Max Seiffert

Max Seiffert ( born February 9, 1868 in Beeskow, † April 13, 1948 in Schleswig ) was a German musicologist and editor of early music.

Life

Seiffert, the son of a teacher, studied in Berlin with Philipp Spitta. His dissertation was titled Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and its direct German students (Berlin, 1891). As permanent secretary of the Prussian Monuments Commission Seiffert was in 1892 the first volume of the monuments German musical art (DDT ) out. In Berlin he taught since 1909 at the University of Music and at the Academy of church and school music. In 1928 he was awarded an honorary doctorate ( Dr. theol. Hc ), Christian- Albrechts -University of Kiel.

After the " seizure of power" of the Nazis, he was from 1935 a member of the NSDAP. From 1935 to 1942 Seiffert was director of the National Institute for German Music Research, which he had led since 1921 as acting as a Princely Research Institute for Musicology in Biickeburg. His successor was Hans Albrecht, who headed the institute until its closure in 1944. In 1938 he was awarded the Goethe Medal for Art and Science.

After the Second World War he lived in Schleswig, where he died in 1948.

Work

Seiffert's importance for musicology lies in its diverse publishing activities. Among other things, he edited works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann and Johann Philipp Krieger, Liebhold, Leopold Mozart, Johann Pachelbel, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Telemann, Franz Tunder, Samuel Scheidt, Johann Gottfried Walther, Matthias Weckmann and Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow.

Letters from Max Seiffert are in stock at the Leipzig music publisher CF Peters in Leipzig State Archives.