Becker, Heinz

Becker, Heinz, German musicologist; b. Berlin, June 26, 1922. He studied clarinet, piano, conducting, and composition at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, and then pursued musicological studies at the Hum-boldt Univ. in Berlin (Ph.D., 1951, with the diss. Zur Problematik unà Technik der musikalischen Schlussgestal-tung). In 1956 he joined the musicological inst. of the Univ. of Hamburg as an asst. lecturer, and completed his Habilitation there with his Studien zur Entwicklungsge-schichte der antiken unà mittelalterlichen Rohrblattinstru-mente (1961; publ. in Hamburg, 1966). From 1966 until his retirement in 1987 he was a prof. of musicology at the Ruhr Univ. in Bochum. Becker has distinguished himself particularly as an authority on the life and works of Meyerbeer.

Writings

Der Fall Heine-Meyerbeer (Berlin, 1958); ed. Giacomo Meyerbeer: Briefwechsel und Tagebucher (4 vols., Berlin, 1960-85); Geschichte der Instrumentation, Das Musikwerk series, XXIV (1964); Beiträge zur Geshichte der Musikkritik (Regensburg, 1965); Beiträge zur Geschichte der Oper (Regensburg, 1969); Die Couleur Locale in der Oper des 19 Jahrhunderts (Regensburg, 1976); Giacomo Meyerbeer in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (Rein-bek, 1980); with G. Becker, Giacomo Meyerbeer: Ein Leben in Briefen (Wilhelmshaven, 1983; Eng. tr., 1983, as Giacomo Meyerbeer: A Life in Letters); with G. Becker, Giacomo Meyerbeer-Weltburger der Musik (Wiesbaden, 1991); Brahms (Stuttgart, 1993).

Bibliography

J. Schläder and R. Quandt, eds., H. B.: Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag (Laaber, 1982); S. Döhring and J. Schläder, eds., H. B. zum 70. Geburtstag: Giacomo Meyerbeer-Musik als Welterfahrung (Munich, 1995).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire