Hugo Leichtentritt

Hugo Leichtentritt (born in Pleschen, now Pleszew, 1874; died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1951) was a German musicologist, critic and composer whose career spans Wilhelmine Germany and the American academic world of the mid-twentieth century. He is of interest above all for the uncommon combination of philological rigour, journalistic activity and original creative output, at a time when these three strands were usually kept apart.

His training was doubly transatlantic. At the age of fifteen he moved to the United States, where he studied liberal arts at Harvard and composition with John Knowles Paine. He then completed his training in Paris and at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, and later studied music history and aesthetics at the University of Berlin, where he gained his doctorate in 1901 with a dissertation on the operas of Reinhard Keiser. For two decades he taught composition, history and aesthetics at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin, gave private lessons, and wrote criticism for several German and foreign publications, among them the Vossische Zeitung and Die Musik. His creative work, which includes the comic opera Die Sizilianer (1920), concertos, song cycles, chamber music and a symphony, enjoyed a certain success in Germany. He also maintained a close friendship with Busoni and Reger.

In 1933 he emigrated to the United States at Harvard's invitation, where he taught until his retirement in 1940, and afterwards taught at Radcliffe and New York University. There he hoped to establish himself as a composer, but the lukewarm reception of his music caused him profound disappointment. As a critic his expectations were fulfilled only in part, and as a musicologist his categorical tone and frankness of expression may have damaged his reputation.

His legacy is chiefly written. His Geschichte der Motette (1908) was based on the analysis of more than six hundred manuscript motets, and his book on Handel (1924) offered an overview of the composer's output, including operas and oratorios that were then largely unperformed. Synthetic works such as Music, History, and Ideas (1938) and Music of the Western Nations (1956) relate music to culture, philosophy, religion and social conditions. After his death, his library passed to the University of Utah and his manuscripts to the Library of Congress.