Arnold Schering

Who was Arnold Schering?

Arnold Schering was a German musicologist.

He grew up in Dresden as the son of an art publisher. He learned violin at the Annengymnasium from which he graduated in 1896. Thereafter he studied violin at the Berlin School of Music under Joseph Joachim. From 1898 until 1902 he studied music in Berlin and Leipzig and wrote his dissertation on the instrumental concertos of Antonio Vivaldi and this work was influential in resurrecting the music of this composer. In 1907 he made his habilitation and was made a professor of music in 1915. In 1920 Schering gathered evidence that composer Johann Sebastian Bach usually used 12 singers in his cantatas and other vocal works. This insight eventually became influential in the early music movement. From 1928 onward he taught as a professor of musicology in Berlin.

After the Nazis rose to power, Schering became a member of the National Socialist Teachers League and the executive council of the Reichsmusikkammer.