Schneider, Marius (EN)

Schneider Marius, *1 July 1903 Hagenau (Alsace), †10 July 1982 Marquartstein, German musicologist. He studied philology and musicology at the universities of Strasbourg and Paris, and piano with A. Cortot in Paris. In 1930, he received a doctorate from the University of Berlin based on a dissertation written under the supervision of J. Wolf. In 1932–34, he was E. v. Hornbostl’s deputy at the Phonogramm-Archiv in Berlin, and from 1934 to 1945 its director. In 1937, the authorities opposed the recognition of Schneider’s habilitation at the University of Berlin. During World War II he took part in the campaign in Africa, and in 1944, he was delegated to organise and head the ethnomusicology department at the Instituto Español de Musicologia in Barcelona, where he lectured at the university there in 1947–55; in 1955, he obtained his habilitation at the University of Cologne on the basis of a dissertation on historical polyphony, where he worked until 1968. In 1968–70, he was a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam.

Schneider formulated original and innovative hypotheses for that time regarding the emergence, development and spread of polyphony. He believed that vocal polyphony was primary in relation to the instrumental one. According to him, the basic formal principles of repetition and imitation are technical means to create polyphony, which is a simultaneous form of variation. In the polyphonic music of contemporary cultures and in the music of past eras, Schneider identified the following principles of composition: a) variational heterophony, b) parallelism in seconds, minor, neutral and major thirds, fourths and fifths, c) tonally determined parallelism, d) homologous structures, i.e. structures in which the voices repeat parts of a melodic section in different positions, in a more or less similar way, e) adding a characteristic, constantly repeated one- or two-voice motif to the voice as a continuum, f) recitation drone (older form), g) pedal drone, h) polyphony with cantus firmus, i) free polyphony, often related to homologous structures, j) ostinato technique, k) strict and free imitation, 1) strict and free canon.

Comparing polyphonic music from different regions of the world, Schneider distinguished 4 areas: 1. areas of variational heterophony scattered around the world, 2. South Asia, Melanesia and Micronesia, with different types of voice relations, each of which shows a different tonal organization, 3. Polynesia with more diverse relationships between voices and 4. Africa with a tendency towards homophony; gave these areas the importance of historical units. He associated the beginnings of polyphony in Europe with folk music. He saw a connection between Caucasian polyphony and the polyphony of the ars antiqua, seeing its sources in the Iranian-Armenian-Caucasian cultural centre, from where polyphonic techniques would be transmitted to Europe through the Slavic East and the Balkans. To exemplify the presented theses, Schneider used examples of polyphonic music taken from historical records and oral tradition.

Schneider has also published numerous regional studies on ethnic groups in the Philippines, Mato Grosso, Cameroon, Australia, Assam, Tunisia and Spain. Emphasising the connection between primary music and psychological, social and religious factors, he undertook research on the meaning and function of music in the context of philosophy, mythology and religion. He pointed to the important role of timbre in songs with a magical and religious function in primitive societies. Schneider had a significant influence on the direction of the development of European musicology.

Literature: R. Günther Special Bibliography. Marius Schneider, „Ethnomusicology” XIII, 1969; E. Wilkens Marius Schneider “Singende Steine”, “Neuland” V, 1985; S. Ziegler and A. Traub Mittelalterliche und kaukasische Mehrstimmigkeit. Neue Überlegungen zu einem alten Thema, “Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft” XXXII, 1990.