Johannes Wolf (1869–1947) 1927 © Georg Fayer (1891–1950) OeNB 10453817

Johannes Wolf (17 April 1869 – 25 May 1947) was a German musicologist, archivist and teacher, known for his research on

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

and Renaissance music, particularly Ars Nova, and early music

notation In linguistics and semiotics, a notation is a system of graphics or symbols, characters and abbreviated expressions, used (for example) in artistic and scientific disciplines to represent technical facts and quantities by convention. Therefore, ...

. Born in Berlin, Wolf studied

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 ...

under

Philip Spitta Julius August Philipp Spitta (27 December 1841 – 13 April 1894) was a German music historian and musicologist best known for his 1873 biography of Johann Sebastian Bach. Life He was born in , near Hoya, and his father, also called Philip ...

and Heinrich Bellermann at the Friedrich Wilhelm University. He completed his doctorate at the

Berlin University 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 ...

in 1902. Wolf is viewed as one of the last great universal musicologists of the twentieth century, his published researches and editions ranging from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

to the

Romantic period Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

. He devoted particular attention to music of the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

, the history of music theory and the interpretation of Ars Nova notation. He died in Munich aged 78.

Selected publications

*''Geschichte der Mensural-Notation von 1250–1460''. Leipzig 1904 *''Handbuch der Notationskunde''. 2 vol. Leipzig 1913–1919 *''Geschichte der Musik in allgemeinverständlicher Form''. 3 vol., Leipzig 1925–1929 *''Musikalische Schrifttafeln''. Bückeburg/Leipzig 1927

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolf, Johannes 20th-century German musicologists 1869 births 1947 deaths Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Musicologists from Berlin