Christoph Wolff (born 24 May 1940) is a German

musicologist 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 ...

. He is best known for his works on the music, life, and period of

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...

. Christoph Wolff is an emeritus professor of

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, and was part of the faculty since 1976, and former director of the

Bach Archive The Bach-Archiv Leipzig or Bach-Archiv is an institution for the documentation and research of the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach. The Bach-Archiv also researches the Bach family, especially their music. Based in Leipzig, the city whe ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

from 2001 to 2014.

Life and career

He was born in

Solingen Solingen (; li, Solich) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located some 25 km east of Düsseldorf along the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and, with a 2009 population of 161,366, ...

, the son of theologian

Hans Walter Wolff Hans Walter Wolff (December 17, 1911 – October 22, 1993) was a German Protestant theologian. He was professor at the University of Mainz from 1959 to 1967, and from 1967 to 1978 he was Professor of Old Testament at the University of Heidelber ...

. He studied organ and historical keyboard instruments,

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 ...

, and

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

at the Universities of

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian German, East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian language, Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative d ...

, and the Music Academy of Freiburg, receiving a performance diploma in 1963 and a PhD in 1966. Wolff taught music history at Erlangen,

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

, and Columbia Universities before joining the Harvard faculty in 1976 as Professor of Music and retiring in 2014. He was also on the graduate faculty of the Juilliard School from 2010–2018. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Saxon Academy of Sciences, the Akademie für Mozart-Forschung (he chaired it from 1996–2006) and since 2015 a member of the Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and the Arts, he also holds an honorary professorship at the University of Freiburg, Germany.

Publications and media

His books include ''Bach: Essays on His Life and Music'' (Cambridge, 1991), ''Mozart's Requiem'' (Berkeley, 1994), ''The New Bach Reader'' (New York, 1998), ''Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician'', which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 (New York, 2000), and ''Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work'' (W.W. Norton, 2020). In 2013, his ''Mozart at the Gateway to His Fortune'' won an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. Wolff was interviewed about Bach's ''

The Art of Fugue ''The Art of Fugue'', or ''The Art of the Fugue'' (german: Die Kunst der Fuge, links=no), BWV 1080, is an incomplete musical work of unspecified instrumentation by Johann Sebastian Bach. Written in the last decade of his life, ''The Art of Fug ...

'' in the documentary film '' Desert Fugue''.

Awards and recognition

He was awarded the IRC Harrison Medal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland in 2004 and the Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Prize in 2006. Also he was awarded the Dent Medal of the International Musicological Society in 1978, the Humboldt Research Prize in 1996, the Otto Kinkeldey Award of the American Musicological Society in 2000 for ''Johann Sebastian Bach; the Learned Musician''''.''

References

External links

Home page at Harvard University

Home page of the Bach Archive in Leipzig

''Bach & Friends'' documentary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolff, Christoph 1940 births 21st-century conductors (music) American musicologists Bach musicians Bach scholars Columbia University faculty German emigrants to the United States German musicologists Harvard University faculty Hochschule für Musik Freiburg alumni Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Living people People from Belmont, Massachusetts People from Solingen Princeton University faculty Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Winners of the Royal Academy of Music/ Kohn Foundation Bach Prize