Richard Petzoldt

Petzoldt wurde 1907 als Sohn eines Kaufmanns im Plauen geboren und wuchs in Berlin auf. Nach dem Abitur studierte er musicology an der dortigen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Johannes Wolf, Hermann Abert, Arnold Schering, Hans Joachim Moser, Friedrich Blume, Erich Maria von Hornbostel, Curt Sachs and Georg Schünemann. 1933 wurde er bei Arnold Schering mit der Dissertation Die Kirchenkompositionen und weltlichen Kantaten Reinhard Keisers (1674–1739) zum Dr. phil. promoviert.

From 1934 he worked as an editor for the Allgemeine Musikzeitung in Berlin, later Leipzig. In 1939 he became their chief editor. He also wrote for the Berliner Tageblatt. From 1940 to 1945 he did military service. After the Second World War he worked as a music critic for various newspapers and magazines and as an employee of the Cultural Office of the City of Leipzig. In 1945 he was briefly director of the municipal music library in Leipzig. He took over the rebuilding and provisional management of the Institute of Musicology of the University of Leipzig and the Museum of Musical Instruments of Leipzig University. From 1946 to 1952 he taught music history at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. From 1949 he was also dramaturg at the Leipzig Opera and editor-in-chief of the magazine Musik in der Schule.

In 1952 he became professor with a teaching assignment for music history and director of the Institute for Music Education and deputy director of the Institute for Musicology at the University of Leipzig. In 1967 he became director of the Museum of Musical Instruments and in 1969 full professor of musicology in the section of cultural studies and German studies. In 1973 he became Emeritus.

Petzoldt died in Leipzig in 1974 at the age of 66. He is buried at the Leipziger Südfriedhof.

• Ludwig van Beethoven.[1] (1938)
• Johann Sebastian Bach (Neuaufl., 1950)
• Franz Schubert – Sein Leben in Bildern.[2] (1953)
• Peter Tschaikowski – Sein Leben in Bildern.[3] (1953)
• Die Oper in ihrer Zeit.[4] (1956)
• Giuseppe Verdi[5] (new edition, 1959)
• Geschichte der Musikerziehung (1962)
• Der Leipziger Thomanerchor.[6](1962)
• Wegweiser zur Musik.[7] (1962)
• Georg Friedrich Händel : sein Leben in Bildern.[8] (1965)

• Gabriele Baumgartner: Petzoldt, Richard. In Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (ed.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ/DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 2: Maassen – Zylla. K. G. Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0, pp. 639–640.

• Literature by and about Richard Petzoldt in the German National Library catalogue
• Dieter Härtwig: Petzoldt Richard Johannes in Institut für Sächsische Geschichte und Volkskunde (ed.): Sächsische Biografie.
• Richard Petzoldt in the Professorenkatalog der Universität Leipzig