Karl Franz Brendel (26 November 1811 – 25 November 1868) was a German music critic, journalist and musicologist born in Stolberg, the son of a successful mining engineer named Christian Friedrich Brendel.

Biography

He was a student at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

, and

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisg ...

up until the year 1840. In 1846 he began teaching

music history Music history, sometimes called historical musicology, is a highly diverse subfield of the broader discipline of musicology that studies music from a historical point of view. In theory, "music history" could refer to the study of the history o ...

at the

Leipzig Conservatory The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig (german: Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig) is a public university in Leipzig (Saxony, Germany). Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn ...

, and in 1852 he published a well-regarded general history of European music. Brendel also published a book on

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

. He was the editor of the ''

Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 'Die'' (; en, " heNew Journal of Music") is a music magazine, co-founded in Leipzig by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke. Its first issue appeared on 3 April 1834. Histo ...

'', taking over in 1845 the position relinquished by

Robert Schumann Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...

(in 1844) and remaining in post until his death in 1868. Brendel coined the phrase ''Neudeutsche Schule'' (

New German School The New German School (german: link=no, Neudeutsche Schule, ) is a term introduced in 1859 by Franz Brendel, editor of the ''Neue Zeitschrift für Musik'', to describe certain trends in German music. Although the term has frequently been used in ...

) to describe the progressive musical movement in Germany headed by Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt in the middle of the nineteenth century. He died in

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 ...

Literature

* Johannes Besser: ''Musikgeschichtler, Musikästhetiker und Musikpolitiker Carl Franz Brendel'' in: Sächsische Heimatblätter Issue 1/1971, pp. 415–419 * Golan Gur: ''Music and ‘Weltanschauung’: Franz Brendel and the Claims of Universal History'' in: Music & Letters Issue 93(3)/2012, pp. 350–373 *

Wendelin Weißheimer Wendelin Weißheimer (26 February 1838 – 16 June 1910) was a German composer, conductor, essayist, teacher, and writer on music. He studied with Franz Liszt and was in close contact with Richard Wagner, Hans von Bülow, Peter Cornelius, Louis ...

: ''Erlebnisse mit Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt und vielen anderen Zeitgenossen'', Stuttgart/Leipzig 1898 *

Don Randel Don Michael Randel (born December 9, 1940) is an American musicologist, specializing in the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Spain and France. He is currently the Chair of the Board of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a trustee ...

: ''The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music''. Harvard 1996, p. 106.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brendel, Franz German music critics 1811 births 1868 deaths 19th-century German journalists German male journalists German journalists 19th-century German male writers 19th-century German musicologists

Biography

Literature

See also

References