Rudolf Gerber

Rudolf Gerber (15 April 1899 – 6 May 1957) was a German musicologist. He was professor and director of the musicology department of the University of Gießen and from 1943 professor of musicology at the University of Göttingen.

Life Born in Flehingen, Gerber, son of the tax secretary Michael Gerber and his wife Friederike, née Streib, already received violin lessons at the Munzsche Konservatorium during his school days in Karlsruhe in the period from 1910 to 1917. From 1918 to 1922 he studied musicology with Hermann Abert, art history with Wilhelm Waetzold and Wilhelm Pinder and philosophy with Johannes Volkelt, F. Krüger and Driesch at the University of Halle and the University of Leipzig. In 1922 Gerber became a doctor with a thesis on The aria in the operas J. A. Hasses. Subsequently, he was assistant at the Music History Department of the Humboldt University of Berlin until 1928. In 1952 he was elected a full member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen.

Gerber, who had already appeared in Nazi Germany in 1935 with an essay on the Aufgaben der Musikwissenschaft im Dritten Reich in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, was admitted to the NSDAP on 17 October 1937, retroactively as of 1 May 1937, and received the membership number 5.863.193.

Gerber worked closely with Herbert Gerigk, who was able to win him for a music encyclopaedia as part of the planned Hohe Schule der NSDAP. Gerber wrote in his acceptance of 3 March 1940 that he could take over the entire Protestant church music from Luther to Bach, as well as the Italian opera of the 18th century, the music of the 15th century and perhaps also the polyphonic music of the Middle Ages.

In the context of his work at the Hauptstelle Musik des Beauftragten des Führers für die Überwachung der gesamten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP (Amt Rosenberg), which was headed by Herbert Gerigk, he was a staff member of Alfred Rosenberg's magazine . In 1942, Gerber stayed in Paris from the end of October to the beginning of November as an employee of the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce

In his self-portrayal in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart volume 4, 1955, he concealed his activities for the NSDAP and only mentioned that he had been a member of the and from 1952 member of the Academy of sciences in Göttingen war. Gütersloh 1929

Johannes Brahms, Potsdam 1938 Christoph Willibald Gluck, Potsdam 1941, 2nd extended edition 1950. Christoph Willibald Gluck. Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, Munich, 1950 Bachs Brandenburgische Konzerte: Eine Einführung in ihre formale und geistige Wesensart. Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel, Basel, 1951 Zur Geschichte des mehrstimmigen Hymnus: Gesammelte Aufsätze. Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel, Basel, Paris, London, New York, 1965