Gerhard Herz papers

Gerhard Herz, internationally recognized authority on Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and University of Louisville professor of music history, was born in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1911. He and his family emigrated to the United States, with the assistance of humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, in the late 1930s. Here he began his forty-year career at the university and his involvement in Louisville's music community.

Herz is often credited with creating the university's music history program and for establishing the Louisville Chamber Music Society. Herz served on the board of the Louisville Orchestra for twenty years as well as on the jury for the orchestra's famous commissioning project. During his career Herz managed to acquire photographic reproductions of almost all of Bach's manuscripts from 1704 to 1750, notably those in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin and these remain the most significant documents for the study of the works of the great composer.

Herz was married to Mary Jo Fink (1916-1995), Ohio native and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Ohio State University, who taught French at the University of Louisville from 1942 to 1979. Herz died at age 88 on September 3, 2000.