Ferand, Ernst (Thomas)

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Ferand, Ernst (Thomas)

Ferand, Ernst (Thomas), Hungarian musicologist; b. Budapest, March 5, 1887; d. Basel, May 29, 1972. He studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest (diploma, 1911), and then was a student of Jaques- Dalcroze in Hellerau, near Dresden (1913–14). He also took courses in music history, psychology, and philosophy at the Univ. of Budapest, and later in musicology and psychology at the Univ. of Vienna (Ph.D., 1937, with the diss. Die Improvisationspraxis in der Musik’, publ. as Die Improvisation in der Musik, Zurich, 1938). After teaching at the Fodor Cons, of Music in Budapest (1912–19), he was director of the Dalcroze School in Hellerau (1920–25) and of the HellerauLaxenburg Coll., near Vienna (1925–38); he then taught at the New School for Social Research in N.Y. (1939–65). In addition to valuable articles in journals, he publ. a harmony textbook (Budapest, 1914) and Die Improvisation in Beispielen aus neun Jahrhunderten abendlandischer Musik (Cologne, 1956; 2nd ed., rev, 1961; Eng. tr., 1961, in Das Musikwerk, XII).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire