Robert Eitner

Robert Eitner (born Oct. 22, 1832, Breslau, Prussia—died Feb. 2, 1905, Templin, Ger.) was a German musicologist, editor, and bibliographer.

Largely self-taught in music, Eitner in 1853 settled in Berlin, where he gave lessons and performed his own compositions in concerts. In 1863 he opened a music school, but his growing interest in historical research led him to produce a dictionary of Dutch composers.

In 1868 Eitner founded the Gesellschaft für Musikforschung and was elected its secretary. The following year he established the society’s journal, Monatshefte für Musikgeschichte, acting as its editor from its founding until his death. His concern with the music of the 16th and 17th centuries developed into a monumental project begun in 1873; the 29-volume Publikationen älterer praktischer und theoretischer Musikwerke, a collection of largely unpublished works that took him 32 years to complete.

In 1877, in collaboration with other scholars, he issued the Bibliographie der Musik-Sammelwerke des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts (“Bibliography of Music Collections of the 16th and 17th Centuries”). Alphabetically organized, indexed, and with locations given for all the pieces mentioned, this work became the model for later music bibliographies. Soon thereafter, Eitner began his greatest work, the 10-volume Quellen-Lexikon (1900–04), a unique reference book that located both printed music and manuscripts of early composers and theoreticians in more than 200 European libraries, and which was for 50 years a primary guide for music research.