Obituary: Hans Lenneberg, Music

A memorial service for Hans Lenneberg, Professorial Lecturer in Music and Music Librarian for the University Library, will be held in Bond Chapel at 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7. Lenneberg died Sept. 7 after a long illness. He was 70.

"Hans' course on bibliography was one of the cornerstones of our graduate curriculum, and his students and colleagues remember him as a caring mentor, a wonderful teacher and friend," said Anne Robertson, Associate Professor and Chairman of Music.

"Hans was a staunch advocate for the Music Library and its acquisitions and special collections. His motto, as he once expressed it to former department chair Edward Lowinsky, was 'Amor librorum vincit omnia,' or 'Love of books conquers all.' It was with this vision that he kept students and faculty alike supplied with the most our budgets could purchase, even in times when money was scarce," she said.

Born in Germany, Lenneberg came to the United States in 1940. He received his A.B. in 1952 from Brooklyn College of CUNY, his A.M. in 1956 from New York University and his M.L.S. from Pratt Institute in 1962. He taught at Brooklyn College and worked for the Brooklyn Public Library, including as assistant head of the art and music division, before coming to Chicago as Assistant Professor and Music Librarian in 1963. In 1985, he became Professorial Lecturer and librarian for the performing arts.

He was the author of Witness and Scholars: Studies in Musical Biography (1988) and Breitkopf and Haertel in Paris (1990) and was editor of the books Modern German Music: Musicology in the Third Reich (1994) and The Dissemination of Music (forthcoming). He also co-edited other books and contributed articles to professional journals.

Lenneberg is survived by his wife, Johanna; and three sons, Michael and Stephen Sonnenfeld and Peter Lenneberg.