Roman Ilich Gruber

Born Dec. 1 (13), 1895, in Kiev; died Mar. 24, 1962, in Moscow. Soviet musicologist and teacher.

Gruber studied music in Kiev with M. P. Dombrovskii (piano) and G. L. Lubomirskii (theory). In 1922 he graduated from the music history department of the Russian Institute of Art History (in Petrograd), where he studied with B. V. Asafev, A. V. Preobrazhenskii, and M. O. Shteinberg. Gruber became a scholarly worker at the institute in 1922; he was a scholarly worker at the Scientific Research Institute of Theater and Music during 1937–43. At the same time (from 1931) he taught at the Leningrad Conservatory (professor and head of a subdepartment from 1935). From 1941 he taught at the Moscow Conservatory (in 1943 he became head of the subdepartment of the general history of music). Many Soviet musicologists were his students. Gruber’s main works are devoted to the history of world musical culture.