The answers to your questions about the music department at
Harvard are contained in Elliot Forbes's 246-page book, A History of Music
at Harvard to 1972 (Cambridge: Harvard University Department of Music,
1988). The chairmen of the music departmet during the 1930s and 1940s
were Edward Burlingame Hill (1927-1935), Walter Hamor Piston (1935-38), G.
Wallace Woodworth (1938-1942), and A. Tillman Merritt (1942-1952).
Tenured faculty during those decades (and the dates they taught at
Harvard) were Walter R. Spalding (1895 to 1932), William C. Heilman
(1905-1930), Edward Burlingame Hill (1903-1940),
Archibald T. Davison (1912-1954), Edward Ballantine (1914-1947), Walter
Piston (1928-1960), G. Wallace Woodworth (1930-1969), and A. Tillman
Merritt (1932-1972). Chapter III in Forbes's book, "The Merritt Era:
1932-1972," lists others who taught at Harvard during those decades,
including such luminaries as Willi Apel, Irving Fine, Donald J. Grout, and
Hugo Leichentritt.
Nadia Boulanger was a visiting lecturer at Radcliffe College in
spring semester of 1938, and returned the following two springs. Forbes
wrote about her 1938 stay (on p. 74) that "She gave both an undergraduate
and a graduate course, to the second of which 'properly qualified Harvard
students' were admitted." In 1938, she became the first woman to conduct
the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
In 1939-40, Igor Stravinsky delivered six Charles Eliot Norton
lectures at Harvard (the first musician to do). These were published in
1942 under the title Poetique musicale (the English translation by
Arthur Knodel and Ingolf Dahl was published in 1947 as Poetics of Music
in the Form of Six Lessons). During this time, Robert M. Stevenson, later
to became the world's preeeminent Latin American music specialist (as well
as expert in a variety of other fields) took 23 private composition
lessons (in French) from Stravinsky at $25 per lesson (cited in Baker's,
8th edition, p. 1785).
Forbes's volume is quite interesting, not only in its telling the
history of music at Harvard, but for some of the documents it reproduces,
including letters from Copland, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky.
Sincerely,
Craig B. Parker
****************************************************************************
Dr. Craig B. Parker cbp@ksu.edu
Dept. of Music--McCain Auditorium (785) 532-3810 (office)
Kansas State University (785) 532-5709 (fax)
Manhattan, KS 66506-4702 (785) 537-9140 (home)
****************************************************************************
On Thu, 29 Apr 1999 mebrill@ucdavis.edu wrote:
>
> Can anyone tell me who was on the Harvard Music Faculty in the
> 1930s and 1940s? Who was the chair? Where can I find this out?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Mark
> mebrill@ucdavis.edu
>