Gerson-Kiwi, (Esther) Edith

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Gerson-Kiwi, (Esther) Edith

Gerson-Kiwi, (Esther) Edith, German-born Israeli musicologist; b. Berlin, May 13, 1908; d. Jerusalem, July 15, 1992. She attended the Stern Cons, in Berlin (1918-25) and took a pianist’s diploma at the Leipzig Hochschule für Musik (1930); she also studied harpsi-chord with Ramin in Leipzig and Landowska in Paris. She studied musicology with W. Gurlitt at the Univ. of Freiburg, Kroyer at the Univ. of Leipzig, and Besseler at the Univ. of Heidelberg (Ph.D., 1933, with the diss. Studien zur Geschichte des Italienischen Liedmadrigals im16. Jahrhundert; publ. in Wurzburg, 1938). In 1935 she went to Palestine, where she was active in research and teaching; in 1969 she joined the faculty of the Univ. of Tel Aviv. She was a prolific and versatile writer; her subjects included Renaissance, Classical, Romantic, and contemporary music, and the ethnic music of the Middle East, on which she was an outstanding authority. Her books included The Persian Doctrine of Dastgah Composition: A Phenomenological Study in the Musical Modes (Tel Aviv, 1963), The Legacy of Jewish Music through the Ages of Dispersion (Jerusalem, 1963-64), and Migrations and Mutations of the Music in East and West (Tel Aviv, 1980).

Bibliography

S. Burstyn, ed., Essays in Honor of E. G.-K. (Tel Aviv, 1986).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire