Research

As part of further work by Prof. Dr. Tobias Robert Klein on the history of musicology, a conference on the legacy of a central figure in the field took place at the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart in November 2025. Hermann Abert, born in 1871 in Stuttgart and deceased there in 1927, is not only one of the most important protagonists of the definitive establishment of the field as an academic discipline around and after 1900 as a Mozart biographer. For a long time, autobiographical records preserved in five black school notebooks from the musicologist's estate, which offer, in addition to their source value for the early history of the field, a depressing insight into the anti-democratic and anti-Semitic thinking of a major humanities professor at the beginning of the Weimar Republic, remained almost unnoticed.

The lectures by Michael Heinemann, Caroline Krahn, Lars Klingberg, Panja Mücke, Alexander Lotzow, Carsten Kretschmann, and Tobias Robert Klein, dedicated to the cultural and historical classification of Abert's notes, are currently being prepared for publication in the Stuttgart Musicological Writings series.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Tobias Robert Klein

The focus on a single year allows for an unusual intensity of research and accuracy in dealing with historical contexts. At the same time, it is, so to speak, a historiographical experiment: While music historiography otherwise glosses over entire epochs, genres, or styles relatively generously, here we approach a perspective that comes relatively close to "reliving" past worlds. For example, it would be possible to reconstruct what could be heard in a concert on any given day in a city like Berlin, Paris, or St. Petersburg – or in the opera, variety theater, and ballroom. A specific historical moment is condensed into a "sonic image."

This is associated with a number of interesting methodological consequences: For example, it is clear that a "sonic image" does not only encompass the history of composition but also stations of the history of musical interpretation. The "synchronic cut" includes both "high" and "low," serious and entertaining music – with unexpected alliances and transitions between the genres included. The perspective of simultaneity forces the historian to think of music in conjunction with political and cultural historical situations, as well as developments in the other arts. On the other hand, the radical temporal limitation allows, spatially possibly far removed venues and events to be related to one another.

1913 was a special year, if you will: a "star hour" of musical avant-garde. Names like Claude Debussy, Alexander Scriabin, Arnold Schoenberg, Charles Ives, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Lili Boulanger, and many others, who wrote or performed key works this year, stand for this. But how did such a concentration come about? Or is it merely an illusory effect, due to the "selective perception" of previous music histories? And how did other participants experience the year 1913?

"Echoraum 1913" deals with phenomena of the avant-garde, the history of musical everyday life, and (in excerpts) non-European music: composition and interpretation, spectacular highlights and established repertoire, international stars, outsiders, and developments in hiding. As is well known, not only written sources but also sound documents, photographs, and even films are preserved from the period under study. This is associated with special opportunities – and challenges – for the presentation. The question is also how the chronicler of 1913 deals with the knowledge of 1914, i.e., the awareness of describing cultural worlds doomed to perdition.

A larger monographic publication and a series of smaller "satellite projects" in the closer thematic vicinity are planned.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Andreas Meyer

The fact that music is composed by well-known authors, recorded in writing, and possibly handed down for centuries, was anything but self-evident until the Early Modern period. "Cultural memory" in music is an exceptional case, far more so than in poetry or visual arts. This is already true for the idea of music history itself, which only gradually grew from "catalogs of inventors" in the course of European humanism. Today, however, at least the culture of "classical" music is perceived essentially historically (and organized not least around composers' anniversaries).

The research focus is connected to the theory of "cultural memory," which was developed in Germany primarily by Jan and Aleida Assmann. Especially in the example of music history, the extremely selective nature of cultural memory can be demonstrated. The narrow excerpt of what is present in today's society's "functional memory" (and, for example, taught at a music conservatory) contrasts with an unfathomable sediment of submerged musical past—partly still contained in the "storage memory," e.g., of a library or archive, but partly excluded from any reconstruction due to lack of transmission.

The selectivity of memory is critically addressed today in the debate about musical canon formation or ideological motives in the writing of music history. A better understanding of the mechanisms of memory and forgetting is also to be understood as a contribution to this discussion. Using changing examples from music history, the difficulties of historical transmission itself, possible circumstances of the establishment and revision of "canonical" content, and the changing media requirements are to be reflected upon.

Not least, musical listening is also a paradigm of memory and forgetting. Even the task of remembering a not entirely simple melody poses virtually insoluble problems for many people. Yet precisely the ephemerality of music and the "presence experience" in dealing with it can also be understood as a specific quality—much in contrast to earlier models, e.g., of "expert" or "remote listening," which demand special memory performances in dealing with music.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Hendrikje Mautner-Obst / Prof. Dr. Andreas Meyer

Previous publications on the subject:

• Hendrikje Mautner-Obst, Audiovisuelle Mozart-Bilder. Studien zur Musikvermittlung (in Vorbereitung).
• Hendrikje Mautner-Obst, „Franz Werfel und Giuseppe Verdi: Umdeutungen und Neudeutungen in erinnerungskulturellem Kontext“, in: Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 68 (2013),H. 1, S. 14–22.
• Hendrikje Mautner-Obst, „Verdi-Wissen. Wissensfelder in Franz Werfels Roman Verdi und ihre Bedeutung für die deutsche Verdi-Renaissance der 1920er Jahre“, in: Verdi-Reception, hrsg. von Lorenzo Frassà und Michela Niccolai, Turnhout 2013, S. 119–136.
• Hendrikje Mautner-Obst, „‚Musik der Erinnerung‘. Nigel Osbornes I am Goya als Medium des kulturellen Gedächtnisses“, in: Diskussion Musikpädagogik (2010), H. 45, S. 7–11.
• Andreas Meyer, „Bleibende Werke? Aspekte der Herausbildung eines Kanons neuer Musik in Darmstadt“, in: Wolfgang Birtel/Christoph-Hellmut Mahling (Hrsg.), „Dauerkrise in Darmstadt“? Neue Musik in Darmstadt und ihre Rezeption am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts (Beiträge zur mittelrheinischen Musikgeschichte 43), Mainz u. a. 2012, S. 164–178.
• Andreas Meyer (Hrsg.), Was bleibt? 100 Jahre Neue Musik (Stuttgarter Musikwissenschaftliche Schriften 1), Mainz 2011.
• Andreas Meyer, „Komponisten-Motette als historischer Raum. Zu Nicolas Gomberts Musae Iovis“, in: Die Kunst des Übergangs. Musik aus Musik in der Renaissance, hrsg. von Nicole Schwindt (Trossinger Jahrbuch für Renaissancemusik 7), Kassel u. a. 2008, S. 133–154.
• Andreas Meyer, „Von Erfindern, Jahreszahlen und letzten Dingen. Calvisius als Historiker der Musik“, in: Gesine Schröder (Hrsg.), Tempus musicae – tempus mundi. Untersuchungen zu Seth Calvisius (Studien zur Geschichte der Musiktheorie 4), Hildesheim u. a. 2008, S. 153–171.
• Andreas Meyer, „Fixierung des Flüchtigen? Zum Musikbegriff bei Marcel Proust“, in: Reiner Speck/ Michael Maar (Hrsg.), Marcel Proust. Zwischen Belle Époque und Moderne. Die Bibliotheca Proustiana Reiner Speck (Katalog zur Ausstellung im Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, 9. Juli–29. August 1999), Frankfurt a. M. 1999, S. 126–141.

Research in the Department of Music Education combines theoretical reflection with a variety of methods and aims to generate robust findings that contribute to both the further development of the academic discipline and the creation of practice-oriented innovations, for example in music education within and outside of schools, in (pre-service) teacher training, and in education policy.

1. Professional Development and Instructional Quality
   A key focus of our research is analyzing the professional practices of (pre-service) music teachers and music educators. The focus is on the cognitive, motivational, and emotional dimensions and their impact on instructional quality and students’ learning outcomes. The goal is to sustainably strengthen the professional competencies of (pre-service) music teachers and music educators and to bring about long-term improvement in reflective music education practices in schools, music schools, and colleges.
2. History of Academic Music Education
   How did the development of theoretical frameworks in this field unfold? In what contexts can terminological and structural frameworks be established? Observing, describing, and interpreting the history of academic music education serves as both a corrective to our own patterns of thought and action and a way to broaden our perspective toward the future: In what directions can and should Music Education develop, and how can our expertise contribute to this?
3. Development of Music-Related Competencies
   At the intersection of music psychology lies another research focus that addresses, among other things, the study of musical development processes in children, adolescents, and adults, with the aim of better understanding the interplay among natural abilities and potential, environmental and intrapersonal catalysts, and music-related competencies.
4. Digital Competencies in Music Education
   In this research focus, we are developing the foundations for integrating digital technologies (e.g., AR/VR, interactive teaching and learning environments, AI-powered chatbots) into music-related learning and teaching processes, with a focus on music education “making” and related areas.
5. Assessment Tools for Empirical Music Education
   A final focus is on developing and validating assessment tools for use in music-related learning and teaching processes. Our aim is not only to create the conditions for robust empirical research but also to provide interoperable, openly accessible assessment tools.
6. Theory and Practice of Music Education within the Framework of Cultural Education
   A fundamental task of music education is to spark curiosity about musical phenomena across the past, present, and future, all of which are embedded in diverse cultural contexts. This work at the interdisciplinary intersections of the humanities, social sciences, and human sciences requires a reflective approach to diverse symbolic systems. We therefore view it as part of our educational mission to sensitize students in music education programs at an early stage to social phenomena, (everyday) cultural contexts, and identity-formation processes in which—or for which—music (and engagement with it) plays an essential role. In this context, the temporal distance involved in systematically exploring past teaching realities and their integration into political, philosophical, and sociological contexts can make it easier to identify lines of development, trends, and patterns of argumentation—and thereby enable a less fragmented and arbitrary perception of current teaching realities.

Further information about research in the Department of Music Education is available on the team‘s personal websites:

Prof. Dr. Sointu Scharenberg
Dr. Christiane Lenord
Nikodemus Gollnau
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Daniel Fiedler