Philip Brett (October 17, 1937 – October 16, 2002) was a British-born American

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

, musician and conductor. He was particularly known for his scholarly studies on

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

and

William Byrd William Byrd (; 4 July 1623) was an English composer of late Renaissance music. Considered among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both from his native England and those on the continent. He ...

and for his contributions to the development of lesbian and gay musicology.Adams (October 31, 2002) At the time of his death, he was

Distinguished Professor Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs. In the United States Often specific to one institution, titles such ...

of Musicology at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

Life and career

Philip Brett was born in

Edwinstowe Edwinstowe is a large village and civil parish in the Newark and Sherwood district of Nottinghamshire, England, on the edge of Sherwood Forest. It is associated with the legends of Robin Hood and Maid Marian and known for the proximity of th ...

, a coal-mining village in north

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

, England. His father was a collier and his mother a school teacher. He was educated first at the choir school of

Southwell Minster Southwell Minster () is a minster and cathedral in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, England. It is situated miles from Newark-on-Trent and from Mansfield. It is the seat of the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham and the Diocese of Southwell and N ...

and then attended

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city ...

as a

choral scholar A choral scholar is a student either at a university or private school who receives a scholarship in exchange for singing in the school or university's choir. This is a common practice in the UK at schools attached to cathedrals where the choir is ...

. He received his BA degree from Cambridge in 1958 and a MusB in 1961, studying under Philip Radcliffe,

Boris Ord Boris Ord (born Bernhard Ord), (9 July 1897 – 30 December 1961) was a British organist and Director of music, choirmaster of Choir of King's College, Cambridge, King's College, Cambridge (1929-1957). During World War II he served in the Royal ...

and

Thurston Dart Robert Thurston ("Bob") Dart (3 September 1921 – 6 March 1971), was an English musicologist, conductor and keyboard player. Along with Nigel Fortune, Oliver Neighbour and Stanley Sadie he was one of Britain's leading musicologists of the post ...

. After a year studying at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

with

Joseph Kerman Joseph Wilfred Kerman (3 April 1924 – 17 March 2014) was an American musicologist and music critic. Among the leading musicologists of his generation, his 1985 book ''Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology'' (published in the UK as ''Mus ...

, he returned to Cambridge as a Fellow of King's College and completed his PhD there in 1965. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the songs of William Byrd, a composer on whom Brett would write extensively throughout his career. In 1966 he joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley and remained there for nearly 25 years. He was made a full professor in 1978 and went on to become chairman of the music department in 1988. During his time at Berkeley, he became a naturalised US citizen and participated in the musical life of the university both as a recitalist and as a choral conductor in addition to his teaching.Anderson (October 21, 2002) In 1991, Brett moved to

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...

to be with his long-term partner, George Haggerty, a professor of English there. He was appointed Associate Dean of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at Riverside in 1998, a position which he held until 2001 when he became Distinguished Professor of Musicology at

. Brett died of cancer in Los Angeles at the age of 64, a year after taking up his appointment at UCLA. On the sixth anniversary of his death, the University of California, Riverside dedicated the Philip Brett Memorial Peace Garden, a traditional Japanese

Karesansui The or Japanese rock garden, often called a zen garden, is a distinctive style of Japanese garden. It creates a miniature stylized landscape through carefully composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and us ...

Takeo Uesugi was a Japanese-American landscape architect who designed acclaimed Japanese garden installations. He was a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and Kyoto University. Works Born in Osaka, Uesugi's prominent works include: * The ...

. The annual Philip Brett Award from the

American Musicological Society The American Musicological Society (AMS) is a musicological organization which researches, promotes and produces publications on music. Founded in 1934, the AMS was begun by leading American musicologists of the time, and was crucial in legitim ...

honors exceptional musicological work in the field of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender/transsexual studies.

