Hans Moldenhauer (musicologist)

Hans Moldenhauer (December 13, 1906, Mainz – October 19, 1987, Spokane) was a German-born American musicologist, archivist, and music educator. He founded the Spokane Conservatory of Music in 1946 and became known as an authority on the composer Anton Webern. He and his wife Rosaleen are also known for compiling the Moldenhauer Archive.

Moldehauer was educated in his native city at the Hochschule für Musik Mainz where he was a pupil of Hans Rosbaud. He immigrated to the United States in 1938 where he settled in Spokane, Washington. There he studied at Whitworth University where he graduated with a B.A. in 1945. In 1951 he earned a doctorate in musicology from the Chicago Musical College, Roosevelt University.^[1]

Moldehauer founded the Spokane Conservatory of Music in 1946 and served as that institution's president for many years. He also taught on the music school faculty of the University of Washington from 1961 to 1964, and was a guest lecturer at many universities in the United States and Europe.^[1]

Moldenhauer is best known for collecting the Moldenhauer Archive which was located in Spokane, Washington. It contained what The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians described as "an enormous collection of autographed manuscripts". The collection contained ample manuscripts by Anton Webern along with many other composers. Webern was of particular interest to Moldenhauer as a scholar. He published numerous journal articles on Webern and his music, and was considered an authority on that composer.^[1]

After Moldenhauer's death, the archive was dispersed. A considerable portion of it is located in the library of Northwestern University.^[1] The collection's numerous original autographed manuscripts by Webern are now held in the Paul-Sacher-Stiftung Library in Basel, Switzerland. Other manuscripts from the collection are now in the Austrian National Library in Vienna, the Bavarian State Library in Munich, the Harvard Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Library of Congress (Moldenhauer Archives) in Washington D.C. among other institutions.^[2]