Born in Plochingen,, Heister studied musicology, German literature and linguistics in Tübingen, Frankfurt a. M. and Berlin, received his doctorate in 1977 in Berlin on the aesthetics, sociology and history of the institution of the concert and habilitated in 1993 at the University of Oldenburg with studies on music analysis. From 1971 to 1992 he worked as a freelance music journalist for various radio stations, newspapers and magazines. After numerous lectureships and guest professorships he was professor for historical musicology and music communication in Dresden from 1992 to 1998 and professor for musicology in Hamburg from 1998 until his Emeritus in 2011. He is co-editor of the encyclopaedia Komponisten der Gegenwart, which has been published as looseleaf service since 1992.
Research
His research is centered on an analysis of music and music culture that is critical of power and society and can be divided into four areas:
1. Music sociological question: Music in social reality, both in the present and in history. The focus is on media/institutions such as the concert or the jukebox, background music, sound ecology, open-air music, music during Nazism, in resistance and exile.
2. Music aesthetic question: Social and natural reality in music. The focus here is on music as a specific language. A first focus is political music, in which the conscious reference to society is condensed. Further focal points are the combination of music with other arts, opera and music theatre as well as music and fine arts and finally, aspects of the Gesamtkunstwerk and elements of the arts. Mathematics also belongs tothe field of music-language, which has been researched more intensively since 2001; in addition to its significance for structural issues, it also serves to deepen and broaden the musical semantics. For a theory of similarity and a specification of fuzziness, Heister has also been using fuzzy logic since 2009.
3. Music-cultural-geographic question: Music in its global cultural and idiomatic differentiation. The starting point was the interest in the new, different, unusual, foreign; scientific occupation with jazz, Latin American music and Isang Yun, improvisation.
4. Music anthropological question: Music and human nature / human nature in music. The focus here is on the beginnings of music, the development of art, music and the human senses. Since 2005, Heister has increasingly included psychoanalysis in his work.
Publications
Das Konzert. Theorie einer Kulturform, 2 volumes, Wilhelmshaven 1983
Jazz, Kassel among others 1983
Vom allgemeingültigen Neuen. Analysen engagierter Musik: Dessau, Eisler, Ginastera, Hartmann, edited by Thomas Phleps and Wieland Reich, Saarbrücken 2006
Un/Endlichkeit. Begegnungen mit György Ligeti, Freiburg i. Br. 2008
Hintergrund Klangkunst. Ein Beitrag zur akustischen Ökologie, Mainz 2010
Musik und Musikpolitik im faschistischen Deutschland, Frankfurt. 1984
Der Komponist Isang Yun,Munich 1987; 2. erw. Aufl. Munich 1997
Komponisten der Gegenwart 4 volumes. Munich
Zwischen Aufklärung & Kulturindustrie,. 3 volumes, Hamburg 1993
Charles Ives, 1874–1954. Amerikanischer Pionier der Neuen Musik¸ Trier 2004
Zwischen/Töne. Musik und andere Künste, series, from 1995
Harry Goldschmidt: Das Wort in instrumentaler Musik: Die Ritornelle in Schuberts Winterreise, Hamburg 1996
: Harry Goldschmidt: Das Wort in Beethovens Instrumentalbegleitung, Cologne among others 1999
Musik/Revolution, 3 volumes, Hamburg 1996/97
"Entartete Musik" 1938 – Weimar und die Ambivalenz, 2 volumes, Saarbrücken 2001
Geschichte der Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, vol. III: 1945–1975, Laaber 2005
Zur Ambivalenz der Moderne, 4 volumes, vol. 1 2005; vol. 2–4 2007
Schichten, Geschichte, System. Geologische Metaphern und Denkformen in den Kunstwissenschaften, Berlin 2016
Bewegtes und Bewegendes. Der Motiv-Begriff in Künsten und Wissenschaften, Berlin 2017
Die Ehrenmitglieder der Staatstheater Stuttgart 1912–2018 Theatergeschichte in Portraits. Stuttgart 2018
Festschrift
Thomas Phleps and Wieland Reich : Musik-Kontexte. Festschrift für Hanns-Werner Heister, 2 volumes, Münster 2011. Verlagshaus Monsenstein und Vannerdat.
