Knud Jeppesen

Knud Jeppesen (15 August 1892 in Copenhagen – 14 June 1974 in Risskov) was a Danish musicologist, composer, and writer on the history of music.

Jeppesen demonstrated early musical talent at age 10 when he was first encouraged by Hakon Andersen and Paul Hellmuth, although he was largely self-taught. Completing primary education in 1911, he first worked in Elbing and Liegnitz (Eastern Germany) as an opera coach and conductor. He found employment in Berlin in 1914, but returned to Denmark because of the outbreak of war. In Copenhagen he became a pupil of prominent Danish composers Carl Nielsen and Thomas Laub, and studied musicology at Copenhagen University with Angul Hammerich. He passed the organist exam at the Royal Danish Conservatory of music in 1916. Owing to Hammerich's retirement, there was nobody on the faculty of the university to examine Jeppesen's work; therefore, he submitted his dissertation to the University of Vienna, where it was reviewed by Guido Adler and Jeppesen was awarded a doctorate in 1922.

He was organist at Copenhagen's St. Stephens church from 1917 to 1932 and at the Holmen church from 1932 to 1947. He taught music theory at the Royal Danish Academy of Music from 1920 to 1947, also serving on its board of directors. In 1946, he was appointed to the new post of professor of musicology at Aarhus University, where he founded (in 1950) an Institute of Musicology which he directed until 1957. His students included the composers Vagn Holmboe (in Copenhagen) and Bent Lorentzen (in Aaarhus).

Following his retirement in 1957, Jeppesen resided in Italy, enabling him to make several discoveries in Italian libraries culminating in his magnum opus, La frottola (1968–70), a detailed study and bibliography of frottole, the leading genre of Italian popular, secular songs in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. From 1927 until his death he was active in the International Musicological Society, serving as president from 1949 to 1952. He was also a member (from 1963) of the Italian Accademia dei Lincei.

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