Curt Sachs

Curt Sachs (born June 29, 1881, Berlin, Ger.—died Feb. 5, 1959, New York, N.Y., U.S.) was an eminent German musicologist, teacher, and authority on musical instruments.

In his youth Sachs took lessons in piano, theory, and composition. Later, at Berlin University—although he included music history in his studies—he took his doctorate in the history of art (1904). After several years as an art critic and historian, during which time he helped to edit the Monatshefte für kunstwissenschaftliche Literatur (“Monthly Journal for Art Historical Literature”) and worked at the Arts and Crafts Museum in Berlin, Sachs decided to centre his career entirely on music. His plans were interrupted by military service during World War I, after which he returned to Berlin and in 1919 was appointed curator of the State Collection of Musical Instruments. He soon reorganized this outstanding collection, restoring many of its musical instruments to working order. He also commenced teaching at the Berlin University and by 1928 was made professor there as well as at the National Academy of Music.

In 1933, because he was a Jew, Sachs was dismissed from all his academic positions and was compelled to leave Germany. He went first to Paris, where he joined André Schaeffner at the ethnological museum (now the Musée de l’Homme) and was a visiting professor at the Sorbonne. The next year he began to make the series of recordings known as L’Anthologie Sonore, which served as an invaluable guide to the actual sound of early music. In 1937 he resettled in the United States, teaching at New York University (1937–53) and serving as consultant at the New York Public Library.

Sachs’s last years were filled with recognition and acclaim. As one of the founders of modern organology (the study of the nature and history of musical instruments), he collaborated with Erich von Hornbostel to create the method of classification for musical instruments that is now a standard guide. Sachs’s Real-Lexikon der Musikinstrumente (1913, reprinted 1962) is the definitive history of musical instruments. Sachs’s other works include World History of the Dance (1937), The Rise of Music in the Ancient World (1943), and The Commonwealth of Art: Style in the Fine Arts, Music and the Dance (1946).