Nef, Karl

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Nef, Karl

Nef, Karl, Swiss musicologist, brother of Albert Nef; b. St. Gallen, Aug. 22, 1873; d. Basel, Feb. 9, 1935. He entered the Leipzig Cons, in 1891, studying with Reckendorf (piano), Julius Klengel (cello), and Jadas-sohn (theory). He attended Kretzschmar’s lectures on musicology at the Univ. of Leipzig, and in 1896 received a Ph.D. with his diss. Die Collegia musica in der deutschen reformierten Schweiz (publ. in St. Gallen, 1897); subsequently completed his Habilitation in 1900 at the Univ. of Basel. He settled in Basel in 1897, and from 1897 to 1925 he was music critic of the Basler Nachrichten and from 1898 to 1909 he ed. the Schweizerische Musikzeitung. In 1900 he became Privatdozent for musicology at the Univ., in 1909, assoc. prof., and in 1923, prof.

Writings

Schriften über Musik und Volksgesang (Bern, 1908); Einführung in die Musikgeschichte (Basel, 1920; 3rd ed., 1945; Eng. tr., 1935, as Outline of the History of Music); Geschichte der Sinfonie und Suite (Leipzig, 1921); Geschichte unserer Musikinstrumente (Leipzig, 1926; new ed., 1949); Die neun Sinfonien Beethovens (Leipzig, 1928); Aufsätze (Basel, 1936).

Bibliography

Festschrift K. N. zum 60. Geburtstag (Zürich, 1933).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis Mclntire