Name Erwin Ratz | ||
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Died December 12, 1973, Vienna, Austria | ||
Erwin Ratz (22 December 1898, Graz – 12 December 1973, Vienna) was an Austrian musicologist and music theorist. He studied musicology with Guido Adler and composition with Arnold Schoenberg and was active in the Schoenberg circle. In 1921 and 1922, due to straightened financial circumstances, he worked at the Bauhaus in Weimar as a secretary. After World War II he was a professor of musical form and analysis in Vienna. He is best known for his work Einführung in die musikalische Formenlehre ("Introduction to Musical Form"), which is devoted primarily to the work of Bach and Beethoven, and for his role in editing Mahler's works as President of the 'International Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft' in Vienna. From 1960 Ratz fought against the efforts of Deryck Cooke and others to create performable editions of Mahler's unfinished Tenth Symphony, insisting in articles and interviews that no such attempt could be legitimate given the state of Mahler's draft.