Hornbostel, Erich von

Hornbostel, Erich (Moritz) von

(born Feb. 25, 1877, Vienna, Austria—died Nov. 28, 1935, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.) Austrian ethnomusicologist. Born into a musical family in Vienna, he was by his teens a skilled pianist and composer. After taking a doctorate in chemistry, he became involved in psychological research, and his studies of tonal perception were pioneering research in what would become the field of ethnomusicology. He helped establish the research program for the field and the methods used to carry it out, including field recordings. In 1912 he devised, with Curt Sachs, the cross-cultural system of classification of musical instruments that is still in use.