Thomas Burt Dunn (December 21, 1925 – October 26, 2008) was an American musician, conductor and music editor known for his performances of
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 is considered an important figure in the development of the 20th-century
early music revival
:''See Historically informed performance for a more detailed explanation of this topic.''
The general discussion of how to perform music from ancient or earlier times did not become an important subject of interest until the 19th century, when E ...
and adoption of
historically informed performance
Historically informed performance (also referred to as period performance, authentic performance, or HIP) is an approach to the performance of Western classical music, classical music, which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of ...
practices in the United States.
Early years
Dunn was born in Aberdeen,
South Dakota
South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...
, on December 21, 1925, and raised in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, Maryland,
the son of educator
Wendell E. Dunn
Wendell Earl Dunn, Sr. (October 5, 1894 – July 26, 1965) was a noted educator, longtime principal of Forest Park High School (Maryland), Forest Park High School in Baltimore (1935–1961), and president of the Middle States Association of Colleg ...
and younger brother of chemical engineer-inventor
Wendell E. Dunn, Jr.
Wendell Earl Dunn Jr. (August 30, 1922 – December 24, 2007) was an American chemical engineer, metallurgy, metallurgist, and inventor. His technologies for high temperature chlorination reaction, chlorination, gold, tantalum and titanium e ...
He was also the nephew of civil engineer
Everett Dunn
Everett Wesley Dunn, (born August 1, 1892, Summit, South Dakota, died October 3, 1980, Hartley, Iowa, age 88) was a civil engineer and labor negotiator. He was known for his work with the Iowa State Highway Commission, which demonstrated his knowle ...
. He loved music as a child and at about age 11 he was named assistant organist of a Baltimore church. At 16 he became the organist of another local church and was named director of its professional choir not long afterward.
He studied at
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
and in 1946 received his bachelor's degree from the
Peabody Conservatory
The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University is a private conservatory and preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1857 and opened in 1866 by merchant/financier and philanthropist George Peabody (1795–1869) ...
, where he studied organ with
Virgil Fox
Virgil Keel Fox (May 3, 1912 in Princeton, Illinois – October 25, 1980 in Palm Beach, Florida) was an American organist, known especially for his years as organist at Riverside Church in New York City, from 1946 to 1965, and his flamboyant "Heavy ...
and
E. Power Biggs
Edward George Power Biggs (March 29, 1906 – March 10, 1977) was a British-born American concert organist and recording artist.
Biography
Biggs was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, England; a year later, the family moved to the Isle of Wi ...
. He earned a master's degree at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
in 1948, and then studied at the
Amsterdam Conservatory
The Conservatorium van Amsterdam (CvA) is a Dutch conservatoire of music located in Amsterdam. This school is the music division of the Amsterdam University of the Arts, the city's vocational university of arts. The Conservatorium van Amsterdam ...
. His harpsichord teachers were
Charles Courboin, Ernest White, and
Gustav Leonhardt
Gustav Maria Leonhardt (30 May 1928 – 16 January 2012) was a Dutch keyboardist, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. He was a leading figure in the historically informed performance movement to perform music on period instruments.
Leo ...
. He studied conducting with
Robert Shaw, G. Wallace Woodworth,
William Ifor Jones
William Ifor Jones (January 23, 1900 – November 11, 1988) was a Welsh conductor and organist. Born into a large coal-mining family and raised in Merthyr Tydfil, Jones studied at the Royal Academy of Music as a scholarship student in London f ...
, and Anthon van der Horst.
Musical career
In the 1950s he was a music director for several churches in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and in 1957 moved to New York City to become music director at the
Church of the Incarnation. In 1959, he succeeded
Arthur Mendel
Arthur Mendel (June 6, 1905 – October 14, 1979) was an American musicologist, known as a Bach scholar. He was born in Boston and died in Newark, New Jersey.
