Benjamin Korstvedt
Professor, Visual and Performing Arts
Scholarly Interests
Musicology, Cultural History, Textual Criticism, Viennese and Habsburg History, Performance Practice, Historical Materialism, Nazism, Aesthetics, Music and Identity
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Professor Benjamin M. Korstvedt is an active researcher and scholar, a committed and enthusiastic teacher, a frequent speaker at national and international conferences, and a productive author and editor. He graduated summa cum laude from Clark University in 1987 with a B.A. in Music and received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995. He joined the Clark faculty in 2002, where he is now Professor of Music. He served two terms as Chair of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts. He is also affiliated with Clark’s programs in German Studies, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and MCA (Media, Culture, and the Arts). Before coming to Clark, Professor Korstvedt held faculty positions at the University of St. Thomas, Ball State University, and the University of Iowa.
Scholarship and Research
Professor Korstvedt publishes widely in several areas. He is a leading scholar of the great Austrian symphonist Anton Bruckner (1824-96). His work has explored the complex text-critical issues surrounding Bruckner’s works, the reception of his music by critics and scholars in the Third Reich, the place of Bruckner’s music in the culture of fin-de-siècle Vienna, and the form and meaning of Bruckner’s symphonies. He has published numerous articles on these topics as well as a monograph on Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony that considers the history, musical design, aesthetic meaning, and performance of that great work. His current book project is Bruckner’s Fourth: The Biography of a Symphony. This work, which will be published in 2024, explores the long history of the Fourth Symphony starting with its extraordinarily complex compositional history and continuing through its reception by later generations as they performed and interpreted the symphony in their own ways.
Korstvedt is a member of the Editorial Board of the New Anton Bruckner Complete Edition. His new edition of the second version of the Fourth Symphony was published in 2019, and received the Claude V. Palisca Award from the American Musicological Society as the outstanding scholarly edition in the field of musicology published that year. It has been performed by numerous leading orchestras including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics and the leading orchestras in Boston, Philadelphia, Munich, Amsterdam, Paris, and Zurich under the direction of Herbert Blomstedt. He published the first modern edition of the 1888 version of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony in 2004. This version of the symphony has been performed internationally in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Austria, as well as in the U.S. A video production of a performance by the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst in the St. Florian Abbey, Austria has appeared on DVD (Euroarts). The Minnesota Orchestra gave the score its American premiere and recorded it on CD under the direction of Osmo Vänskä in 2010.
Korstvedt also works in other areas of critical musicology. He is the author of a critical study of the musical aesthetics of the German Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch (1885-1977) entitled Listening for Utopia in Ernst Bloch’s Musical Philosophy (Cambridge University Press). The book, which is the first work in English to address this topic, explicates central themes of Bloch’s philosophy of music and develops them through essays on works by Wagner, Mozart, Bruckner and Brahms. Other publications cover topics ranging from the role of music criticism in public discourse to the social character of Schubert’s late style, with new work in progress on liberal anxieties surrounding the body as a social text.
A frequent speaker at international and national conferences and symposia, Korstvedt has been invited to present lectures and lead seminars at universities in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Hungary, Austria, and Italy. He has contributed essays to program books for performance and recordings, and given pre-concert lectures in various venues..
Professor Korstvedt’s research has been honored with several international and national fellowships, including those from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Internationale Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften, Vienna. In 2010 he was awarded the Julio Kilenyi Medal of Honor by the Bruckner Society of America in recognition of “exemplary work in furthering the understanding and appreciation of the life and work of Anton Bruckner.”
Prof. Korstvedt has recently been appointed to the Advisory Board of the Institute of Austrian and German Music Research, a forum for renewed scholarly investigation of Austrian and German musical culture based at the University of Surrey. He has been the President of the Bruckner Society of America since 2011 and also serves on the editorial board of the Nineteenth-Century Music Review (Cambridge University Press), a journal that explores music within all aspects of culture in the long nineteenth century (c.1789-1914). He is a past member of the Council of the American Musicological Society and was the founding Vice President of the Haydn Society of North America.
Teaching
Professor Korstvedt’s teaching explores musical history and culture from the seventeenth century into the twentieth century, with a special interest in developing critical strategies for exploring connections between music and its many cultural contexts. He has designed and taught numerous courses in Clark’s music curriculum including an innovative introductory course “Studying Music Historically and Critically,” as well as courses on topics in music before 1750, classical and romantic repertory, musical modernism from 1885 to 1945, and a first-year seminar on music and politics. More recently he offered a seminar entitled “From Wagnerism to Nazism: the grandeur and catastrophe of German music.” Together with Prof. Wiebke Deimling of Clark’s Philosophy Department, he regularly offers a team-taught interdisciplinary seminar on “The Ethics and Aesthetics of the Sublime in Music and Art,” and most recently a seminar entitled “Vienna, 1890-1938: Capital of Tradition, Innovation, Promise, and Peril” together with Prof. Frances Tanzer of Clark’s History Department and the Strassler Center.
