David J. Buch

Last updated
David J. Buch
Born1950 (age 7374)
Detroit, Michigan
Occupation Musicologist
EducationPhD Northwestern University
SubjectMusicology, Mozart scholarship
Notable worksDer Stein der Weisen,
Magic Flutes and Enchanted Forests: The Supernatural in the Eighteenth-Century Musical Theater
Notable awardsDonald N. McKay Research Award

David Joseph Buch (born 1950) is an American musicologist. [1]

Contents

Life and career

Buch was born in Detroit and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. He received his PhD in Music History from Northwestern University.

He had been Professor of Music at Wayne State University and Professor of Music History at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), where he is Professor Emeritus. Buch was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago from 2008 until 2011. He has published numerous scholarly studies on a range of topics in music, having explored archives and libraries in many European cities. [2]

His research has received international attention [3] owing to the discovery of new attributions to Mozart in Emanuel Schikaneder's collaborative opera Der Stein der Weisen oder Die Zauberinsel (Vienna, 1790). His study of the theatrical tradition in which Mozart's The Magic Flute originated has led him to new interpretations of the libretto, notably skepticism to the widely held view that The Magic Flute is specifically a Masonic opera (see Libretto of The Magic Flute).

In 1998 he was named UNI Distinguished Scholar and received the Donald N. McKay Research Award. [4]

Buch plays the lute, viola da gamba and guitar. [5] He has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Claudio Abbado, and as guest soloist with the Eckstein String Quartet (principals of the CSO). [6]

Selected bibliography

[Items available on Academia.edu and ResearchGate]

Editions

Related Research Articles

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<i>Das Labyrinth</i>

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<i>Oberon</i> (Seyler)

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Libretto of <i>The Magic Flute</i> Opera composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The Magic Flute is a celebrated opera composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart employed a libretto written by his close colleague Emanuel Schikaneder, the director of the Theater auf der Wieden at which the opera premiered in the same year.. Grout and Williams describe the libretto thus:

Schikaneder, a kind of literary magpie, filched characters, scenes, incidents, and situations from others' plays and novels and with Mozart's assistance organized them into a libretto that ranges all the way from buffoonery to high solemnity, from childish faerie to sublime human aspiration – in short from the circus to the temple, but never neglecting an opportunity for effective theater along the way.

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References