl Philipp * * * (as used in expressions) Arndt, Ernst Moritz Goldschmidt, Victor Moritz Hauptmann, Moritz Hornbostel, Erich (Moritz) von …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Erich — (as used in expressions) Correns Carl Erich Fromm Erich Honecker Erich Hornbostel Erich Moritz von Kleiber Erich Korngold Erich Wolfgang Ludendorff Erich Mendelsohn Erich Raeder Erich Remarque Erich Maria Erich Paul Kramer Salomon Erich Stroheim… …   Universalium

  • Erich — (as used in expressions) Correns, Carl Erich Fromm, Erich Honecker, Erich Hornbostel, Erich (Moritz) von Kleiber, Erich Korngold, Erich Wolfgang Ludendorff, Erich Mendelsohn, Erich …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Moritz — Ger. /moh rddits/, n. 1. Maurice (def. 1). 2. a male given name, form of Maurice. * * * (as used in expressions) Arndt Ernst Moritz Goldschmidt Victor Moritz Hauptmann Moritz Hornbostel Erich Moritz von * * * …   Universalium

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”