Obituary for Dorothea Baumann

Antonio Baldassare- Born on April 4, 1946, she studied piano at the Music Academy in Zurich under Bertie Biedermann (graduating in 1968) and musicology, physics and modern German literature at the University of Zurich. In 1977 she completed her doctorate with a thesis entitled "Die dreistimmige Lied-Satztechnik im Trecento" (published in 1979), which was supervised by Kurt von Fischer. From 1978 she was an associated researcher and was appointed Privatdozentin in 2000 with her habilitation "Raum und Musik: Eine Untersuchung zur Bedeutung des Raumes für die musikalische Aufführungspraxis" (published in 2011). In addition to her position at the Department of Musicology and the Ethnomusicological Archive at the University of Zurich, she lectured repeatedly at the University of Bern, the Department of Architecture at the ETH and the Institute for Music Therapy at the Zurich University of the Arts. From 1977 to 1996 she was a lecturer in organology and acoustics in the further education program of Swiss Radio and Television. From 1978 to 1995 she was responsible for the documentation of the program book for the Tonhalle Society Zurich and since 1976 she has worked as a consultant for acoustics issues. Last but not least, she was invited as a guest lecturer at the Graduate School of the City University of New York in 1987 and at the University of Innsbruck in 1998, and has also performed regularly as a pianist and harpist at concerts.

Dorothea Baumann has been a leading and advisory member of many renowned national and international scientific institutions and organizations: From 1985 to 2006, she was President of the Zurich section of the Swiss Music Research Society; Vice-President from 1993 to 2004 and President of the Swiss section of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML) from 1990 to 1992 and 2005 to 2012, Treasurer of the Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft Zürich (AMG) from 1986 to 2008, member of the Commission Mixte of the RILM from 1996 to 2004, member of the Board of Trustees of the Kurt Leimer Foundation from 2004 to 2010 and finally, as already mentioned, Secretary General of the IMS for a quarter of a century (1994 - 2019). She was also an advisory member of the Commission Mixte of RISM (since 1994), the "Universe of Music" project (since 1997) and the State Institute for Music Research (SIM) Berlin (since 2009). Finally, she has been a member of the Council of Association at RIdIM since 2011.

Dorothea Baumann's academic work covers a wide range of areas and topics, including the music of the Middle Ages and the Trecento; the organization of knowledge in databases; topics of historical and systematic musicology and their relationship to each other; acoustics, performance practice and organology; music iconography; music theory; music psychology; philosophy of music and interdisciplinary aspects of music; spatial acoustics and music perception. She was also strongly committed to the promotion of young academics. The diversity and plurality (both in terms of subject matter and methodology) of her remarkable research and publication activities must be understood as the result of her intense and profound interest in and engagement with current discussions and trends in musicology - unbroken until her much too early death. She never retreated to the "battlefields of positions", which is essentially due to her deep conviction in the productive power of constructive discussions and compromises. In this respect, Dorothea Baumann always and unwaveringly followed the core principle of Kant's Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) followed: "Act only according to that maxim which you can at the same time will to become a general law." It is against this background that Kurt von Fischer's characterization of Dorothea Baumann as "the good soul of the Zurich Musicology Institute and Swiss musicology" should be understood.

The voice of Dorothea Baumann, whom Dinko Fabris, former President of the IMS, once described as the "living memory of the IMS", fell silent shortly before dawn on August 29, 2022. But she will be remembered as an outstanding example and role model for decency, honesty and integrity, which are the fundamental conditions of Kant's categorical imperative mentioned above, and as an unwavering advocate of a soulful musicological attitude that is not only aware of its social task, but also lives it through music research and music practice.