Gerhard Croll
Gerhard Croll (25 May 1927 – 26 October 2019) was a German-Austrian musicologist known for his work on Gluck and Salzburg’s musical history. He was born in Düsseldorf and trained as a Kapellmeister at the Robert Schumann Hochschule, then studied musicology with Rudolf Gerber at the University of Münster. He earned his doctorate in 1954 with a study on the motet works of Gaspar van Weerbeke and completed his habilitation in 1961, focusing on the operas of Agostino Steffani.
From 1966 to 1993, Croll was a professor and founding lecturer of musicology at the University of Salzburg. He helped establish important institutions there, including the Salzburg Music History, Dance and Music Theatre Institute and the Bernhard-Paumgartner Archive. He joined the New Mozart Edition in 1955 and directed the Gluck Complete Edition from 1960 to 1990. In 1986 he founded the International Gluck Society and was a member of the Central Institute for Mozart Research in Salzburg; he was also an honorary member of the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum.
Croll connected scholarly study with practical music making. With Bernhard Paumgartner, he helped stage early works, such as an Emilio de’ Cavalieri opera at the Salzburg Festival. He started the edition series Monuments of Music in Salzburg and helped produce recordings from Salzburg archives. His research covered Salzburg’s musical life beyond Mozart, including figures like Johann Michael Haydn, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber and Georg Muffat. He supported the restoration of historic instruments (such as the Salzburg Claviorganum and the Haydn grand piano) and helped repair organs in Salzburg Cathedral.
He contributed important collections to the institute, including archives of Rudolf Gerber, Bernhard Paumgartner and Friderica Derra de Moroda, and helped establish the Derra de Moroda Dance Archives, a major resource for dance studies. His main lifelong focus was the life and work of Christoph Willibald Gluck. He led the Gluck Research Centre in Salzburg and helped organize the Gluck Festival to keep Gluck’s music alive. He worked closely with musicians and conductors like René Jacobs and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and he ran a Collegium musicum for students to study by playing music themselves. He also supported a historical dance ensemble to explore music and dance from the 16th to the 19th century. Croll died in Salzburg at the age of 92.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:42 (CET).