Herbert Eimert was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 music theorist

Music theory

Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...

, musicologist

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

, journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, music critic, editor

Editing

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...

, radio producer

Radio producer

A radio producer oversees the making of a radio show. There are two main types of producer. An audio or creative producer and a content producer. Audio producers create sounds and audio specifically, content producers oversee and orchestrate a radio show or feature...

, and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Life

Herbert Eimert studied music theory and composition from 1919–1924 at the Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 Musikhochschule

Hochschule für Musik Köln

The Cologne University of Music is a music college in Cologne, and Germany's largest academy of music.-History:The academy was founded by Ferdinand Hiller in 1850 as Conservatorium der Musik in Coeln...

 with Hermann Abendroth

Hermann Abendroth

Hermann Paul Maximilian Abendroth was a German conductor.-Early life:Abendroth was born on 19 January 1883, at Frankfurt, Germany, belonging to a family which had already produced other artistic figures of divers disciplines...

, Johann Eduard Franz Bölsche, and August von Othegraven

August von Othegraven

August von Othegraven was a German composer and music pedagogue.He worked as a professor of choral singing at the Cologne Musikhochschule. Amongst his pupils were Theodor Schwake and Herbert Eimert...

. In 1924, while still a student, he published an Atonale Musiklehre (Atonal Music Theory Text) which, together with a twelve-tone

Twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...

 string quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

 composed for the end-of-term examination concert, led to an altercation with Bölsche, who withdrew the quartet from the program and expelled Eimert from his composition class.

In 1924, he began studies in musicology at the University of Cologne

University of Cologne

The University of Cologne is one of the oldest universities in Europe and, with over 44,000 students, one of the largest universities in Germany. The university is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, an association of Germany's leading research universities...

 with Ernst Bücken, Willi Kahl, and Georg Kinsky, and read philosophy with Max Scheler

Max Scheler

Max Scheler was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology...

 (a pupil of Husserl

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...

) and Nicolai Hartmann

Nicolai Hartmann

-Biography:Hartmann was born of German descent in Riga, which was then the capital of the Russian province of Livonia, and which is now in Latvia. He studied Medicine at the University of Tartu , then Philosophy in St. Petersburg and at the University of Marburg in Germany, where he took his Ph.D....

. He attained his doctorate in 1931 with a dissertation titled Musikalische Formstrukturen im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Versuch einer Formbeschreibung (Musical Form Structures in the 17th and 18th Century. Attempt at a Description of Form).

From 1927-33 he was employed at the Cologne Radio

Westdeutscher Rundfunk

Westdeutscher Rundfunk is a German public-broadcasting institution based in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia with its main office in Cologne. WDR is a constituent member of the consortium of German public-broadcasting institutions, ARD...

 and wrote for music magazines such as Melos and the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. In 1930 he became a music critic for the Kölner Stadtanzeiger, and from 1935–45 worked as an editor at the Kölnischen Zeitung.

After the war, he became in 1945 the first salaried staff member of the Cologne Radio (NWDR), administered by the British occupation forces

Allied Occupation Zones in Germany

The Allied powers who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II divided the country west of the Oder-Neisse line into four occupation zones for administrative purposes during 1945–49. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, US forces had pushed beyond the previously agreed boundaries for the...

. In 1947 he took over the NWDR Department of Cultural Reporting, and in 1948 became director of the Musikalische Nachtprogramme (late-night music programs), a position he held until 1966. In 1951, Eimert and Werner Meyer-Eppler

Werner Meyer-Eppler

Werner Meyer-Eppler , was a German physicist, experimental acoustician, phoneticist, and information theorist....

 persuaded the director of NWDR, Hanns Hartmann, to create a Studio for Electronic Music

Electronic music

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

, which Eimert directed until 1962. This became the most influential studio in the world during the 1950s and 1960s, with composers such as Michael von Biel

Michael von Biel

Michael von Biel is a German composer, cellist, and graphic artist.Von Biel studied piano, theory, and composition in Toronto , Vienna , New York , London , and Cologne...

, Konrad Boehmer

Konrad Boehmer

Konrad Boehmer is a Dutch composer and writer of German birth.Boehmer was born in Berlin. His music reflects his Marxist political agenda, which is made explicit in many of his writings from the late 1960s and 1970s...

, Herbert Brün

Herbert Brun

Herbert Brün was a composer and pioneer of electronic and computer music. Born in Berlin, Germany, he taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1962 until he retired, several years before his death.-Career:...

, Jean-Claude Éloy

Jean-Claude Éloy

Jean-Claude Éloy is a French composer of instrumental, vocal and electroacoustic music.In his work Éloy realized one of the most significant syntheses of 20th-century music: between electronic and acoustic music, between Western and non-Western traditions...

, Péter Eötvös

Peter Eötvös

Péter Eötvös is a Hungarian composer and conductor.Eötvös was born in Odorheiu Secuiesc/Székelyudvarhely, Szeklerland, Transylvania . He studied composition in Budapest and Cologne. From 1962, he composed for film in Hungary. Eötvös played regularly with the Stockhausen Ensemble between 1968 and...

, Franco Evangelisti

Franco Evangelisti

Franco Evangelisti , was an Italian composer specifically interested in the scientific theories behind sound.-Biography:...

, Luc Ferrari

Luc Ferrari

Luc Ferrari was of an Italian heritage but French born composer, particularly noted for his tape music.-Biography:...

, Johannes Fritsch

Johannes Fritsch

Johannes G. Fritsch was a German composer.At the age of seven, Fritsch found a violin in the attic of his uncle's house in Bensheim-Auerbach, Germany, and began lessons with a village music teacher named Knapp...

, Rolf Gehlhaar

Rolf Gehlhaar

Rolf Gehlhaar in Breslau , is an American composer.Gehlhaar is the son of a German rocket scientist, who emigrated to the United States in 1953 to work at a rocket-development research centre in New Mexico...

, Karel Goeyvaerts

Karel Goeyvaerts

Karel Goeyvaerts was a Belgian composer.-Life:After studies at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Antwerp, Goeyvaerts studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analysis with Olivier Messiaen...

, Hermann Heiss

Hermann Heiss

Hermann Heiss is a German composer. He studied with Josef Matthias Hauer and was also self-taught. Hauer dedicated his book Twelve-Tone Technique to Heiss. He later taught twelve-tone music at Darmstadt and composed electronic music at Cologne....

, York Höller

York Höller

York Höller is a German composer and Professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln.-Biography:Between 1963 and 1970 Höller studied at the Cologne Musikhochschule: composition with Joachim Blume and Bernd Alois Zimmermann, piano with Else Schmitz-Gohrand Alfons Kontarsky, and orchestral...

, Maki Ishii

Maki Ishii

was a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music, and brother of composer Kan Ishii.-Biography:Born in Tokyo, Ishii studied composition privately and conducting with Watanabe from 1952 to 1958 in Tokyo, then moved to Berlin, where he continued his studies under Boris Blacher and Josef Rufer...

, David C. Johnson, Mauricio Kagel

Mauricio Kagel

Mauricio Kagel was a German-Argentine composer. He was notable for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance .-Biography:...

, Gottfried Michael Koenig

Gottfried Michael Koenig

Gottfried Michael Koenig is a contemporary German-Dutch composer.-Biography:Koenig studied church music in Braunschweig, composition, piano, analysis and acoustics in Detmold, music representation techniques in Cologne and computer technique in Bonn. He attended and later lectured at the...

, Petr Kotik

Petr Kotik

Petr Kotik is a composer, conductor and flutist living in New York City. He was educated in Europe...

, Włodzimierz Kotoński, Ernst Krenek

Ernst Krenek

Ernst Krenek was an Austrian of Czech origin and, from 1945, American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music...

, Ladislav Kupkovič

Ladislav Kupkovic

Ladislav Karol Kupkovič is a Slovak composer and conductor.-Life:Kupkovič was born in Bratislava, and studied violin and conducting there, first at the conservatory, then at the Academy of Performing Arts. He played violin in the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra from 1960 to 1965, and then began to...

, György Ligeti

György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

, Mesías Maiguashca

Mesías Maiguashca

Mesías Maiguashca , is an Ecuadorian composer, an advocate of the new music, especially electroacoustic music.-Biography:...

, Bo Nilsson

Bo Nilsson

Bo Nilsson , is a Swedish composer and lyricist.Bo Nilsson first drew notice as a composer at the age of 18 when his "Zwei Stücke" were performed in a 1956 West German Radio “Musik der Zeit” concert in Cologne...

, Henri Pousseur

Henri Pousseur

Henri Pousseur was a Belgian composer.-Biography:Pousseur studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 to 1953. He was closely associated with Pierre Froidebise and André Souris...

, Roger Smalley

Roger Smalley

Roger Smalley AM is a British-Australian composer, pianist and conductor. Professor Smalley is currently a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia in Perth and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Sydney.-Biography:Smalley was born in Swinton, Lancashire,...

, Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

 (who succeeded Eimert as director), Dimitri Terzakis

Dimitri Terzakis

Dimitri Terzakis is a Greek composer. His father was the author Angelos Terzakis.From 1959–1964 Terzakis studied composition with Yannis Papaioannou at the Athens Hellenic Conservatory, followed by five years spent at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany where he studied composition with...

, Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...

, and Bernd Alois Zimmermann

Bernd Alois Zimmermann

Bernd Alois Zimmermann was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century...

 working there (Morawska-Büngeler 1988, 103–108 et passim). Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...

 also worked there in 1958 (Custodis 2004, 110 n244).

In 1950 he published the Lehrbuch zur Zwölftonmusik, which became one of the best-known introductory texts on Schoenbergian

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

 twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...

, and was translated into Italian, Spanish, and Hungarian. From 1955-62 he edited in conjunction with Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

 the influential journal Die Reihe

Die Reihe

Die Reihe was a German-language music journal, edited by Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz Stockhausen and published by Universal Edition between 1955 and 1962 . An English edition was published, under the original German title, between 1957 and 1968 by the Theodore Presser Company , in association...

. His book Grundlagen der musikalischen Reihentechnik appeared in 1964. From 1951–57 he lectured at the Darmstadt International Vacation Courses for New Music. In 1965 he became Professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne and directed their studio for electronic music until 1971. Together with Hans Ulrich Humpert, his successor at the electronic studio of the Musikhochschule, he worked on the Lexikon der elektronischen Musik (Dictionary of Electronic Music). Just short of completing the manuscript Eimert died, on 15 December 1972, in Düsseldorf.

Compositions (selective list)

• String Quartet (1923-25)
• Der weiße Schwan for saxophon, flute, and specially made noise instruments (1926)
• Kammerkonzert for five instruments (1926)
• Suite for chamber orchestra (1929)
• Musik für Violine und Violoncello (1931)
• Variations for piano (1943)
• Trio for violin, vioa, and cello (1944)
• Bläsermusik (1947)
• Second String Quartet (1939)
• Four Pieces (jointly composed with Robert Beyer) (1953)
• Struktur 8 electronic music (1953)
• Glockenspiel, electronic music (1953)
• Etüde über Tongemische, electronic music (1954)
• Five Pieces, electronic music (1956)
• Zu Ehren von Igor Strawinsky (1957)
• Selektion I (1960)
• Epitaph für Aikichi Kuboyama, for speaker and electronically transformed speech sounds (1962)
• Six Studies, electronic music (1962)

Principal writings

• 1924. Atonale Musiklehre. Leipzig: Verlag von Breitkopf & Härtel.
• 1932. Musikalische formstrukturen im 17. und 18. jahrhundert; Versuch einer Formbeschreibung. Augsburg: B. Filser.
• 1950. Lehrbuch der Zwöfltontechnik. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel.
• 1955a. "Die sieben Stücke" Die Reihe 1: "Elektronische Musik": 8–13 [not included in the English edition].
• 1955b. "Die notwendige Korrektur" Die Reihe 2: "Anton Webern": 35–41 [English edition 1958, as "A Change of Focus", pp. 29–36].
• 1955c. "Intervallproportionen (Streichquartett, 1. Satz)." Die Reihe 2: "Anton Webern": 97–102 [English edition 1958, as "Interval Proportions", pp. 93–99].
• 1957a. "Von der Entscheidungsfreiheit des Komponisten." Die Reihe 3: "Musikalische Handwerk": 5–12 [English edition 1959, as "The Composer's Freedom of Choice," pp. 1–9].
• 1957b. "Debussys Jeux." Die Reihe 5: "Berichte—Analyse": 5–22 [English edition 1961, as "Debussy's Jeux," pp.3–20].
• 1957c. "What is Electronic Music?" Die Reihe 1: "Electronic Music" (English edition only): 1–10.
• 1958. "Intermezzo II." Die Reihe 4: "Junge Komponisten": 81–84 [English edition 1960, pp. 81–84].
• 1962. "Nachruf auf Werner Meyer-Eppler." Die Reihe 8: "Rückblicke": 5–6 [English ed. 1968, as "Werner Meyer-Eppler," pp. 5–6].
• 1964. Grundlagen der musikalischen Reihentechnik. Bücher der Reihe. Vienna: Universal Edition.
• 1972. "So begann die elektronische Musik." Melos 39, no. 1 (January-February): 42–44. [Translated into English as "How Electronic Music Began," Musical Times 113, no. 1550 (April 1972): 347–49.]
• 1973. Lexikon der elektronischen Musik (with Hans Ulrich Humpert). Regensburg: Bosse.