Schmid was born in
Ottobeuren into a musical family (the father
Ernst Fritz Schmid was already
Ordinarius for
musicology at the
Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen). Schmid decided after his
Abitur first to study violin at the
Leopold Mozart Centre in
Augsburg with the , before studying musicology, philosophy and
history of art at the universities of
Salzburg,
Freiburg and
Munich. He studied musicology with
Gerhard Croll,
Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht and
Thrasybulos Georgiades, whose last doctoral student was Schmid. In 1975 Schmid was awarded a doctorate with a thesis on "Mozart and the Salzburg tradition". His
habilitation was awarded in 1980 on the subject of "Music as an image. Studies on the work of
Weber,
Schumann and
Wagner". Schmid has held various teaching positions at the Universities of Munich and
Bayreuth, the music academies in Munich and Augsburg, as well as a position as director of the Munich
Musical Instrument Museum. In 1986 Schmid was appointed full professor of musicology at the
Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen as successor to
Georg von Dadelsen. In 1992/93 he was visiting professor at the University of Salzburg. On the occasion of his 60th birthday in 2007, a symposium entitled "Mozart in the Center" was held in Tübingen. Schmid has been retired since October 2012. However, he regularly held teaching positions at the universities of Munich and Vienna. Since 2010 he has been chairman of the Academy for Mozart Research at the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg. Schmid is considered an internationally renowned Mozart expert, but in his work he devoted himself to the entire European musical tradition from
ancient music to
new music. However, his main focus lies on the music of the
First Viennese School, the German
Romantic music and the
Renaissance music. Further fields of interest of Schmid were besides the general
historical musicology especially the
musical instrument, the
notation and the
Ethnomusicology. Schmid was editor of the
Mozart Studies (, until 2013, 22nd volume with Schneider, Tutzing, since 2015 with
Hollitzer, Vienna) and the
Tübinger Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft. Manfred Hermann Schmid is buried in the Petersfriedhof in Salzburg, u.z. in the communal crypt, in which Michael Haydn and Mozart's sister Nannerl were also buried. == External links ==