Item

Abstract

The University of Bonn conferred on its director of music, Heinrich Carl Breidenstein (1796–1876) the title außerordentlicher Professor in 1826. Since 1924, research has interpreted this to mean that Breidenstein, reputed to be controversial in his day, was not only a musicologist but the very first university professor of musicology. Based on a reframing of his activites and status ascertained from extensive archival material from his fifty-three year teaching career as well as the rediscovery of his dissertation On the Beautiful in Music (1821), his assessment as a musicologist, though inaccurate, and of his endeavors, including the negotiations for his successor – examined here in detail for the first time – were important steps in establishing music and ultimately musicology as an academic discipline.