Wolff was born in
Solingen, the son of theologian
Hans Walter Wolff. He studied organ and historical keyboard instruments,
musicology, and
art history at the Universities of
Berlin,
Erlangen, and the
Music Academy of Freiburg, receiving a performance diploma in 1963 and a
PhD in 1966. Wolff taught music history at Erlangen,
Toronto,
Princeton, and
Columbia Universities before joining the Harvard faculty in 1976 as Professor of Music and retiring in 2014. He was also on the graduate faculty of the Juilliard School from 2010 to 2018. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Saxon Academy of Sciences, the Akademie für Mozart-Forschung (he chaired it from 1996 to 2006) and since 2015 a member of the Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and the Arts, he also holds an honorary professorship at the University of Freiburg, Germany. ==Publications and media==