Heinrich Sievers

Heinrich Sievers (20 August 1908 – 17 September 1999) was a German musicologist, music critic, university lecturer, and conductor.

He was regarded as an authority on the history of music in Hanover and Lower Saxony, and wrote music-historical monographs in English and Finnish publications.

Sievers was born in the small town of Dorum at the North Sea during the time of the German Empire, but spent his youth in the towns of Goslar and Peine.

After finishing school, he began studying musicology in northern Bavaria at the University of Würzburg during the time of the Weimar Republic, becoming a member of the Musical Academic Association at Würzburg and which is part of the Sondershausen Association During his studies in 1931, Sievers discovered the Wienhausen Songbook from the year 1460 in the archive of the Wienhausen Abbey, which he published two decades later as a facsimile.

From 1932, Sievers continued his studies in Cologne, completing his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1935 at the University of Cologne with his musicological research entitled 'the Latin liturgical Easter plays of the collegiate church of St. Blaise in Brunswick' (Die lateinischen liturgischen Osterspiele der Stiftskirche St. Blasien zu Braunschweig).

From 1937 Sievers worked in Brunswick as a music critic, and in 1939, the year that the Second World War began, commenced working in Hanover at the conservatory that would become the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media (HMTMH).

Parallel to his work at the conservatory, in 1946 Sievers started working at the precursor of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library – State Library of Lower Saxony within the British Occupation Zone in post-war Germany.

He also taught at the Hanover School of Church Music

In 1954 Sievers succeeded the chemist and university lecturer Walter Scheele as conductor of the collegium musicum, the symphony orchestra of the later Leibniz University Hannover (LUH).

In 1959 Sievers was appointed professor of musicology at the Lower Saxon College for Music and Theatre, a precursor of HMTMH, where he was also responsible for the department of church music.

In the same year he was appointed honorary professor at the Hanover Technical College that would eventually become LUH.

In addition, he again worked as a critic in magazines and daily newspapers such as the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung.

From 1960 until 1968 he was music director of the Sondershausen Association.

Sievers researched the history of music, especially that of Hanover and Lower Saxony, for almost his entire life.

His numerous essays, reviews, books and appearances in radio broadcasts were reflected in several publications.

Among his most important publications are The Music in Hanover (Die Musik in Hannover) from 1961, Curious Music (Musica curiosa) from 1970, Chamber Music in Hanover (Kammermusik in Hannover) from 1980 and the entry for Hanover in the 1st edition of the encyclopedia Music in History and the Present (Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart).

His two volumes of the Hanoverian Music History (Hannoversche Musikgeschichte) published in 1979 and 1984 are a standard work.

Sievers died in Garatshausen in Upper Bavaria in 1999 at the age of 91.

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