Harvard University Department of MUSICn e w s l e t t e r Vol. 8, No. 2/Summer 2008 The More Things Change...: Music at Harvard, Then & Now Music Building by Anne C. Shreffler North Yard Harvard University Taking advantage of the Cambridge, MA 02138 comparatively quiet sum- mer months, I recently re-read Eliot Forbes’s A 617-495-2791 History of Music at Harvard www.music.fas.harvard.edu to 1972 (Department of Music, Harvard Univer- sity, 1988). Forbes, class of 1941 and a professor in the Music Department INSIDE from 1958 to 1984, known primarily for his magiste- Graduate student Meredith Schweig, Professors Rehding and Shreffler, graduate student 3 Faculty News rial revised and expanded Andrea Bohlman, and Professor Revuluri 4 Tutschku receives tenure; edition of Alexander Wheelock Thayer’s Life of that the musical transaction goes both ways: people Clark appointed Beethoven, writes of the different roles played by can do things with music—perform, compose, and music at Harvard: study it—but music also does things to (and with) 4 RISM adds Yale, Juilliard Music can provide stimulation, often of a deep, us: by providing “stimulation, often of a deep, spiri- manuscripts spiritual nature, to those who perform; music can tual nature...; music can be a life of its own...; music 5 Graduate Student News be a life of its own for those who create it through can be a subject of total absorption.” Finally, Forbes speaks of the special role of music at a liberal arts 6 Library News composition; and music can be a subject of total absorption for those who would study its history university, which must address the needs of those 6 Archiving Ulysses Kay and its roots. Whether any of these three branches who aspire to professional careers as well as those 7 Alumni News leads to a professional career or not, together they for whom music will remain an important part of their non-professional lives. Meeting both needs is 8 Undergraduate News represent the paths open to lovers of music at all levels. still the Music Department’s most important task. 9 Stewart Honored And it is the balance between these three that Music was cultivated at Harvard long before the 10 Calendar of Events was ever shifting from the time that music first took establishment of a Music Department. The Harvard hold as an organized effort at Harvard. (p. vii) Musical Association (currently a private organiza- 11 Honoring Pirrotta tion with no official connection to Harvard) was 12 Yannatos Retires Though much has changed since music at founded in 1837 with the purpose of providing a Harvard officially began with the hiring of the forum for undergraduates interested in music, since composer and organist John Knowles Paine as a there was not yet any institutional basis for music “teacher of sacred music” in 1862—he was not at the university. The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra appointed as Professor of Music until thirteen (formerly the Pierian Sodality) celebrates its 200th years later—Forbes’s description still holds true anniversary this year, making it the oldest orchestra on many levels. First, his description of the three in continuous existence in North America (the Bos- Department Chair different ways one may encounter music still cor- ton Symphony Orchestra, by comparison, is only Anne C. Shreffler responds, in its basic outlines, to current realities 127 years old). The Glee Club, founded four years Director of Administration in the Music Department. Music is still performed, before Paine’s arrival, is currently celebrating its Nancy Shafman composed, and studied, both outside and inside 150th anniversary. Other musical groups from one the curriculum, although the balances have shifted hundred years ago, such as the Banjo and Mandolin Newsletter Editor considerably, as Forbes points out has always been Club, did not survive, but today a multitude of new Lesley Bannatyne the case. Forbes also takes into account the fact groups, such as the Kuumba Singers, Jazz Band, [email protected] continued on p. 2 Shreffler, continued and Harvard Chinese Music Ensemble have cial transformations. The curriculum was tinued to flourish, with permanent faculty taken their place. Although these performing regularly changed and expanded, over time as well as with the regular invitations of in- organizations are strictly speaking “extracur- adding the academic disciplines of histori- ternationally renowned composers: Georges ricular,” this seems an inadequate term to cal musicology (in 1933), ethnomusicology Enesco and Gustav Holst, who were invited describe activities of the type that actually (in 1960), and music theory (in 1985, with in 1929 (and 1930) and 1932 respectively, predate any music curriculum and form such the appointment of David Lewin). Hugo were comparable in their time to the guest an integral part of musical life at Harvard. Leichtentritt, Harvard class of 1894, was professorships of Brian Ferneyhough and The biggest change from Paine’s time to hired in 1933 as part of an