Manfred Hermann Schmid


Manfred Hermann Schmid is a German musicologist and Mozart expert.

Life

Scmid was born in Ottobeuren into a musical family. Schmid decided after his Abitur first to study violin at the Leopold Mozart Centre in Augsburg with the, before studying musicology, philosophy and history of art at the universities of Salzburg, Freiburg and Munich. He studied musicology with Gerhard Croll, Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht and Thrasybulos Georgiades, whose last doctoral student was Schmid. In 1975 Schmid was awarded a doctorate with a thesis on "Mozart and the Salzburg tradition".
His habilitation was awarded in 1980 on the subject of "Music as an image. Studies on the work of Weber, Schumann and Wagner". Schmid has held various teaching positions at the Universities of Munich and Bayreuth, the music academies in Munich and Augsburg, as well as a position as director of the Munich Musical Instrument Museum. In 1986 Schmid was appointed full professor of musicology at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen as successor to Georg von Dadelsen. In 1992/93 he was visiting professor at the University of Salzburg. On the occasion of his 60th birthday in 2007, a symposium entitled "Mozart in the Center" was held in Tübingen. Schmid has been retired since October 2012. However, he regularly holds teaching positions at the universities of Munich and Vienna. Since 2010 he has been chairman of the Academy for Mozart Research at the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg.
Schmid is considered an internationally renowned Mozart expert, but in his work he devotes himself to the entire European musical tradition from ancient music to new music. However, his main focus lies on the music of the First Viennese School, the German Romantic music and the Renaissance music. Further fields of interest of Schmid are besides the general historical musicology especially the musical instrument, the noatation and the Ethnomusicology.
Schmid was editor of the Mozart Studies and the Tübinger Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft.