Peter Petersen

Peter Petersen is a German musicologist and professor emeritus at the University of Hamburg. His research has focused on musical rhythm, music theatre, music in exile, and twentieth-century music. He has published studies of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and the music of Hans Werner Henze, as well as work on composers including Béla Bartók, Hanns Eisler, György Ligeti, and Witold Lutosławski. Petersen was the initiator and co-editor of the Lexikon verfolgter Musiker und Musikerinnen der NS-Zeit, a lexicon devoted to musicians persecuted during the Nazi era. His book Musik und Rhythmus (2010; English edition 2013) presents a new theory of rhythm.