Hermann Danuser

Born in Frauenfeld, Danuser studied piano, oboe, musicology, philosophy and German language and literature at the Musikhochschule and the University of Zurich from 1965; he received his doctorate with a dissertation on musical prose. From 1973 he studied in Berlin with Carl Dahlhaus (musicology) and Gerhard Puchelt (piano). After working as a research assistant, he habilitated in 1982 at Technische Universität Berlin with a thesis on the music of the 20th century (published in 1984). From 1982 to 1988, Danuser taught as professor for musicology at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover, then from 1988 to 1993 as professor for musicology at the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg. From 1993 until his retirement in 2014, he held the chair for Historical Musicology at the Institute for Musicology and Media Studies of the Humboldt University of Berlin. Danuser also coordinates research at the Paul-Sacher-Stiftung Basel; from 1996 to 2017 he was member of the board of trustees of the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung. He has held guest professorships at several leading universities in Europe and the USA. In the academic year 2017/18 he taught at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.

Danuser's research focuses on music history of the 18th to 20th centuries, musical interpretation, the more recent history of music theory and aesthetics of music, and music analysis; he combines work analysis, music-aesthetic discourse formation, biography, genre and institutional history. In studies on avant-garde, nationalism, poetics, aesthetics and historiography he draws on transdisciplinary approaches. His most recent and currently ongoing research projects deal with the interaction of factors aesthetic to autonomy and heteronomy in the musical work of art (monograph Weltanschauungsmusik, 2009, with analyses, etc.) on Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, on Music of Spheres (Sfærernes Musik) by Rued Langgaard and on Hindemith's opera Die Harmonie der Welt), the conceptual history of musical performance since the 18th century (sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) as well as manifestations of musical self-reference (monograph Metamusik, 2017). Danuser's extensive publishing and editorial activities make him one of the most important German-speaking musicologists of the present day.

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He was employed by University of Freiburg, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. He belonged to Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He worked at Freiburg im Breisgau.

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