AHJ, Vol. 7 No. 1, Summer 1979

Dr. Hans Joachim Zing el
November 21, 1904 - November 16, 1978
by Roslyn Rensch Erbes
With the death of Hans Joachim Zingel last fall the
music world and harpists in particular lost a truly
dedicated musician and scholar. His dissertation, Harfe
und Harfenspiel vom Beginn des 16. bis ins sweite Drittel
des 18. Jahrhunderts (Halle, 1932)' is a gold mine of
well-researched information. In the following years,
and well into the 1970s, Dr. Zingel produced a series of
outstanding publications all concerned with the harp.
In 1951, on my first trip to Europe, I just missed
meeting Dr. Zingel at Bayreuth. The student group I
was travelling with attended a performance of "Die
Walkure" and when I slipped into the orchestra pit,
during an intermission, to meet the six harpists who had
been playing so beautifully, I was told that Hans Zingel
also played there but was not performing on that day. I
was very disappointed that we could not delay our trip
so that a meeting would have been possible. It was not
until 1962, when I was again on a tightly scheduled tour,
that I was able to meet Dr. Zingel in Cologne. However,
prior to that and through the years we corresponded
from time to time, and he kindly sent me copies of many
of his works.
Articles by Hans Zingel published in the 1930s in Acta
Musicologica, Archiv fur Musikforschung, Das Orchestra,
and other German magazines, include such a
range of titles as: "Musik fur 'Klavier oder Harfe"',
"Zur Bibliographie der Schulwerke fur Harfe", "Die
kreuzsaitige 'Arpa de dos ordenes"', "Wandlungen im
Klang - und Spielideal der Harfe", "Franz Liszt und die
Harfe", and "Studien zur Geschichte des Harfenspiels
in klassischer und romantischer Zeit". Thus it is evident
that even then, although the title of his dissertation suggests
that his concern was chiefly with the European
harp of the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo periods,
many more phases of the harp interested him and were
keenly researched by him.
When that magnificent undertaking Die Musik in
Geschichte und Gegenwart was published (Vol. 5 which
includes the "Harfe" article is dated 1956), Hans
Hickmann wrote the comprehensive article on the harp
in the ancient world, while Hans Zingel covered the progress
of the instrument from the early Christian era into
the 20th century. Both sections of the article were well
illustrated and documented throughout; there was appropriately
meticulous attention to sources. The Fall
SUMMER/ 1979
Dr. Hans Joachim Zingel
1958 issue of Harp News magazine published the first in
a series of articles from Dr. Zingel's encylopedia entry.
The translation by Ursula Stechow was commendable;
Dr. Zingel' s prose style is not one which lends itself easily
to translation.
Hans Zingel was responsible for many other notable
publications including a German harp journal, articles
on virtuoso harpists, such as Parish-Alvars, Reni~ and
Zabaleta, and a slim but authoritative volume on the
baroque harp, Harfenspiel im Barockzeitalter, (Gustav
Bosse, Regensburg, 1974). In addition he rediscovered
and edited much music for the harp. Of the music probably
the best known is Zingel's edition of Johann Baptist
Krumpholtz's "Sonate" for flute and harp (Nagels
Musik-Archiv, Hannover, 1933). Zingel's editions of
the solo and ensemble music Louis Spohr composed for
his harpist wife, Dorette Scheidler, also did much to
refocus the attention of 20th century harpists on these
historically important works.
However, of all Dr. Hans Zingel's publications, the
crowning achievement is the four volume work entitled
Neue Harfenlehre (Hofmeister, Leipzig). Volume one
of this series includes fifteen photographs of Zingel's
hands on the harp strings, clearly illustrating various
technical points; there are countless musical examples
and exercises; the text appears in both German and
English. Volume two includes ninety-nine pages of
carefully selected music ranging from the preludes of
Johann Sebastian Bach, and pieces by such famous harp
world names as Hochbrucker, Mayer, Backofen and de
Marin, through the Etudes of the harp world giants:
Posse, Bochsa, Labarre, Naderman, Godefroid;
Fiorillo, Dizi, Kastner and Holy. (This volume in particular
is one which every harpist should own.)
Volume three of the sedes is devoted to orchestral
studies. Beginning with an excerpt from Monteverdi's
"Orfeo" this volume includes harp parts taken from the
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