Stein, Fritz (actually, Friedrich Wilhelm)

Stein, Fritz (actually, Friedrich Wilhelm ), German musicologist; b. Gerlachsheim, Baden, Dec. 17, 1879; d. Berlin, Nov. 14, 1961. He studied theology in Karlsruhe, then took courses in musicology with P. Wolfrum in Heidelberg. Subsequently he went to Leipzig, where he studied various subjects with Krehl, Nikisch, Riemann, and Sträube, then completed his

musicological training at the Univ. of Heidelberg (Ph.D., 1910, with the diss. Zur Geschichte der Musik in Heidelberg; publ, in 1912; new ed., 1921, as Geschichte des Musikwesens in Heidelberg bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts). He went to Jena in 1906 as music director of the Univ. and city organist; in 1913 he was appointed prof. of musicology at the Univ.; was in the German army during World War I and directed a male chorus for the troops at the front. He became a reader in musicology at the Univ. of Kiel in 1920, then was a prof. from 1928 to 1933; in 1933 he became director of the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, holding this position to the end of World War II in 1945. He achieved notoriety when he discovered in the library of the Univ. of Jena the parts of a sym. marked by an unknown copyist as a work by Beethoven. The sym. became famous as the “Jena Symphony” and was hailed by many as a genuine discovery; the score was pubi, by Breitkopf & Hartel in 1911, and performances followed all over the world; Stein pubi, his own exegesis of it as “Eine unbekannte Jugendsymphonie Beethovens?” in the Sammelbände der Internationalen Musik-Gesellschafl (1911). Doubts of its authenticity were raised, but it was not until 1957 that H.C. Robbins Landon succeeded in locating the original MS, proving that the “Jena Symphony” was in reality the work of Friedrich Witt (1770-1837). Stein pubi, a monograph on Max Reger (Potsdam, 1939) and Max Reger: Sein Leben in Bildern (a pictorial biography; Leipzig, 1941; second ed., 1956); brought out a thematic catalogue of Reger’s works (Leipzig, 1934; definitive ed., 1953); ed. works by Johann Christian Bach, Telemann, Handel, Beethoven, etc.; contributed essays to numerous learned pubis. A Festschrift was publ, in his honor on his 60^th birthday (1939).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire