Leopold Nowak

Who was Leopold Nowak?

Leopold Nowak was a musicologist chiefly known for editing the works by Anton Bruckner for the International Bruckner Society. He reconstructed the original form of some of those works, most of which had been revised and edited many times.

Nowak was born in Vienna, Austria. He studied piano and organ at the Imperial Academy of Music in Vienna. He studied musicology with Guido Adler and Robert Lach at the Vienna University, where he later taught from 1932 to 1973.

He succeeded Robert Haas as music director of the music collection of the Austrian National Library in 1946, and is credited with helping preserve documents about Bruckner.

Nowak's approach to editing Bruckner's music was much more scientific than Haas's. Whereas Haas for instance combined bits from the 1887 and 1890 versions of Bruckner's Symphony No. 8 in C minor to make his edition of the work, Nowak put out two separate editions for the two versions. Nowak also wrote essays examining theoretical aspects of the music of Bruckner and others, such as an essay on the metrical and rhythmical aspects of the symphonies of Beethoven and Bruckner.