Musicologist

As a musicologist, Brett was known for his scholarly studies on

and

. The two English composers were separated by almost four centuries, but united in Brett's view by their positions as 'outsiders' in their respective societies—Byrd as a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

during the

English Reformation The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Protestant Reformation, a religious and poli ...

and Britten as a

closeted ''Closeted'' and ''in the closet'' are metaphors for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and other (LGBTQ+) people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and human ...

homosexual. Overlapping with these themes, was the other area in which Brett made a major, if at times controversial contribution—the development of lesbian and gay musicology. Brett's earliest scholarship was in music of the

Tudor period The Tudor period occurred between 1485 and 1603 in History of England, England and Wales and includes the Elizabethan period during the reign of Elizabeth I until 1603. The Tudor period coincides with the dynasty of the House of Tudor in Englan ...

. While studying for his doctorate with

, he found over 50 music manuscripts from a single documented

scriptorium Scriptorium (), literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the writing, copying and illuminating of manuscripts commonly handled by monastic scribes. However, lay scribes and ...

, and identified the hitherto anonymous songs for voice and

viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

s in one of the manuscripts as late works of William Byrd. He edited the whole corpus for

Musica Britannica ''Musica Britannica'' is a trust founded in 1951, as "an authoritative national collection of British music". One of its co-founders, Anthony Lewis, served as the publication's first chief editor for many years. A programme about the project, wit ...

in 1967 and Byrd's own songs separately in 1970. Brett collaborated with Dart in revising a series by

Edmund Fellowes Edmund Horace Fellowes (11 November 1870 – 21 December 1951), was a Church of England clergyman and musical scholar who became well known for his work in promoting the revival of sixteenth and seventeenth century English music. Life and work ...

on English

madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number o ...

composers. He also revised one of the volumes in the ''Collected Works of William Byrd'' (another Fellowes project) and demonstrated the doubtful authenticity of many of the pieces which Fellowes had attributed to Byrd. On Dart's recommendation, Brett was appointed General Editor of the new seventeen-volume ''Byrd Edition'', which revised (and in some cases replaced) the work begun by Fellowes. Brett worked on the series right up until his death and edited several of the volumes himself. The final volume was published in 2005. According to Anthony Bye writing in ''

The Musical Times ''The Musical Times'' is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom and currently the oldest such journal still being published in the country. It was originally created by Joseph Mainzer in 1842 as ''Mainze ...

'', it was to become the first modern multi-volume, critical edition of a major English composer to reach completion.Bye (2002) The extensive introductions which Brett had written to the volumes on Byrd's '' Gradualia'' were published posthumously as a separate monograph in ''William Byrd and His Contemporaries: Essays and a Monograph'' (2007). In 1976, Brett delivered a paper on Benjamin Britten's opera ''

Peter Grimes ''Peter Grimes'', Op. 33, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Montagu Slater based on the section "Peter Grimes", in George Crabbe's long narrative poem '' The Borough''. The "borough" of the opera is a fictional ...

'' at a national meeting of the

. The paper, published as an article by ''

'' the following year, proposed that study of Britten's sexual identity could illuminate the interpretation of his music. It was the first time that this aspect of Britten had been considered in print. Britten's homosexuality had previously been what Antony Bye described as "off limits, an 'open secret' recognised but not publicly acknowledged." The reaction was mixed, and when Brett initially submitted the paper to ''

The Musical Quarterly ''The Musical Quarterly'' is the oldest academic journal on music in America. Originally established in 1915 by Oscar Sonneck, the journal was edited by Sonneck until his death in 1928. Sonneck was succeeded by a number of editors, including Car ...

'' for publication, the then editor,

Joan Peyser Joan Peyser (June 12, 1930 – April 24, 2011) was an American musicologist and writer, particularly known for her writing on 20th-century music and for her biographies of George Gershwin, Pierre Boulez and Leonard Bernstein. Her biography of Be ...

