Albrecht Dümling (born 1949) is a German
musicologist and
music critic
''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...
.
Biography
Born in
Wuppertal, Dümling studied
musicology
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...
in
Essen
Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...
,
Vienna and
Berlin and earned a
Ph.D. with an interdisciplinary study on
Arnold Schönberg and
Stefan George, with
Carl Dahlhaus as his mentor. In 1985 he published his comprehensive work on
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
’s collaboration with composers. As a co-founder of the "International Hanns Eisler Society", Dümling was instrumental in creating the new "Gesamtausgabe" (''complete edition'') of the musical and literary works of the composer.
Following twenty years as music critic for the Berlin newspaper ''
Der Tagesspiegel'' (1978–1998), Dümling contributed to the ''
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'', "Neue Musik-Zeitung" and several radio programs. He is also a "Honorary Research Associate" at the
Royal Holloway, University of London
Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public research university and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It has six schools, 21 academic departm ...
, a "Research Fellow" at the
Victorian College of the Arts in
Melbourne and a member of the ''Advisory Board'' to the "International Centre for Suppressed Music"' in
London.
As a scholar at the
Dümling created an American version of the exhibition „Entartete Musik (''degenerate music'') in 1989/90, which travelled to more than 50 locations worldwide, including the
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I l ...
in London, and the
Vienna State Opera. In 2007 he developed a
Spanish version of the exhibition for the
University of Sevilla
The University of Seville (''Universidad de Sevilla'') is a university in Seville, Spain. Founded under the name of ''Colegio Santa María de Jesús'' in 1505, it has a present student body of over 69.200, and is one of the top-ranked universi ...
, and a revised German version for the
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1990, Dümling was appointed chairman of "musica reanimata", a society for the promotion of composers persecuted by the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
, which in 2006 was awarded the "German Critics’ Prize". 1992-99 he served as Project Consultant for the
DECCA CD-series "Entartete Musik". Following a lecture tour through Australia he was the organiser of the conference “Musical Exile in Australia” in
Dresden 1996. From 2000 to 2003 Dümling continued this research project at the
Technische Universität Berlin (Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung), sponsored by the
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. 2004 he received the
Harold White Fellowship from the
National Library of Australia.
In 1992 Dümling wrote the official biography of German composer
Leon Jessel
Leon Jessel, or Léon Jessel (22 January 1871 – 4 January 1942) was a German composer of operettas and light classical music pieces. Today he is best known internationally as the composer of the popular jaunty march '' The Parade of the Tin So ...
(1871–1942). He revised and republished the biography in 2012.
Dümling was awarded the ''European Cultural Prize "KAIROS"''
KAIROS Prize
/ref> of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation The Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S. is a German foundation established in 1931 by the Hamburg merchant Alfred Toepfer. The foundation is committed to promoting European unification and ensuring cultural diversity and understanding between the count ...
in Hamburg, for the rediscovery of persecuted musicians.
Selected bibliography
*Dümling, Albrecht. ''Laßt euch nicht verführen! Brecht und die Musik''. München: Kindler, 1985
*Dümling, Albrecht. ''Die verweigerte Heimat: Leon Jessel, der Komponist des "Schwarzwaldmädel"'' (''The Denied Homeland: Leon Jessel, Composer of "Black Forest Girl"''). Düsseldorf: Der kleine Verlag, 1992. Revised in 2012 and published by Lukas Verlag.
*Dümling, Albrecht. ''Die verschwundenen Musiker: Jüdische Flüchtlinge in Australien''. Böhlau Verlag, 2011.
* Albrecht Dümling/Peter Girth (eds). ''Entartete Musik: Dokumentation und Kommentar zur Düsseldorfer Ausstellung von 1938''. Düsseldorf: Der Kleine Verlag, 1988. Expanded edition 1993.
*
*Dümling, Albrecht. ''The Vanished Musicians. Jewish Refugees in Australia''. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2016.
References
External links
*
trinity.unimelb.edu.au
biography of Albrecht Dümling
biography of Albrecht Dümling
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dumling, Albrecht
German music critics
German musicologists
German music historians
Opera scholarship
1949 births
Living people
German male non-fiction writers
Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany