Joseph Schmidt-Görg (born Schmidt 19 March 1897 – 3 April 1981) was a German musicologist, composer and music editor. As a researcher at the University of Bonn and director of the Beethoven Archive, he is regarded as one of the leading Beethoven scholars of his time.^[1] He completed the new edition of Beethoven's complete works.

Born Joseph Schmidt^[2] in Rüdinghausen [de] (now part of Witten), he studied musicology at the University of Bonn with Ludwig Schiedermair, also philosophy, pedagogy and experimental physics.^[3] He achieved the doctorate in 1926 with a dissertation about the masses by Clemens non Papa.^[1] He composed masses and other sacred music, including a mass for five-part choir in 1924, a motet, Christus natus est, for eight voices, the same year, and a mass Missa Exultet in 1927.^[1]

He officially changed his name in 1930.^[1] After his habilitation that year, on Mitteltontemperatur,^[3] he lectured at the university, was appointed professor in 1938, and Ordinarius in 1948. He was emerited in 1965.^[1]

Schiedermair was a founding member and first director of the Beethoven Archive in Bonn in 1927. He called Schmidt-Görg to be his research assistant. Schmidt-Görg succeeded him as director in 1945 and held the post until 1972. He completed the new edition of Beethoven's complete works, Neue Beethoven-Gesamtausgabe, that Schiedermair had initiated.^[2] He edited piano works, in collaboration with his son Hans Schmidt. He also began the publications of the Beethoven House.^[1]

Schmidt-Görg died in Bad Neuenahr at the age of 84.^[1][3]

• Das rheinische Volkslied, Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1934
• Katalog der Handschriften des Beethoven-Hauses und des Beethoven-Archivs Bonn, Bonn 1935
• Nicolas Gombart, Kapellmeister Kaiser Karls V. Leben und Werk, Bonn: Röhrscheid, 1938
• Beethoven. Die Geschichte seiner Familie, Munich: Henle 1964
• Des Bonner Bäckermeisters Gottfried Fischer Aufzeichnungen über Beethovens Jugend, Munich: Henle, 1971
• Beethoven, as editor with Hans Schmidt^[4]
• Musik der Gotik, Bonn: Schwippert, 1946

• "Beethoven und das kurkölnische Geistesleben", in Allgemeine Musikzeitung, vol. 54 (1927), pp. 549f.
• "Zur Musikanschauung in den Schriften der hl. Hildegard", in Der Mensch und die Künste. Festschrift für Heinrich Lützeler zum 60. Geburtstag, Düsseldorf 1962, pp. 230–237
• "Ein Schiller-Zitat Beethovens in neuer Sicht", in Musik, Edition, Interpretation. Gedenkschrift Günther Henle, Munich 1980, pp. 423–426

• Thomas Phleps: "Ein stiller, verbissener und zäher Kampf um Stetigkeit – Musikwissenschaft in NS-Deutschland und ihre vergangenheitspolitische Bewältigung", in Isolde von Foerster et al. (ed.), Musikforschung – Nationalsozialismus – Faschismus, Mainz 2001, pp. 471–488.
• Festschrift Joseph Schmidt-Görg zum 60. Geburtstag, edited by Dagmar Weise, Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 1957
• Colloquium amicorum. Joseph Schmidt-Görg zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by Siegfried Kross und Hans Schmidt, Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 1967 OCLC 2727780
• Sieghard Brandenburg, "Sammeln und Bewahren – Edieren und Auswerten. Aus der Gründungszeit des Beethoven-Archivs", in Bonner Beethoven-Studien, vol. 5 (2006), pp. 71–93