, dismissed it as "a personality study". However, Brett continued to explore the relationship between Britten's sexuality and his operas. In the succeeding years he wrote a series of influential articles and books both on Britten and on the more general implications of gay and lesbian sexuality in music. The discipline gradually entered the academic mainstream as part of the ' new musicology' with the American Musicological Society's Gay and Lesbian Study Group (co-founded by Brett) established in 1989. The 2001 edition of the ''

New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'', contained, for the first time in its history, an article on gay and lesbian music (co-written by Philip Brett and Elizabeth Wood).Church (30 December 2000)

Conductor and musician

From 1966 to 1991, Brett was the conductor of the University of California, Berkeley Chamber Chorus. As a choral conductor, he received the American Musicological Society's Noah Greenberg Award in 1980 for the performances of

Jacopo Peri Jacopo Peri (20 August 156112 August 1633), known under the pseudonym Il Zazzerino, was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera. He wrote the ...

's '' Euridice'' and

Monteverdi Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered ...

's ''

Orfeo Orfeo Classic Schallplatten und Musikfilm GmbH of Munich was a German independent classical record label founded in 1979 by Axel Mehrle and launched in 1980. It has been owned by Naxos since 2015. History The Orfeo music label was registered ...

'' as well as

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margar ...

s from Byrd's '' Gradualia''. His 1990 recording of

Handel George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training i ...

's oratorio '' Susanna'' was nominated for a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

(Best Choral Performance).Adams, Kerman, McClary, and Moroney (2002) Brett also played the

harpsichord A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...

and Renaissance organ in some of these performances, as well as giving solo harpsichord recitals. Although most of his performances and recordings were of

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

and

Baroque music Baroque music ( or ) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transiti ...

, he also participated in the recordings of 20th century works including

Lou Harrison Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his form ...

's ''La koro sutro'' (1988) and

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...

's ''Rothko Chapel'' (1991). ;Recordings *Harrison: ''La koro sutro'', New Albion Records, 1988 *Handel: ''Susanna'',

Harmonia Mundi Harmonia Mundi is an independent record label which specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music (on the World Village label). It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group. Its Latin name ''ha ...

, 1990 *Morton Feldman: ''Rothko Chapel'', New Albion Records, 1991 *Handel: ''

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of ''mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach'' ...

'', Harmonia Mundi, 1991 *Handel: ''

Theodora Theodora is a given name of Greek origin, meaning "God's gift". Theodora may also refer to: Historical figures known as Theodora Byzantine empresses * Theodora (wife of Justinian I) ( 500 – 548), saint by the Orthodox Church * Theodora o ...

'', Harmonia Mundi, 1992

Selected bibliography

Brett published many articles, monographs, books, and critical editions of scores during his lifetime. The following is an indicative bibliography of key works over the course of his career. ;Articles *"The English Consort Song, 1570-1625", ''Journal of the Royal Musical Association'', Volume 88, Issue 1, 1961, pp. 73–88 *"Word-Setting in the Songs of Byrd", ''Journal of the Royal Musical Association'', Volume 98, Issue 1, 1971, pp. 47–64 *"Britten and Grimes", ''

'', Vol. 118, No. 1618, December 1977, pp. 995–1000 *"Homage to Taverner in Byrd's masses", ''Early Music'', Volume 9, No.2, 1981, pp. 169–176 *"Homosexuality and Music: A Conversation with Philip Brett" in Lawrence Mass (ed.), ''Dialogues of the Sexual Revolution: Homosexuality as Behavior and Identity'', Routledge, 1990 *"Musicality, essentialism, and the closet" and "Eros and Orientalism in Britten's Operas" in ''Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology'', Routledge, 1994 *"Piano Four-Hands: Schubert and the Performance of Gay Male Desire", ''19th-Century Music'', Vol. 21, No. 2, Franz Schubert: Bicentenary Essays, Autumn 1997, pp. 149–176 ;Single-authored books *''Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes'', Cambridge University Press, 1983 *''Music and Sexuality in Britten'', University of California Press, 2006 *''William Byrd and his Contemporaries'', University of California Press, 2007 ;Edited books *'' Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology'', Philip Brett, Elizabeth Wood and Gary Thomas (editors), Routledge, 1994 *''Cruising the Performative: Interventions into the Representation of Ethnicity, Nationality, and Sexuality'', Sue-Ellen Case, Philip Brett, Susan Leigh Foster (editors), Indiana University Press, 1995 *''Decomposition: Post-disciplinary Performance'', Sue-Ellen Case, Philip Brett, Susan Leigh Foster (editors), Indiana University Press, 2000 ;Edited scores *

John Taverner John Taverner ( – 18 October 1545) was an English composer and organist, regarded as one of the most important English composers of his era. He is best-known for ''Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas'' and ''The Western Wynde Mass'', and ''Missa Coro ...