Degrees
- Ph.D. in Music, University of Pennsylvania, 1995
- B.A. in Music, Clark University, 1987
Affiliated Department(s)
- Visual and Performing Arts Department
- Holocaust and Genocide Studies
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Scholarly and Creative Works
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Schoenberg in Context, ed. Alexander Fisher
Chapter: “’Schoenberg and Music Criticism”
Published by Cambridge University Press
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2024
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Bruckner’s Fourth: The Biography of a Symphony
Oxford Studies in Musical Genesis, Structure, and Interpretation
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2024
Oxford University Press
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“Early Recordings of the Fourth Symphony as Documents of Changing Interpretive Styles”
Bruckner: Fragen der Aufführungspraxis und Interpretation,
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Freiburger Forschungs- und Lehrzentrums Musik, Freiburg, Germany
February
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2023
Sponsored by the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg
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“Bruckner and the Art of Compositional Transformation”
The Bruckner Journal Conference at the Yale School of Music
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New Haven CT
2023-04-07
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2023
Sponsored by The Bruckner Society of America
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“’As Long as You Live, Nothing Will Force You’: Tragedies of Freedom and Responsibility in Das Rheingold und Die Walküre”
TUNDI Wagner Ring Cycle
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The Latchis Theatre, Brattleboro, Vermont
August 26th
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2022
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“Varieties of Sublime Experience in Symphonic Music (Bruckner, for example)”
Varieties of Sublime Experience,
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Remich, Luxembourg,
June
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2022
Sponsored by Clark's Leir-Luxembourg program and CEFOS
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"The 1878 Version of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony Revealed,”
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2022
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“Not an abstract ‘Urtext’ or an academic conception but a living musical performance text” in the booklet of the CD recording of Anton Bruckner, Sinfonie IV, Altomonte Orchestra conducted by Remy Ballot (Gramola, 2021)
CD recording of Anton Bruckner, Sinfonie IV, (Gramola, 2021)
January
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2022
Gramola
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Viienna
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Austria
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“The 1878 Version of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony Revealed"
program note for the premiere performance of the 1878 version of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony by the MusicaNova Orchestra conducted by Warren Cohen, Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, Scottsdale, Arizona, 1 May 2022
May
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2022
the MusicaNova Orchestra
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Phoenix AZ
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USA
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“’… I Take Refuge in Strength and Write Powerful Music …’: The Never-ending Story of a Fake Bruckner Quotation” by Andrea Harrandt, translated from the German by Benjamin Korstvedt,
March
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2022
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Vol. 26
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Issue #1
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Bristol CT
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“Declarations of Disgust, or the disciplining of the ‘proper’ ear, ca. 1900"
Music History and Music Theory Lecture Series
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he Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine (virtual)
February
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2022
Sponsored by UC Irvine
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“Issues of Performance and Interpretation in Bruckner Symphonies"
Music History Seminar
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Shenandoah Conservatory (virtual)
February
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2022
Sponsored by Shenandoah Conservatory
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“Bringing the History of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony to Life"
October
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2021
Accentus Music
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Leipzig
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“Bringing the History of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony to Life"
booklet essay in Bruckner 4 – 3 Versions, a 4-CD set, Bamberger Symphoniker conducted by Jakub Hrůša (Accentus Music, 2021)
October
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2021
Accentus Music
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Leipzig
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Germany
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“Experiencing the Sublime in the Adagio of Bruckner’s Eighth"
program note for the performance of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony by the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Zander, Symphony Hall, Boston, 15 Oct. 2021
October
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2021
the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra
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Boston MA
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USA
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“Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony: A User’s Guide to the Editions”
The Major Orchestra Librarians' Association Conference
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virtual
June
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2021
Sponsored by The Major Orchestra Librarians' Association
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“Das Finale Bruckners Vierte: die Abenteuer eines symphonischen Satzes"
Symposium: Die Suche nach Vollendung—Bruckners Vierte
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St. Florian, Austria
August
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2021
Sponsored by St. Florianer Bruckner-Tag
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“Politics and the Person"
Revisiting Austrian and German Music: from the “Spring of Nations” to the Cold War, The Inaugural Conference of the Institute of Austrian and German Music Research
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University of Surrey/virtual
Fall
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2021
Sponsored by Institute of Austrian and German Music Research
