Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Negro, Giulio Santo Pietro de’.

See Negri, Giulio Santo Pietro de’.

Negro minstrelsy.

See Minstrelsy, American.

NEH.

See National Endowment for the Humanities.

Neher, (Rudolf Ludwig) Caspar

(b Augsburg, 11 April 1897; d Vienna, 30 June 1962). German stage designer and librettist. He was a schoolfellow of Brecht’s and studied art in Munich. His first work in opera came with his designs for Palestrina at Essen in 1927, although he had worked on Don Giovanni in Berlin in 1926 and created the projections (a medium in which his work was famous) at Baden-Baden in 1927 for the Mahagonny Songspiel; other Brecht-Weill designs include Die Dreigroschenoper (1928, Berlin; later in New York and London), Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (1930, Leipzig; later in Paris) and the ballet chanté Die sieben Todsünden (1933, Paris and London). He worked for the Kroll Opera in Berlin, 1928–31, with Klemperer, where his designs included Carmen and From the House of the Dead; in 1929 came the first of his seven productions of Wozzeck, at Essen. His collaborations with Carl Ebert in Berlin brought him into the operatic mainstream, and their great Verdi productions (Macbeth, 1931; Un ballo in maschera, 1932; he later designed both at Glyndebourne) did much to provoke the German revaluation of the composer. Neher remained in Germany during the Hitler years but maintained his artistic independence, continuing his ‘heterodox and subtly subversive work with Wagner-Régeny’ (Drew), with whom he collaborated as librettist in the 1930s and 40s. He worked frequently with O.F. Schuh (beginning with La traviata, 1940, Vienna), at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin and with Noller at Hamburg. He worked much at Zürich in the immediate postwar period and from 1947 with Schuh and von Einem (Dantons Tod, 1947, and several Mozart operas). He was principal stage designer at Cologne, with Schuh, from 1959 to 1962.

Neher was an immensely intelligent designer with a true genius for the theatre; his importance within 20th-century stage design has still to be assessed. His work was characterized by minimal elaboration, the telling use of light, rigorously selected painted props and a controlled palette, establishing a stage picture in which the singers existed convincingly in an emotional and historical atmosphere, suggested rather than imposed. Most of his designs are in the Österreichisches Theatermuseum, Vienna.

WORKS

Librettos: Die Bürgschaft, Weill, 1932; Der Günstling, Wagner-Régeny, 1935; Die Bürger von Calais, Wagner-Régeny, 1939; Johanna Balk, Wagner-Régeny, 1941; Persische Episode [Der Darmwäscher] (komische Oper, with B. Brecht), Wagner-Régeny, 1963 (comp. 1940–50)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Grove6 (D. Drew)

Caspar Neher: Zeugnisse seiner Zeitgenossen (Cologne, 1960)

G. von Einem and S. Melchinger, eds.: Caspar Neher (Hanover, 1966)

R. Wagner-Régeny and C. Neher: Begegnungen (East Berlin, 1968)

F. Hadamowsky: Caspar Nehers szenisches Werk (Vienna, 1972)

D. Bablet: Revolutions in Stage Design of the Twentieth Century (Paris and New York, 1977)

J. Willett: Caspar Neher: Brecht’s Designer (London, 1986)

MARINA HENDERSON/DAVID J. HOUGH

Neidhardt, Johann Georg

(b Bernstadt, c1685; d Königsberg, 1739). German theorist and composer. After early training at Altdorf and Wittenberg, Neidhardt matriculated as a theology student at Jena, where he produced his first treatise on temperament and apparently continued his musical training. It is likely that he studied with the university organist, J.N. Bach, who knew him well enough to allow him to try one of his temperaments on the new organ at the city’s central church; Bach’s tuning, however, was found more singable. Between 1710 and 1720, when he was appointed Kapellmeister at Königsberg, Neidhardt was again in Bernstadt as well as in Breslau, where he is known to have lectured on composition. He then remained at Königsberg until his death, teaching organ and versification to the university students in addition to his writing and official duties.

Along with Werckmeister, Neidhardt perfected the art of practical temperaments in the early 18th century. An advocate of circulating temperaments (those intended to be most consonant in the more frequently used keys, and progressively less so in the remoter ones), he wanted his more than two dozen temperaments to be flexibly applied, as may be judged from his recommendation of specific temperaments for a village, a town, a city, and the court (the last assigned an equal temperament). He was apparently an active composer throughout his life; his few extant works include chorale settings (USSR-KA), and some published psalm settings and sacred songs.

WRITINGS

Beste und leichteste Temperatur des Monochordi (Jena, 1706)

Sectio Canonis Harmonici, zur völligen Richtigkeit der Generum Modulandi (Königsberg, 1724)

Gäntzlich erschöpfte mathematische Abteilungen des diatonischchromatischen, temperirten Canonis Monochordi (Königsberg, 1732, 2/1734; Lat. trans., 1735)

Systema generis diatonico-chromatici, ex numeris serie naturali procedentibus evolutum (Königsberg, 1734; Ger. trans., 1734)

Compositio harmonica problematice tradita, lost

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (A. Forchert)

J. Adlung: Anleitung zu der musikalischen Gelahrtheit (Erfurt, 1758/R, 2/1783), 276

A. Mayer-Reinach: ‘Zur Geschichte der Königsberger Hofkapelle in den Jahren 1578–1720’, SIMG, vi (1904–5), 32–79

H. Güttler: Königsbergs Musikkultur im 18. Jahrhundert (Königsberg, 1925)

CECIL ADKINS