Eggebrecht, Hans Heinrich (EN)

Eggebrecht Hans Heinrich, *5 January 1919 Dresden, †30 August 1999 Freiburg, German musicologist. In 1949, he was awarded a doctorate by the University of Jena for his thesis on M. Vulpius (excerpts of which were published in Die Musikforschung in 1950, and in Musik und Kirche in 1950 and 1953). From 1949 to 1951, he was an assistant to W. Vetter at Humboldt University in Berlin; from 1951 to 1954, he was an assistant to W. Gurlitt at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, where he obtained his habilitation in 1954. In 1954 he became a lecturer at the University of Erlangen, a professor in 1957, and from 1961 served as director of the Institute of Musicology in Freiburg im Breisgau; in 1965 he became a member of the Academy of Science and Literature in Mainz. He was editor of “Archiv für Musikwissenschaft”, Handwörterbuch der musikalischen Terminologie, the factual section (Sachteil) of the 12th edition of H. Riemann’s music encyclopaedia, as well as various scholarly periodicals and numerous collective works.

Eggebrecht belongs to the first post-war generation of musicologists whose work has shaped the current character of German musicology. As a student of W. Gurlitt, he focused his interests on the spiritual aspect of musical phenomena, exploring the meanings and significance revealed within them; as a historian, he was inclined to highlight the variability of these phenomena within the developmental course of European music, understood as a single, organic whole. While responding with particular sensitivity to new trends in contemporary musical culture, Eggeberecht did not, however, confine himself to the boundaries of traditional “Geisteswissenschaft” and contributed many of his own original insights to musicology. Their influence is also readily apparent beyond the German-speaking world.

One of Eggebrecht’s indisputable achievements is the establishment of the study of musical terminology, understood as the history of the origins and semantic changes of terms. This discipline is intended to be a study of the causes of such changes and the functions fulfilled by the permanent or variable, diverse elements that make up musical concepts, names, meanings and terms; it also aims to reveal the intentions underlying these meanings and to trace the history of the understanding of music. The practical realisation of these aims has been the Handwörterbuch der musikalischen Terminologie, edited by Eggebrecht from 1971 and currently still being published in individual entries.

Drawing on his experience as a music historian, spanning the entire history of European music from the Middle Ages to the present day, Eggebrecht undertook an analysis of many issues fundamental to musicology and musical aesthetics. The historical context of his theoretical approaches also encompasses the very concept of music theory and aesthetics, thereby lending them greater significance. Thus, Eggebrecht deals with the general theory of musical analysis, whilst at the same time providing exemplary structural and semantic analyses of individual works, such as Machaut’s motets and Schubert’s songs; he explores the meaning of concepts such as musical thinking, musical language, music as a work of art, functional music, musical aesthetics, the essence of musical novelty in the historical process, etc., which are indeed characteristic of the current stage of development of musicology; he addresses ontological, generic and axiological issues, and analysed aspects of the history of the performance of a musical work and the history of its reception. Eggebrecht’s interests were wide-ranging both thematically and temporally, encompassing medieval music theory, Baroque musical aesthetics (including those of Schütz and J.S. Bach), the Sturm und Drang period, the music of Mozart and Beethoven, and others. A characteristic feature of his thinking about music is the combination of knowledge of musical phenomena and a rigorous grasp of historical facts with general philosophical and aesthetic premises, which is characteristic of interpretative musicology. Eggebrecht’s recent monographs contain frequent and direct references to Z. Lissa’s later aesthetic works.