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.

Jeppeson 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 taught music theory at the Royal Danish Academy of Music from 1920 to 1947, also serving on its board of directors. He was organist at Copenhagen's St. Stephens church from 1917–1932 and at the Holmen church in 1947. He became the first professor of musicology at Aarhus University in 1947.

Jeppesen's name is invariably associated with the study of musical counterpoint, particularly in the style of Palestrina. His 1930 Counterpoint: The Polyphonic Vocal Style of the Sixteenth Century has been a standard textbook since its appearance in German (1935) and English (1939), and remains in print today (the third and final edition remains untranslated). He doctoral thesis was enlarged in 1923 and appeared in English in 1927 as "The Style of Palestrina and the Dissonance." His published writings on music mostly by Italian and Danish composers from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Jeppesen engaged in much primary research – locating early manuscript and print copies of old scores and preparing editions with annotations and commentary. In 1962 he finished the first complete thematic catalog of Palestrina's oeuvre. Among his accomplishments were the discovery of ten previously unknown masses by Palestrina in 1949.

Jeppesen's early efforts at composition were poorly received and he turned away from composition in 1919, only to resume after a fifteen year hiatus. He is known for well-crafted songs set to Danish texts, church music, and motets. He also wrote cantatas, organ music, and an opera, Rosaura, which was performed by the Royal Danish Theatre on September 20, 1950. He also made many contributions to Danish hymnology, and his Bygen flygter, Forunderligt så sødt et smil is a classic with Danish church choirs. His style incorporates his knowledge of early counterpoint but also the style of late Viennese romantics including Gustav Mahler, to whom he was introduced by Adler. From 1916 to 1931 Jeppesen was Nielsen's closest associate, and Jeppesen wrote several articles important articles about that composer.

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 of frottola.

From 1927 until his death he was active in the International Musicological Society, serving as president from 1949 to 1952.