Helmuth Osthoff

Helmuth Osthoff (13 August 1896 – 9 February 1983) was a German musicologist and composer. Much of his career was spent at Frankfurt University, prior to which he held posts at Halle University and Berlin University. He wrote the first major biography on the composer Josquin des Prez, published as a two volume monograph in 1962 and 1965 Life Born in Bielefeld, Osthoff, son of the bank director Heinrich Osthoff and his wife Berta, née Tepel, began his musical education while still at grammar school, taking lessons in piano playing, music theory, score playing and musical composition with Otto Wetzel in Bielefeld and Wilhelm Niessen in Münster. After Osthoff had taken part in the First World War from 1915 to 1918, he studied musicology, history of art and philosophy from 1919, first at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster and from 1920 at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In 1922, as a student of Johannes Wolf, he was awarded the title of Dr. ph. with his dissertation Der Lautenist Santini Garsi da Parma. After further musical training in composition with Wilhelm Klatte, piano with James Kwast and conducting with Gustav Brecher, which he completed both privately and at the Berl