Hi, I’m
Dr. Stephan Schönlau

I lecture in Music Theory at the Universität der Künste (University of the Arts) Berlin and at the Hochschule für Musik (College of Music) Carl Maria von Weber Dresden. I hold a PhD from the University of Manchester (UK) and have taught music students from all over the world for the past twelve years, including at the Hochschule für Künste (College of Arts) Bremen, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the University of Manchester and the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (College of Music and Dance, Cologne).

I am originally from Cape Town, South Africa, and studied Music Theory and Piano at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin and at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, as well as Musicology at the University of Cologne, before completing my doctorate at the University of Manchester.
A portrait of Dr Stephan Schönlau smilingA portrait of Dr Stephan Schönlau smiling

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Books and articles

Here are some of the books and articles I’ve published in internationally-renowned journals
'JOY to great Caesar': Popular Songs on Farinel’s Ground in late 17th-century England
Early Music, 52/1 (2024), pp. 91–103.
Farinel’s Ground and Other 'Follyes' in English Sources of the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries
Early Music, 49/1 (2021), pp. 67–86.
Another Strain of Polewheel’s Ground
The Viola da Gamba Society Journal, 13 (2019), pp. 67–86.
Creative Approaches to Ground-Bass Composition in England, c.1675–c.1705
Doctoral dissertation, University of Manchester, 2019.
Emulating Lully? Generic Features and Personal Traits in the Passacaglia from Henry Purcell’s King Arthur (1691)
Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale, 2014 (1–2), pp. 119–46.
Kompositionstechnik in den Studies für Klavier von Charles Ives
Hamburg, 2012.

Reports, reviews and online publications

Including my posts on the British Library Music Blog while I was affiliated with the British Library
[Review of] Alan Howard, Compositional Artifice in the Music of Henry Purcell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020)
Music Analysis, 41/2 (2022), pp. 341–6.
Italian Baroque (Report on the 18th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music in Cremona, 10–15 July 2018)
Early Music, 46 (2018), pp. 708–11. Co-authored with Andrew Frampton; Anita Hardeman; Ginte Medzvieckaite; Helen Roberts; Elizabeth Rouget and Hannah Spracklan-Holl.
Musicians, publishers and pirates of the mid-Baroque (Report on the study day held at the British Library, London, 29 June 2016)
Early Music, 44 (2016), p. 506.
Calling all language enthusiasts!
British Library Music Blog, 1 September 2016.
Nicola Matteis and his Ayrs for the Violin
British Library Music Blog, 23 August 2016.
Music printing in England, 1650-1700, and The British Library
British Library Music Blog, 15 August 2016.
“Negligence” or obeying compositional norms
British Library Music Blog, 12 July 2016.
Recycling Madrigals in Counter-Reformation Italy
British Library Music Blog, 15 June 2016.