Education
He graduated from Harvard University in 1925 before going to study with ...
and
Alfred Mann as director of New York's Cantata Singers. He expanded the group's repertoire to include 19th and 20th-century works, but gained notice for presentations rarities from its traditional repertoire, especially
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 ''
Belshazzar
Belshazzar (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Bēl-šar-uṣur'', meaning " Bel, protect the king"; ''Bēlšaʾṣṣar'') was the son and crown prince of Nabonidus (556–539 BC), the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Through his mother he might ...
'' and
Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau (; – ) was a French composer and music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera an ...
's ''
Les Indes galantes
(French: "The Amorous Indies") is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau with a libretto by Louis Fuzelier. It takes the form of an ''opéra-ballet'' with a prologue and (in its final form) four ''entrées'' (acts). Following an allegorical prologue, th ...
''.
Harold Schonberg
Harold Charles Schonberg (29 November 1915 – 26 July 2003) was an American music critic and author. He is best known for his contributions in ''The New York Times'', where he was chief music critic from 1960 to 1980. In 1971, he became the fi ...
assessed a 1959 concert of works by Purcell and Britten with these words:
Also in 1959, he launched the ten-year career of the Festival Orchestra of New York. With that group in 1964 he led the New York premiere of Haydn's
C Major Cello Concerto, a work discovered in 1961, with
Janos Starker
János or Janos may refer to:
* János, male Hungarian given name, a variant of John
Places
* Janos Municipality, a municipality of Chihuahua
** Janos, Chihuahua, town in Mexico
** Janos Biosphere Reserve, a nature reserve in Chihuahua
* Janos ...
. He gained a wider reputation with a series of concerts of works by
Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
and
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 ...
at
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...
in 1961-2. In 1963, he presented Handel's ''Messiah'' four times in four different editions, further enhancing his reputation as a conductor of Baroque music.
In 1963 ''Time'' magazine described him as "The hero of the baroqueniks."
Dunn appeared as an imposter on the January 31, 1966 episode of the
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
game show ''
To Tell the Truth''. He revealed his true identity at the end of the segment.
This led to his appointment in 1967 as Music Director of the
Handel and Haydn Society
The Handel and Haydn Society is an American chorus and period instrument orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. Known colloquially as 'H+H', the organization has been in continual performance since its founding in 1815, the longest-serving suc ...
of
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, a post he held until 1986. During his tenure there, he transformed the organization from a traditional amateur oratorio society to a fully professional ensemble with a repertoire that ranged from early music to modern works.
Michael Steinberg described his work: "His performances are clean, transparent, rhythmic and, in a broad repertory from Schütz to Dallapiccola and Stravinsky, he is particularly effective in works with chorus."
The ''New York Times'' said that his work "helped animate the early music revival that took place in the mid-20th century and afterward". His ensembles used modern instruments but comprised fewer players; the ensembles' "clean, spare sound harked back to 17th- and 18th-century models".
Published works and later life
Many of his editions of choral music were published by E.C. Schirmer in Boston, where he was Editor-in-Chief in the 1970s. He held several faculty appointments at music schools in the U.S., including
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
,
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, and finally from 1990 to 1999 at the
Indiana University School of Music
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, is a music conservatory established in 1921. Until 2005, it was known as the Indiana University School of Music. It has more than 1,500 students, approximately half of whom ar ...
. After his retirement, he devoted himself to writing and mentoring younger conductors. He composed works suitable for small church choirs, described by their publisher, Cantate Music Press, as "adaptable to the exigencies and emergencies that are apt to befall Sunday mornings." He died of heart failure on October 26, 2008, in Bloomington, Indiana, and was buried in
Green Mount Cemetery
Green Mount Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Established on March 15, 1838, and dedicated on July 13, 1839, it is noted for the large number of historical figures interred in its grounds as well as many ...
.
Footnotes
See also
*
External links
More on Thomas Dunn includes an early photo and other information
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunn, Thomas
1925 births
2008 deaths
American classical organists
American male organists
Culture of Boston
American harpsichordists
Johns Hopkins University alumni
Harvard University alumni
American performers of early music
American choral conductors
American male conductors (music)
Conservatorium van Amsterdam alumni
Musicians from South Dakota
Musicians from Baltimore
20th-century organists
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American male musicians
Male classical organists