Erwin Ratz
Erwin Ratz ( born December 22, 1898 in Graz, Styria, † December 12, 1973 in Vienna ) was an Austrian music theorist and musicologist.
Biography
Ratz studied from 1918 to 1922 with Guido Adler at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Vienna. At the same time, from 1917 to 1920, he attended the seminar for composition with Arnold Schoenberg. For Schoenberg's circle of students included, among other, the pianist Olga Novakovic and Hanns Eisler, with whom Ratz was a friend. For Ratz Schoenberg was the central figure of his youth. The lessons from him was one of the key foundations of Ratz ' thinking. In order to present the work of Schoenberg to a wide audience, he organized in 1918 " ten public rehearsals to Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony ," a series of events from which the "Society for Private Musical Performances " emerged in November 1918.
Financial problems led Ratz in 1921 to accept a job as a secretary at the Bauhaus in Weimar. For Ratz this time intense artistic life was extremely formative. The variety and richness of impressions and the art comprehensive live entertainment at the Bauhaus, which included an interest in the latest musical developments were among the decisive impulses of his life. 1923 there is a return to Vienna. After the Second World War Ratz took over in 1945 a lectureship in the form of teaching at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. In 1957 he received the title of professor. From 1949 to 1968 he was involved (from 1952 in a management position ) in the Austrian section of the International Society of New Music ( ISCM ).
International reputation gained Ratz as president, founded in 1955 Gustav Mahler Society. Among his music-theoretical and scientific works particularly the publication of the complete edition of Gustav Mahler and the introduction to the musical form teaching is emphasized. Herein comes Ratz from the idea of " archetype ", which lay all musical forms based on analogy to the " archetypal plant in the theory of metamorphosis " of Goethe. A fugue is by Ratz of three, connected by interludes bushings; that hardly add examples from the literature which does not alter this " idea of Fugue". And by Ratz ' morphology only Bach and Beethoven from reciprocal perspective considered - to show that Bach's Inventions and Beethoven's piano sonatas are based on joint work basics - he's all ultimately about finding principles which are common to all forms.
Writings
- Introduction to the musical form teaching. About principles of form in the Inventions J. S. Bach and their significance for the composition technique Beethoven, Universal Edition, Vienna 1951, ISMN M -008- 06827-0