Günter Mayer (6 November 1930 – 2 September 2010) was a German cultural academic and

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

Activities

Born in Berlin, Mayer dealt with

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

music aesthetics Aesthetics of music is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, beauty and taste in music, and with the creation or appreciation of beauty in music. In the pre-modern tradition, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics explo ...

and music sociology, general theory of culture and art, media theory and media aesthetics. From 1980 to 1994 he was professor at the

Humboldt University The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public university, public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III of Prussia, Frederick W ...

in Berlin. He was the editor of the collected works of

Hanns Eisler Hanns Eisler (6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was a German-Austrian composer. He is best known for composing the national anthem of East Germany, for his long artistic association with Bertolt Brecht, and for the scores he wrote for films. The ...

, published in three volumes, and the planned historical-critical complete edition of Eisler's works. Mayer was a member of the scientific advisory boards of the ''

Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus ''Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus'' (HKWM) (in English: ''Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism'') is a major international German-language encyclopedia of Marxism. It is published by the Berlin Institute of Critical Theory (In ...

'' and the journal ''The Argument'' and since 2007 deputy chairman of the .

Achievements

Hanns-Werner Heister Hanns-Werner Heister (born 14 June 1946) is a German musicologist. Life and career Born in Plochingen, (Baden-Württemberg), Heister studied musicology, German literature and linguistics in Tübingen, Frankfurt a. M. and Berlin, received his doc ...

, with whom Mayer has worked for a long time, highlights as conceptual innovations the "dialectics of material" of the artistic avant-garde; the "contradiction between utility value and design value" in aesthetic evaluation; language as a non-technical concept of the mass medium; mass culture as a dialectical relationship between culture, subject and masses; technical production and reproduction through electrification and digitalization as the real revolution of music in the 20th century. Besides

Georg Knepler Georg Knepler (21 December 1906 – 14 January 2003) was an Austrian pianist, Conducting, conductor and musicologist. Life Born in Vienna, Knepler was a son of the composer and librettist and nephew of the music publisher and impresario . He ...

, Mayer was in 1978 in his book ''Weltbild, Notenbild'' one of the first, who in the GDR admonished a differentiated reception of the theories of

Theodor W. Adorno Theodor W. Adorno ( ; ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, musicologist, and social theorist. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work has com ...

, who had long been perceived as alleged anti-Marxist and therefore rejected.

Gerd Rienäcker Gerd Rienäcker (3 May 1939 – 3 February 2018) was a German musicologist. Life Rienäcker was born on 3 May 1939 in Göttingen as son of the chemist . Rienäcker studied musicology from 1959 to 1964 (minor subject: "art science'") with Ernst ...

: ''Konzepte Marxistischer Musikhistoreographie, Errungenschaften und Probleme''. In G. Mayer, W.M. Stroh (ed.): ''Musikwissenschaftlicher Paradigmenwechsel?'' Oldenburg 2006

Publications

* ''Die Kategorie des musikalischen Materials in den ästhetischen Anschauungen Hanns Eislers. Zur Entwicklung der Theorie und Geschichte des sozialistischen Realismus im Bereich der marxistischen Musikästhetik''. Berlin 1970 * ''Über die Spezifik des ästhetischen Verhältnisses. Ein Beitrag zu weltanschaulich-methodologischen Grundfragen der marxistisch-leninistischen Ästhetik'', 2 volumes. Dissertation B, Humboldt-Universität, 1977 * ''Weltbild, Notenbild. Zur Dialektik des musikalischen Materials''. Reclam, Leipzig 1978 (Reclams Universal-Bibliothek, volume 767) und Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt 1978, (, volume 75) * ''Zur Theorie des Ästhetischen. Musik – Medien – Kultur – Politik'', ausgewählte Schriften herausgegeben von

. Weidler, Berlin 2006, (Zwischen/Töne, Neue Folge, volume 5
Publisher announcement

Editions

* Hanns Eisler, ''Gesammelte Werke''. Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig ** Volume 1: ''Musik und Politik, Schriften 1924–1948''. 1st edition 1973, 2nd edition 1985 ** VOlume 2: ''Musik und Politik, Schriften 1948–1962''. 1982 ** Volume 3: ''Schriften, Addenda''. 1983 * on behalf of the deutschen Musikrates: ''Tradition in den Musikkulturen – heute und morgen. Bericht über die wissenschaftliche Konferenz des Internationalen Musikrates, 2–4 October 1985 in Berlin''. Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1987, (German, English, French) * on behalf of the Internationalen Hanns-Eisler-Gesellschaft e. V.: ''Hanns Eisler der Zeitgenosse: Positionen – Perspektiven. Materialien zu den Eisler-Festen 1994/95''. Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1997, * with Wolfgang Martin Stroh: ''Musikwissenschaftlicher Paradigmenwechsel? Zum Stellenwert marxistischer Ansätze in der Musikforschung''. BIS-Verlag, Oldenburg 2000, , als
bis.uni-oldenburg.de

Literature

* Hanns-Werner Heister, Günter Mayer, Wolfgang Martin Stroh (ed.): ''Musik-Avantgarde: zur Dialektik von Vorhut und Nachhut. Eine Gedankensammlung für Günter Mayer zum 75. Geburtstag.'' BIS-Verlag, Oldenburg 2006, (German, English, Italian)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mayer, Gunter Marxist theorists 20th-century German musicologists Cultural academics Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin 1930 births 2010 deaths Musicologists from Berlin