, ''The Western Wynde Mass'', Stainer & Bell, 1962; ''Mater Christi'', Stainer & Bell, 1964 *''Consort Songs'', (

22), Royal Music Association, 1967 *

Thomas Tallis Thomas Tallis (23 November 1585; also Tallys or Talles) was an English composer of High Renaissance music. His compositions are primarily vocal, and he occupies a primary place in anthologies of English choral music. Tallis is considered one o ...

, ''

Spem in Alium ''Spem in alium'' (Latin for "Hope in any other") is a 40-part Renaissance motet by Thomas Tallis, composed in c. 1570 for eight choirs of five voices each. It is considered by some critics to be the greatest piece of English early music. H. B. ...

'' (revised edition), Oxford University Press, 1969; ''The Lamentations of Jeremiah'', Oxford University Press, 1969. *

, ''The Byrd Edition'', Stainer & Bell. Completed in 2005, the new ''Byrd Edition'' was under the General Editorship of Philip Brett, who also edited the following volumes: **Vol. 4 ''The Masses'', 1981 **Vol. 5 ''Gradualia I (1605): The Marian Masses'', 1989. **Vol. 6a ''Gradualia I (1605): All Saints and Corpus Christi'', 1991. **Vol. 6b ''Gradualia I (1605): Other Feasts and Devotions'', 1993. **Vol. 7a ''Gradualia II (1607): Christmas to Easter'', 1997. **Vol. 7b ''Gradualia II (1607): Ascension, Pentecost and the Feasts of Saints Peter and Paul'', 1997. **Vol. 15 ''Consort Songs for Voice and Viols'', 1970. **Vol. 16 ''Madrigals, Songs and Canons'', 1976.

References

Sources

*Adams, Byron; Kerman, Joseph; McClary, Susan; and Moroney, Davitt
In Memoriam: Philip Brett
Academic Senate of the University of California, 2002. Accessed 13 September 2010. *Adams, Byron
"Philip Brett, Gay musicologist who radicalised his subject"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', October 31, 2002. Accessed 13 September 2010. *Anderson, Martin
"Professor Philip Brett, Outstanding musicologist and conductor"
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', October 21, 2002. Accessed 13 September 2010. *Brett, Philip
"Homosexuality and Music: A Conversation with Philip Brett"
in Lawrence Mass (ed.), ''Dialogues of the Sexual Revolution: Homosexuality as Behavior and Identity'', Routledge, 1990. *Brett, Philip
''Music and Sexuality in Britten: Selected Essays''
University of California Press, 2006. *Brett, Philip, and Wood, Elizabeth

(the uncut version of the article which appeared as "Gay and lesbian music" in the ''

'' second edition), ''Electronic Musicological Review'', Volume VII, December 2002. Accessed 13 September 2010. *Bye, Antony, "In memoriam: Philip Brett", ''

'', January 2002. Accessed vi
subscription
13 September 2010. *Church, Michael

''

'', 30 December 2000. Accessed 13 September 2010. *''

San Jose Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiar ...

''
"Respected Musician Leaves UC Post for a New Job—and Love"
July 29, 1990, p. 5 (Arts section). Accessed 13 September 2010. *Scott, David and Morgan, Paula. "Brett, Philip",

Grove Music Online ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

, ed. L. Macy. Accessed vi
subscription
12 September 2010. *''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

''
"Philip Brett, Musicologist who outed Benjamin Britten and edited William Byrd"
November 4, 2002. Accessed 13 September 2010.

External links

Philip Brett
on

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

Remembrances of Philip Brett

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

Department of Music {{DEFAULTSORT:Brett, Philip 1937 births 2002 deaths People from Edwinstowe University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty University of California, Riverside faculty UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music faculty Alumni of King's College, Cambridge 20th-century American musicologists Britten scholars