Ernst Hermann Meyer - Biography

Biography

Meyer was born in Berlin. He received his first piano lessons at the age of six, and started composing at the age of eleven. After finishing school he worked as an apprentice at a bank, and in 1926 he started studying music at Heidelberg University, where in 1930, he completed his PhD on the 17th century chamber music of North German composers. He became a pupil of Hanns Eisler. Being a Jew, to avoid detention by the Nazi Party he emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1933, where he became a close friend of Alan Bush one year later. In the UK he researched English chamber music of the 17th century and lectured for the Workers Educational Association. In 1939 He started lecturing at Bedford College, London and in 1945 he was given a guest professorship at King's College, Cambridge. He returned to East Germany (GDR) in 1948 and became one of the most influential figures of music culture in the GDR. He was also active politically as a communist and his works include choral, orchestral and chamber music in a style of passionate commitment to the ideals of Marx-Leninist ideals. In 1982 his book 'Early English Chamber music' was published. Meyer was head of the German Society of Composers and Musicologists, professor of musicology at the Berlin Humboldt University, chairman of the German Handel Society and founder of the annual Handel Festival, which is still celebrated in Halle, Germany.