Gerd Rienäcker

Rienäcker was born on 3 May 1939 in Göttingen as son of the chemist Günther Rienäcker [de]. Rienäcker studied musicology from 1959 to 1964 (minor subject: "art science'") with Ernst Hermann Meyer, Georg Knepler, Walther Vetter, Peter H. Feist and Carl Heinz Claasen at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and also musical composition with Hans Georg Görner.

From 1964 to 1966 Rienäcker worked as music dramaturge (for opera, operetta, concert) at the Landestheater Eisenach [de]. In 1966 he became scientific aspirant, from 1967 to 1985 scientific assistant at the Institute for Musicology of the Humboldt University. There he obtained a doctorate in 1973 with a thesis on dramaturgical principles in operas by Paul Dessau, Siegfried Matthus, Udo Zimmermann and Robert Hanell. Doctorate. In 1984 he habilited on the dramaturgy of the finale in operas by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Louis Spohr, Carl Maria von Weber and Heinrich Marschner. In 1985 he was appointed university lecturer, in 1988 associate professor and in 1990 professor for "Theory and History of Music Theatre" at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Since 1996 he had taught at several German universities.

His research interests were on the one hand the theory of music theatre as an institution and genre, the history of opera and operetta, Wagner's operas and dramas and Bertolt Brecht's significance for music theatre; on the other hand, the European compositional history of modern times and methodological problems of music historiography and music analysis. These interests resulted in the contents and methods of his courses (among others on the dramaturgy of music theatre, the history of notation and instrumentation, the analysis of works of opera and operetta, the analysis of music theatre productions) as well as the topics of several books and many essays.^[2]

Among his academic students were Peter Wicke, Daniela Reinhold, Antje Kaiser, Susanne Binas-Preisendörfer, Sebastian Klotz and Aniara Amos [de].

Rienäcker had two more siblings: Doctor Anne Rienäcker (b. 1951), married to Wilke and Doctor of physics Jürgen Rienäcker (b. 1936), whose son, the computer scientist Uwe Rienäcker, is married to the artist Sandra Rienäcker [de].

Rienäcker died in Berlin at age 78.