Curt Sachs

Curt Sachs was born in Berlin on June 29, 1881 and died in New York on February 5, 1959. He was a German musicologist, instrument researcher, art historian and founder of scientific instrumentology. Together with Erich Moritz von Hornbostel, he developed the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system for the classification of musical instruments.

Life

Curt Sachs was born in Berlin, the son of Louis Eduard Sachs and his wife Anna Sachs, née Fröhlich. As the son of a Jewish family of Berlin factory owners, Sachs attended the French Gymnasium and received lessons in piano, theory and composition. From 1900, he studied art history and musicology at the Königliche Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin and completed his doctorate in 1904 with Carl Frey on the sculptures of Andrea del Verrocchio.

He wrote his dissertation in 1904 under Carl Frey on a sculpture by Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. He continued his musicological studies with Hermann Kretzschmar and Johannes Wolf. From 1905 to 1907, he worked at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin and, together with Ernst Jaffé, founded the review organ “Monatshefte der kunstwissenschaftlichen Literatur”.

From 1908, he devoted himself exclusively to music. Sachs wrote numerous books on rhythm, dance and musical instruments. His 1913 work “Reallexicon der Musikinstrumente” is considered to be the most influential encyclopaedia on historical and worldwide musical instruments. From June 1917 to December 1918, he was called up for military service and worked in military intelligence.

Curt Sachs habilitated at the University of Berlin in 1919 with the work “Handbuch der Musikinstrumentenkunde”. On December 1, 1919, he was appointed to head the collection of old musical instruments at the Staatliche akademische Hochschule für Musik in Berlin-Charlottenburg, now the Musikinstrumenten-Museum SIMPK (Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung Preußischer Kulturbesitz), initially as a substitute and then permanently as an associate professor.

This took place after the retirement of his predecessor Oskar Fleischer on September 30, 1920. During the habilitation process, Sachs was awarded the title of professor at the request of the Directorate General of the Prussian State Museums. From 1921 he worked as an associate professor and from 1928 as a full professor at the university. From 1926, he also taught instrumentology at the State Academy for Church and School Music in Berlin. In 1930, he spent two months in Cairo as a consultant to the Institute for Oriental Music.

Due to his Jewish origins, Sachs was dismissed from the civil service in September 1933 on racial grounds. After his plan to emigrate to the USA immediately failed, he initially emigrated to Paris in 1933 with the support of a Rockefeller scholarship and the Alliance Israélite Universelle. There he worked as a research assistant at the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro.

It was not until August 1937 that he was able to move to New York with his family due to his appointment as a visiting professor at New York University. In addition to his teaching activities, he worked as a consultant for the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. From 1950 to 1952 Sachs was President of the American Musicological Society and from 1953 Associate Professor at Columbia University in New York. He retired from New York University in 1957.

Curt Sachs was an outstanding musicologist and one of the most productive of his time. He coined the art-historical concept of the Baroque for music as well. His studies were based on an extensive collection of historical-morphological documents and excerpted literature. Together with Erich Moritz von Hornbostel he developed the leading Hornbostel-Sachs classification system for classification of musical instruments. His work “Geist und Werden der Musikinstrumente” (Spirit and Development of Musical Instruments) offered a chronology of musical instruments from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages based on cultural geography. Sachs accepted the new mass media, in particular the recordand contributed to the dissemination of musicological knowledge, for example by publishing the record series “2000 Jahre Musik auf der Schallplatte”.

His book “The History of Musical Instruments” (1940) is a standard work in this field. He received numerous awards for his outstanding achievements, including an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Berlin and the “Curt Sachs Award” from the American Musical Instrument Society.

Publications

• Musikgeschichte der Stadt Berlin bis zum Jahre 1800, published by Gebrüder Paetel, Berlin 1908 (digital copy).
• Reallexicon der Musikinstrumente. Berlin 1913 (digitized version).
• with Erich M. von Hornbostel: Systematics of musical instruments. An attempt. In: Journal of Ethnology. Vol. 46, 1914, pp. 553-590 (digitized version).
• The musical instruments of India and Indonesia. Also an introduction to the study of instruments. Berlin 1915, 2nd edition: Berlin 1923.
• The Jew’s Harp. A typological preliminary study. In: Journal of Ethnology, 1917.
• Handbuch der Musikinstrumentenkunde. (Habilitationsschrift) Leipzig 1920, 2nd edition: Leipzig 1930; reprint: Olms, Hildesheim 1967.
• Collection of old musical instruments at the Berlin State Academy of Music. Descriptive catalog. Julius Bard, Berlin 1922 (digitized version).
• The musical instruments. Wroclaw 1923.
• Music of antiquity. Wroclaw 1924.
• The music of antiquity. (= Ernst Bücken (ed.): Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft, vol. 6). Potsdam 1928 (digitized version)
• The spirit and development of musical instruments. Berlin 1929.
• Comparative musicology in its basic features. Leipzig 1930; 2nd revised edition: Vergleichende Musikwissenschaft: Musik der Fremdkulturen. Heidelberg 1959; 3rd edition: Wilhelmshaven 1974.
• A world history of dance. Berlin 1933, English: World History of the Dance. New York 1937.
• Les Instruments de musique de Madagascar. Paris 1938.
• The history of musical instruments. New York 1940.
• The rise of music in the Ancient world: East and West. New York 1943.
• Rhythm and Tempo. A Study in Music History. New York 1953.
• The Wellsprings of Music. Edited by Jaap Kunst. The Hague 1962.

Literature

• Lieder f. e. Singstimme mit Pianoforte (Berlin n. d.);
• – Writings
• a. o.: Musikgesch. d. Stadt Berlin bis z. J. 1800, 1908, repr. 1980;
• Music and opera at the Kurbrandenburg. Court, 1910, repr. 1977;
• Real-Lex. d. Musikinstrumente zugleich e. Polyglossar f. d. gesamte Instrumentengebiet, 1913, Nachdr. 1979;
• Systematik d. Musikinstrumente, Ein Versuch, in: Zs. f. Ethnol. 46, 1914, H. 4/5, pp. 554-90 (with E. M. v. Hornbostel) (Engl. transl. by A. Baines and K. P. Wachsmann, in: Galpin Soc. Journal 14, 1961, pp. 3-29);
• Die Musikinstrumente Indiens u. Indonesiens, zugleich e. Eint, in d. Instrumentenkunde, 1915, ²1923, reprint 1983;
• Handbuch der Musikinstrumentenkunde, 1920, 1930, reprint 1976;
• The musical instruments of ancient Egypt, 1921;
• Collection of old musical instruments at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik zu Berlin, descriptive catalog, 1922;
• Music of antiquity, 1924;
• Geist und Werden der Musikinstrumente, 1929 (on this R. Lachmann, in: Zs. f. Musikwiss. 12, 1929/30, S. 494-97;
• Albrecht Schneider, Musikwiss. u. Kulturkreislehre, Zur Methodik u. Gesch. d. Vergleichenden Musikwiss., 1976, esp. pp. 78-90);
• Eine Weltgesch. d. Tanzes, 1933 (French, English, Italian, Japanese, Slovenian transl.), repr. 1984 u. 1992;
• La signification, la tache et la technique muséographique des collections d’instruments de musique, in: Mouseion 8, 1934, no. III-IV, vols. 27/28, pp. 153-84;
• Paul Frank, Wilhelm Altmann: Kurzgefasstes Tonkünstler Lexikon. Gustav Bosse, Regensburg 1936;
• The hist. of musical instruments, 1940 (Polish transl.);
• The rise of music in the ancient world east and west, 1943, transl. and t: Die Musik d. alten Welt in Ost u. West, 1968 (Japanese and Polish transl.);
• The Commonwealth of art, 1946;
• Our musical heritage, A short hist. of music, 1948, ²1955, repr. 1978;
• Rhythm and tempo, 1953 (Japanese transl.), repr. 1988;
• Kurt Hahn: List of Curt Sachs’ scientific works. In: Acta Musicologica, vol. 29, no. 2/3, April-September 1957, pp. 94-106.
• A. Lüderwaldt, The ‘sociolog. Gesichtspunkt’ in d. Instrumentenkunde, in: Mitt. d. Dt. Ges. f. Musik d. Orients 13, 1975, pp. 5-38;
• C. Sprague Smith, C. S. and the Library Mus. of the Performing Arts, in: Musica Judaica 4, 1981/82, No. 1, pp. 9-19;
• Gabriele Busch-Salmen: A portrait of musicians. C. H. Beck, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-406-08454-0.
• The Commonwealth of music, In honor of C. S. ed. by G. Reese and R. Brandel, 1965 (therein esp. H.-H. Draeger. C. S. as an ethnomusicologist, pp. 10-25;
• L. Schrade, G. S. as a historian, pp. 1-9, P);
• A. Berner, Die alte Musikinstrumenten-Slg. in Berlin, in: Wege z. Musik, ed. v. Staatl. Inst. f. Musikforsch. Pruss. Kulturbes. 1984, pp. 11-122, esp. pp. 68-111 (P);
• Darryl Lyman: Great Jews in Music. Jonathan David Publishers, New York 1986, ISBN 0-8246-0315-X.
• M. Eiste, MA auf alten Schallplatten, Die Anfänge d. Rekonstruktion ma. Musizierpraxis, in: MA-Rezeption III, Ges. Vortr. d. 3. Salzburger Symposion: MA, Massenmedien, Neue Mythen, 1988, pp. 421-36;
• s., Bildungsware Alte Musik, C. S. als Schallplattenpäd., in: Basler Jb. f. Hist. Musikpraxis 13 (1989), 1990, pp. 207-47;
• Stanley Sadie, John Tyrrell (eds.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2nd ed. Macmillan, London 2001;
• Martin Elste: Sachs, Curt. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2, p. 335 f. (digitized version).
• Florence Gétreau: Curt Sachs and his Contribution to the Museology of Music. Symposium: Sound, Thought, Instrument. Curt Sachs and musicology today. State Institute for Music Research Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin, September 2006, pp. 99-109.
• Wolfgang Behrens, Martin Elste, Frauke Fitzner (eds.): Vom Sammeln, Klassifizieren und Interpretieren. The destroyed diversity of Curt Sachs. Schott, Mainz 2017, ISBN 978-3-7957-1284-6 (with bibliography).
• Martin Elste, Carsten Schmidt (eds.): 2000 Jahre Musik auf der Schallplatte – Two Thousand Years of Music. Early music anno 1930. A discological documentation on the history of interpretation. Society for Historical Recordings, Vienna 2018, ISBN 978-3-9502906-3-9.

Awards

• President of the American Musicological Soc. (1950-52);
• Dr. of Hebrew Letters (Hebrew Union College, New York School 1950);
• Dr. phil. h. c. (FU Berlin 1956);
• Honorary member of the Society for Music Research (1956);
• Honorary President of the Soc. for Ethnomusicology (1956);
• Curt Sachs Award of the American Musical Instrument Society (since 1983);
• “Curt-Sachs-Saal” at the Museum of Musical Instruments in Berlin (since 1985).