Carl Dahlhaus (10 June 1928 – 13 March 1989) was a German musicologist who was among the leading postwar musicologists of the mid to late 20th-century. A prolific scholar, he had broad interests though his research focused on 19th- and 20th-century classical music, both areas in which he made significant advancements. However, he remains best known in the English-speaking world for his writings on Wagner. Dahlhaus wrote on many other composers, including Josquin, Gesualdo, Bach and Schoenberg. He spent the bulk of his career as head of the Berlin Institute of Technology's musicology department, which he raised to an international standard. Dahlhaus pioneered the development of numerous musicological fields, particularly the aesthetics of music, which he raised to a central status. Active as a historian, analyst, editor and organizer, he was massively influential and his work has since incited considerable discussion and debate. Life and career Dahlhaus was born in Hanover on 10 June 1928. The Second World War interrupted his early education; he served on the front and as an anti-aircraft auxiliary. He completed school exams through a special program designed for those engaged in combat. After a brief stint studying law, Dahlhaus first engaged in musicology from 1947 to 1952, studying with Wilibald Gurlitt at the University of Freiburg and Rudolf Gerber at the University of Göttingen. His 1953 dissertation at the latter concerned the masses of Josquin des Prez. Instead of seeking an academic career, he engaged in the theatre and journalism worlds. Having begun as a student, he worked as dramaturg for the Deutsches Theater in Göttingen from 1950 to 1958; Bertolt Brecht had encouraged him to take the post. From 1960 to 1962 he worked as musical editor for the Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper, acting as a relentless promoter of the Darmstadt school. His first academic position came in 1962, when he served as a research assistant at the University of Kiel until 1966. That year he completed his a work for his Habilitation, Untersuchungen über die Entstehung der harmonischen Tonalität (Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality), published in 1968. The work was a seminal study on the origins of tonality, reaching back to the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Originally in German, Robert Gjerdingen has published a translated version in 1990 through the Princeton University Press. After working at Saarland University for less than a year, he was hired in 1967 to succeed Hans Heinz