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“Analysis through Metaphor and Narrative"
Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society
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virtual
November
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2021
Sponsored by American Musicological Society
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“Bruckner at the Turning Point: The Earliest Recordings of the Fourth Symphony as Documents of Changing Performance Practices”
Early Recordings: Diversity in Practice virtual conference,
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University of Glasgow
May
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2021
Sponsored by University of Glasgow
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“Anxiety and Disgust: Music Criticism, or the Disciplining of the gebildete Ohr, ca. 1900”
Revisiting Austrian and German Music: from the ‘Spring of Nations’ to the Cold War, The Inaugural Conference of the Institute of Austrian and German Music Research
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University of Surrey, virtual,
September
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2021
Sponsored by Institute of Austrian and German Music Research
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“Bruckner at the Turning Point: The Earliest Recordings of the Fourth Symphony as Documents of Changing Performance Practices”
Early Recordings: Diversity in Practice
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University of Glasgow ( virtual)
5 May
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2021
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“On the History of The Bruckner Society of America and its Journal Chord and Discord,"
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2020
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Vol. 24
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Issue #3
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“What is a Version? . . . and What Difference Does It Make?,"
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2020
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Vol. 24
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Issue #1
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“Die wahre Geschichte der Vierten Symphonie; oder, haben wir ihr Fassungsproblem falsch verstanden?"
Published in Studien & Berichte (Journal of the International Bruckner Society)
June
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2020
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Vol. 94
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“Declarations of Disgust: Reflections on the Ideological Functions of Music Criticism, ca. 1900,”
Higgins School of the Humanities faculty lecture series
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Clark University
February
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2020
Sponsored by Higgins School of the Humanities
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“Declarations of Disgust: Reflections on an Ideological Dimension of Music Criticism, ca. 1900,”
Lyceum Series, Baylor University School of Music
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Baylor University, Waxo, Texas
January
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2020
Sponsored by Bayor Univeristy, School of Music
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“Who was Anton Bruckner, and why did the Nazis care so much about his music?"
An Engaging Music lecture at Baylor Univ.
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Baylor University, Waxo, Texas
January
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2020
Sponsored by The School of Music, Baylor University
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Bruckner Symphonies: Issues, Perspectives, and Solutions
Seminar at the Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest, Hungary
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Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest, Hungary
March
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2020
Sponsored by Dept. of Musicology, Franz Liszt Academy,
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Review of "Dreams of Germany: Musical Imaginaries from the Concert Hall to the Dance Floor," edited by Neil Gregor and Thomas Irvine
German Studies Review
Fall
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2019
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Vol. 42
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“Accounting for Islamic Influence on Troubadour music: issues of history, historiography and performance style (Diversifying the Syllabus)"
The Early Modernists Unite Teaching Colloquium
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Clark University
November
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2019
Sponsored by EMU
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Beratung über der Neubearbeitung des Werkverzeichnis Anton Bruckner
Bruckner Werkverzeichnis-Workshop, Institut für kunst- und musikhistorische Forschungen
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Vienna, Austria
October
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2019
Sponsored by Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
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“Die wahre Geschichte der Vierten Symphonie; oder, haben wir das Fassungsproblem falsch verstanden?”
90 Jahre der Internationale Bruckner-Gesellschaft
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Vienna, Austria
October
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2019
Sponsored by Österreichische Gesellschaft für Musik (the Austrian Society for Music)
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“Declarations of Disgust: Reflections on an Overlooked Function of Music Criticism in Liberal Vienna”
Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society
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Boston
November
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2019
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Awards & Grants
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Vienna, 1890-1938: Capital of Tradition, Innovation, Promise, and Peril
Clark's Academic Innovation Fund
Jan. 3, 2022 - May. 1, 2023
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Varieties of Sublime Experience
Leir program (Clark U) and Centre de formation et de seminaires (CEFOS)
Jun. 16, 2022 - Jun. 20, 2022
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Steinbrecher Family Senior Faculty Award
Clark University
2020
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Claude V. Palisca Award
American Musicological Society
2020
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Best Symphonic Recording
ICMA: International Classical Music Awards
2022
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Julio Kilenyi Medal of Honor
The Bruckner Society of America
2010
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Senior Fellow
IFK Internationale Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften, Vienna
2007
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Senior Fellow
The Mannes Institute for Advanced Studies in Musical Aesthetics
2010
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