effort to establish Helmut Lachenmann last year. today has been the shift from a department musicology in the curriculum. The noted Where do we go from here? This de- with a single unified curriculum that trained German-Jewish scholar was a refugee from pends on you, the readers of this newsletter, all students to be proficient composers and Nazi Germany, and was hired at a time whether you be undergraduates, graduate organists (an original composition was re- when appointments of Jewish scholars were students, alumni, faculty, visitors, staff, or quired of all degree recipients well into the uncommon at Harvard. In 1938, Helen music lovers from the community. One thing 20th century) to one that provides students Margaret Hewitt was the first woman to is for sure: music will continue to thrive at with more choices of specialized training in earn a Ph.D. in Music at Harvard, followed Harvard. Some things will change, as they the various subfields of music. The Music by Eunice C. Crocker in 1943. The first always have throughout the history of the Department’s development therefore fol- graduate course in ethnomusicology was Department, but our aspiration to provide lows the transformation of the university as offered in 1960 by Rulan Pian ’44 (later a the highest possible quality education in mu- a whole. Morton and Phyllis Keller, in their Professor of Music, at the time Lecturer on sic, top-level scholarship, and a rich variety fascinating book Making Harvard Modern: Chinese Language and Literature). In 1976, of musical experiences remains the same. The Rise of America’s University(Oxford Uni- Eileen Southern was appointed jointly to the versity Press, 2001), describe the move "from Department of Music and Afro-American a Brahmin university [before 1945]—region- Studies (as it was then called), making her al, parochial, dominated by Boston’s elite, the first African-American woman professor resistant in varying degrees to Jews, women, at Harvard. With Louise Vosgerchian, who and new developments in the academic dis- was named professor in 1971, and Pian, ciplines—into a meritocratic university... [in there were three tenured women professors which] national and international academic in the music department during the 1970s standing was the measure of all things.” (p. and 1980s. (By comparison, in 1981 there xiii, emphasis original). were only 13 tenured women in the whole The Music Department has long been Faculty of Arts in Sciences.) Composition, at the forefront of these academic and so- the department’s original discipline, con- Ying’s Farewell to Harvard The Ying Quartet’s farewell concert featured Beethoven’s Quartet in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3; Stravinsky’s complete works for string quartet; and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (with Roger Tapping, viola; Natasha Brofsky, cello). Of the Schoenberg, Boston Globe critic Mathew Guerrieri wrote: The players exhibited the sort of cascading intensity at the heart of the best chamber music; in place of smooth ho- mogeniation was the volatile flow of individual interaction, a live performance in the best sense of the phrase. It suited the work’s unusual combination of elegy and impatience: resplendent harmonies summarizing the post-Wagne- rian tradition while their intricate construction intimates Schoenberg’s subsequent revolutions. Looking forward while looking back—an ideal graduation. The staff of the Music Department presented members of the Ying Quartet with a string quartet snow globe as a memento, as several concerts over the past seven years have been performed in the worst of New England weather. 2 Faculty News Associate Professor Sean Gallagher is orga- Quincy Jones Professor of African American Crosscurrents Conference nizing the San Lorenzo Project, a large-scale, Music Ingrid Monson was named a Walter October 30–November 1, 2008 multi-disciplinary project focusing on the Channing Cabot Fellow in May. The award Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence, spon- is given to faculty members who have con- uring the twentieth century, North sored by Villa I Tatti. The project consists of tributed to the advancement of scholarship in DAmerican and European composers a series of symposia and seminars (to begin the fields of literature, history, or art. and their music migrated and traveled to in spring 2009) involving a team of scholars Professor Alexander Rehding pub- an unprecedented degree. The interna- from a wide range of fields working together, lished “Rousseau, Rameau, and Enharmonic tional conference, CROSSCURRENTS, and will result in the most comprehensive Furies in the French Enlightenment” in the brings together scholars from both sides monograph ever devoted to San Lorenzo, a Journal of Music Theory. He spoke at confer- of the Atlantic to examine the musical liturgical and cultural institution of central ences in London and Berlin, gave talks at interactions that resulted, looking to pro- importance in the history of Florence.