EINSTEIN, ALFRED

EINSTEIN, ALFRED (1880–1952), musicologist. A cousin of the physicist albert einstein , he was born in Munich. Einstein was a music critic in Munich and Berlin, and became editor of the Zeitschrift fuer Musikwissenschaft in 1918. In 1933 he left Germany for Italy, reached the U.S. in 1939, and was professor at Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Einstein combined the qualities of a music critic with those of a precise scholar and bibliographer. In 1919 Hugo Riemann charged him with the preparation of the ninth edition of his Musiklexicon. Einstein subsequently edited also the 10th and 11th editions of this basic reference work. Of more popular character was his Das neue Musiklexicon, translated and edited by him from A. Eaglefield Hull's Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (1924). His Mozart studies culminated in his version of Koechel's catalogue of Mozart's works (3rd ed., 1937). He also enlarged and revised E. Vogel's Bibliothek der gedruckten weltlichen Vocal-musik Italiens (1962). A prolific writer, Einstein compiled semi-popular books, such as his Geschichte der Musik (19304; Short History of Music, 19544), Music in the Romantic Era (1947), and biographies of Schuetz (1928), Gluck (1936), Mozart (1946), and Schubert (1951). He produced scholarly studies on Renaissance music and edited compositions by Renaissance, Baroque, and classical composers. Also outstanding are his three volumes on The Italian Madrigal (1949), and the first four volumes of Mozart's Collected Works prepared by him.   -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Haggin, in: Music Review, 24 (1963), 269–78; Hertzmann, in: Musical Quarterly, 27 (1941), 263–79, incl. bibl.; Grove's Dict.; Sendrey, Music, indexes; Riemann-Gurlitt; MGG; Baker, Biog Dict. (Judith Cohen)