Alfred Dürr
Encyclopedia
Alfred Dürr was a German musicologist. He was a principal editor of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe
Neue Bach-Ausgabe
The Neue Bach-Ausgabe is the second complete edition of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, published by Bärenreiter. The name is short for Johann Sebastian Bach: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke...

, the second edition of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

.

Professional career

Dürr studied musicology
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

 and Classical philology
Classical philology
Classical philology is the study of ancient Greek and classical Latin. Classical philology has been defined as "the careful study of the literary and philosophical texts of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds." Greek and Latin literature and civilization have traditionally been considered...

 at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen from 1945 to 1950. He wrote his thesis about Bach's early cantata
Bach cantata
Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....

s. From 1962 until 1983 he was the director of the Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Institut in Göttingen
Göttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...

. Dürr received honorary doctorates of music from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 and Baldwin–Wallace College
Baldwin–Wallace College
Baldwin–Wallace College is a liberal arts college in Berea, Ohio, founded in 1845. It is home to the Riemenschneider-Bach Institute and the Baldwin–Wallace Conservatory of Music, an internationally renowned music school. The college is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Students receive a...

 in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

. His 65th birthday was marked by a Festschrift Bachiana et alia musicologica (ed. W. Rehm, Kassel, 1983).

Research and editing

Dürr researched the works of Bach, especially the history of his works concluded from the sources. He was a principal editor of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe
Neue Bach-Ausgabe
The Neue Bach-Ausgabe is the second complete edition of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, published by Bärenreiter. The name is short for Johann Sebastian Bach: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke...

, the second complete edition of Bach's works, a historical-critical edition based on the sources, published between 1954 and 2007. The musicologist John Butt
John A Butt
John A Butt is an orchestral and choral conductor, organist, harpsichordist and scholar who has held the Gardiner Chair of Music at the University of Glasgow since 2001, and has led the Dunedin Consort, a professional vocal ensemble centered in Edinburgh, since 2003.-Biography:John Butt was born...

 remarked:
If one had to single out the scholar who has done most to establish the new chronology of Bach's vocal works and who appears most often as an editor within the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, this would surely have to be Dürr.


His "painstaking work" changed the chronology of Bach's works, especially his cantata
Bach cantata
Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....

s. From 1953 to 1974 Dürr was editor of the Bach-Jahrbuch (Bach almanach), together with Werner Neumann
Werner Neumann
Werner Neumann was a German musicologist. He founded the Bach-Archiv Leipzig on 20 November 1950 and was a principal editor of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, the second edition of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.- Professional career :Neumann studied at the Conservatory of Leipzig from 1928 to...

, the founder and director of the Bach-Archiv Leipzig
Bach-Archiv Leipzig
The Bach-Archiv Leipzig or Bach-Archiv is the institution for the documentation and research of life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, where Bach lived from 1723 until his death. Topic of research is also the Bach family, especially their music...

. Dürr wrote standard works on the Bach cantata
Bach cantata
Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....

s (1971) and on The Well-Tempered Clavier
The Well-Tempered Clavier
The Well-Tempered Clavier , BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach...

, which are of interest not only to specialists, but also to the general public. In 1957 he published in the Bach-Jahrbuch Zur Chronologie der Leipziger Vokalwerke J. S. Bachs. In 1988 his book on Bach's St John Passion, Die Johannes-Passion von Johann Sebastian Bach, he explored theological aspects as well as the four versions of the work. He expanded his thesis Studien über die frühen Kantaten J. S. Bachs, originally published in Leipzig in 1951, in 1977.

Alfred Dürr died on 7 April 2011 in Göttingen.

Selected publications


External links

  • Alfred Dürr International Who's Who in Music and Musicians' Directory
  • Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht and Konrad Küster. "Dürr, Alfred". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online.
  • Alfred Dürr Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, Konrad Küster
  • Alfred Dürr encyclopedia.com
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