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Merriam Webster's

biographical name Gerhart 1862-1946 German writer

Britannica Concise

German playwright and poet. He studied sculpture before turning to literature in his early twenties. His first play, the starkly realistic social drama Before Dawn (1889), made him famous and signaled the end of the highly stylized German drama. His naturalistic plays on themes of social reality and proletarian tragedy, incl. The Weavers (1892), The Beaver Coat (1893), and Drayman Henschel (1898), made him the most prominent German playwright of his era. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1912. In his novels, stories, epic poems, and later plays, he abandoned naturalism for mystical religiosity and mythical symbolism..German musicologist. After studying composition and violin with L. Spohr, he played in a number of orchestras. From 1842 he was cantor of the music school at J. S. Bach's former church in Leipzig. In 1850 he cofounded the Bach Gesellschaft, devoted to publishing Bach's complete works; he served as its president the rest of his life and edited its first three volumes. As a theorist, he is known for his emphasis on the harmonic dualism of major and minor (based on the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel).