Promotion prize 2020

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Simon Kannenberg, who received his doctorate from the HfMT in November 2019, has been awarded the prestigious 2020 Doctoral Prize of the Society for Music Research

Simon Kannenberg received the award for his work "Joachim Raff and Hans von Bülow. Portrait of a musical friendship. Letter edition." The reviewers were Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hochstein, Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen (University of Zurich) and Prof. Dr. Nina Noeske.
The book will soon be published by Königshausen & Neumann both as a print edition and as an eBook.

About the content:
Joachim Raff and Hans von Bülow are among the central musical personalities of the 19th century. From Bülow's grammar school days until Raff's death, they enjoyed a close friendship that was deeply influenced by the musical aesthetic discussions of their shared Weimar years and subsequently spanned all personal highs and lows - from Bülow's marriage crisis to Raff's rise to become Germany's most frequently performed symphonist. This detailed and informative account includes a dual biography, studies of their mutual artistic influences and a network analysis that looks at their interaction in a wider context. The moving and extensive correspondence, including letters from the wives, forms the second volume - carefully edited and with impressively extensive commentaries. According to Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen, "in view of the wealth of detail and the novelty of many facts, it is undeniable that in future any further study not only of Raff and/or Bülow, but actually any study concerned with the genesis of 'New German' musical aesthetics and the early period of Wagner's music drama, will not be able to ignore Kannenberg's presentation and edition."

Due to the pandemic, the award winner will be publicly honored at the GfM 2021 annual conference in Bonn.