Peter John Branscombe (7 December 1929 in Sittingbourne,

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

– 31 December 2008 in St Andrews, Scotland) was an English academic in German studies, a musicologist, and a writer on Austrian cultural history.

Career

Branscombe attended Dulwich College where he showed talent as

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

player. Having served his military service in Vienna, Austria, he studied literature at Worcester College, Oxford. There, he became acquainted with notable Austrian émigrés such as the composer Egon Wellesz and the musicologist Otto Erich Deutsch. In 1959 Branscombe joined the University of St Andrews' faculty of German Studies, a post he kept until the end of his life. In 1979, he founded St Andrews' Institute for Austrian Studies, the only such research facility in the United Kingdom. His interests included the popular theatre of the Biedermeier and the Viennese suburban theatre with authors like Raimund and

Nestroy Johann Nepomuk Eduard Ambrosius Nestroy (; 7 December 1801 – 25 May 1862) was a singer, actor and playwright in the popular Austrian tradition of the Biedermeier period and its immediate aftermath. He participated in the 1848 revolutions and ...

. He wrote works on Joseph Haydn, Mozart and Schubert. Over many years, he wrote reviews of concerts and recordings and contributed to ''

The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'' and the '' Wagner-Handbuch'' (''Wagner Handbook'') where he researched many forgotten composers of the 19th century. Branscombe also translated poems by Heinrich Heine and academic texts. Between 1996 and 2001, Branscombe edited six '' Possen'' for the historical-critical edition of Nestroy's complete works. He was married to German studies academic Marina Branscombe and they had three children.

Selected works

* Unpublished dissertation in two volumes: ''The connexions between drama and music in the Viennese popular theatre from the opening of the Leopoldstädter Theater (1781) to Nestroy's opera parodies (ca 1855), with special reference to the forms of parody'', 1976,

Wiener Stadtbibliothek The Wienbibliothek im Rathaus ( en, Vienna Library in City Hall), formerly known as the ''Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek'' ( en, Vienna City and State Library), is a library and archive containing important documents related to the history of V ...

* '' Heinrich Heine – Selected Verse by Heine.'' Translated by Peter Branscombe. Penguin Books. 1967/1968. * ''Austrian Life and Literature, 1780–1938''. Eight essays. Scottish Academic Press 1978. * ''Schubert Studies. Problems of Style and Chronology.'' (with Eva Badura-Skoda) Cambridge 1978, * ''W. A. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte.'' Cambridge Opera Handbooks. Cambridge 1991, * Numerous contributions and reviews in: ''Forum for Modern Language Studies'', ''Austrian Studies'', ''Nestroyana''

References

External links

*Translated Penguin Book - at
Penguin First Editions
reference site of early first edition Penguin Books. {{DEFAULTSORT:Branscombe, Peter 1929 births 2008 deaths People from Sittingbourne People educated at Dulwich College Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford Academics of the University of St Andrews English philologists English writers about music Germanists English musicologists Theatrologists 20th-century British musicologists