Federhofer
Federhofer
Federhofer, Hellmut
(b Graz, 6 Aug 1911). Austrian musicologist. After studying the piano and
theory in Graz he attended the Vienna Music Academy, where he studied under
Richard Stöhr and took a diploma in conducting in 1936. He then studied
privately under Alban Berg, Oswald Jonas and Emil von Sauer. At Vienna
University he studied musicology under Orel and Lach, and in 1936 he took the
doctorate there with a dissertation on chordal and harmonic structure in early
motets of the Trent Codices. In 1937 he became state librarian in the Austrian
library service. He completed the Habilitation in 1944 at Graz University with a
study of musical form. He then taught there as a lecturer and from 1951 as
professor of musicology. In 1962 he was appointed director of the musicology
institute of Mainz University. As an editor he has been in charge of the series
Musik Alter Meister (1949–80) and the Mainzer Studien zur Musikwissenschaft
(1967–85), the Fux collected edition (1955–67; from 1986), to which he has
contributed several volumes, and Acta musicologica (1962–86). He retired from
his university post in 1980. He was awarded the Österreichisches Ehrenkreuz
für Musikwissenschaft und Kunst in 1959 and was made an honorary member
of the Zentralinstitut für Mozartforschung in 1981.
Federhofer ranks as one of the most important musicologists of postwar
Austria. In addition to the contributions he has made to music scholarship
through his work as an editor, he has written monographs on subjects ranging
from early medieval sources to the theories of Schenker. His writings may be
grouped into roughly five categories: his early publications on the late Middle
Ages, his writings on the local music history of southern Austria (particularly
Graz), his articles on Baroque music treatises, his work on Fux, and his later
publications on 20th-century music and music theory (particularly the theories of
Schenker and Adorno).
His wife, Renate Federhofer-Königs (b Cologne, 4 Jan 1930), studied
musicology in Cologne with Fellerer and Hüschen and obtained the doctorate
there in 1957 with the dissertation J. Oridryus und sein Musiktraktat (Düsseldorf
1557) (Cologne, 1957). She has also published articles in the
Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch on music theory from the 14th century to the
16th, a book on Wasielewsky’s correspondence (Tutzing, 1975), and articles on
correspondence sent to Mendelssohn and Schumann.
WRITINGS
Akkordik und Harmonik in frühen Motetten der Trienter Codices (diss., U. of
Vienna, 1944)
Musikalische Form als Ganzheit (Habilitationsschrift, U. of Graz, 1944; Beiträge
zur musikalischen Gestaltanalyse, Graz, Vienna and Innsbruck, 1950)
‘Eine neue Quelle der musica reservata’, AcM, xxiv (1952), 32–45
‘Graz Court Musicians and their Contributions to the Parnassus musicus
Ferdinandaeus (1615)’, MD, ix (1955), 167–244
‘Zur handschriftlichen Überlieferung der Musiktheorie in Österreich in der
zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts’, Mf, xi (1958), 264–79
‘Unbekannte Kirchenmusik von Johann Joseph Fux’, KJb, xliii (1959), 113–54
‘Marco Scacchis “Cribrum musicum” (1643) und die Kompositionslehre von
Christoph Bernhard’, Festschrift Hans Engel, ed. H. Heussner (Kassel,
1964), 76–90
‘Ein Salzburger Theoretikerkreis’, AcM, xxxvi (1964), 50–79
Musikpflege und Musiker am Grazer Habsburgerhof der Erzherzöge Karl und
Ferdinand von Innerösterreich (1564–1619) (Mainz, 1967)
‘Die Dissonanzbehandlung in Monteverdis kirchenmusikalischen Werken und
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