CATALOGUERS WITH A STORY

MOZART:

The Austrian Ludwig Alois Friedrich Ritter von Köchel (1800-77) was not only a musicologist, but a composer in his own right, a publisher and – wait for it – a botanist (he was in good company – so was Goethe!). His scholarly achievement in providing the first catalogue of scope for Mozart cannot be underestimated.

HAYDN:

Anthony von Hoboken (1887-1983) was similarly a polymath: a musical collector and bibliographer, as well as musicologist. Born in Rotterdam, Holland, he trained in engineering before studying music at Frankfurt. When he moved to Munich in 1917, he built his own villa (thanks to family money). He later studied music with Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935), arguably the greatest of all musicologists whose theory of tonal music changed analytical thought forever.

SCHUBERT:

Otto Erich Deutsch (1883-1967) studied art history and literature, specialising in the so-called Biedermeier period (of which Schubert is a part). Another friend of Schenker’s and a librarian in the Hoboken archives, he left his native Austria after the Anschluss, living in Cambridge until 1951 (after which he returned, safely, to Vienna).

JS BACH:

Wolfgang Schmieder (1901-1990) was born in Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz in Poland). He was Special Advisor for Music for the City and University Library at Goethe University, Frankfurt for over two decades; his work on Bach is a monumental achievement.

SCARLATTI:

Of all the cataloguers, Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911-84) is the one who achieved most fame as a performer. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and also with harpsichordist Wanda Landowska; Kirkpatrick taught at Yale from 194076. His recordings on harpsichord remain significant documents, from Scarlatti to Elliott Carter (just head over to YouTube); he also recorded Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier on both harpsichord and clavichord!

DEBUSSY:

François Lesure (1923-2001) was a French librarian and musicologist who served as Professor of Musicology at the University of Brussels from 1964 to 1977; he also organised exhibitions at the Bibliothèque nationale and at the Opéra de Paris.