Wallace Berry (10 January 1928 – 16 November 1991) was an American
music theorist
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...
and composer who taught at the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
and later at the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
. Mid-way through his career, Berry shifted focus from music composition, and became a leading figure in the research and teaching of music theory.
[ ]
Life and career
Berry was born in
La Crosse, Wisconsin
La Crosse is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of La Crosse County. Positioned alongside the Mississippi River, La Crosse is the largest city on Wisconsin's western border. La Crosse's population as of the 2020 census w ...
.
Berry was educated at the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
(BMus 1949, PhD 1956), where he studied with
Halsey Stevens
Halsey Stevens (December 3, 1908 – January 20, 1989) was a music professor, biographer, and composer of American music.
Life
Halsey Stevens was born in Scott, New York and educated at Syracuse University and the University of California, Ber ...
. His composition ''Spoon River'', on texts by
Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters (August 23, 1868 – March 5, 1950) was an American attorney, poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author of ''Spoon River Anthology'', ''The New Star Chamber and Other Essays'', ''Songs and Satires'', ''The Great V ...
(1952), won him national recognition. In 1953-54, he studied under
Nadia Boulanger
Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist.
From a ...
in Paris. He taught at the University of Michigan (1957–77), becoming chair of music theory in 1968. He was chair of the music department in the University of British Columbia from 1978–84, and thereafter taught theory.
Berry was the founding Vice President of the
Society for Music Theory
The Society for Music Theory (SMT) is an American organization devoted to the promotion of music theory as a scholarly and pedagogical discipline. It currently has a membership of over 1200, primarily in the United States.
In the 1970s, few schoo ...
from 1977-1982, and then became the society's president from 1982-85. Berry was awarded the
Society for Music Theory's "Outstanding Publication" Award posthumously in 1992 for his book ''Musical Structure and Performance''. Berry's papers are deposited at the
Library and Archives of Canada.
Research
Berry's music theory research and publication focuses on musical form, beginning with a traditional textbook ''Form in Music'' (1966; 2d edition 1986). In two subsequent books, ''Structural Functions in Music'' (1976) and ''Musical Structure and Performance'' (1989) Berry identifies different formal functions and examines how these functions can be created by combinations of pitch, textural, and rhythmic-metric elements. The three chapters of ''Structural Functions in Music'' thus are titled "Tonality," "Texture," and "Rhythm and Meter." Reviewing ''Musical Structure and Performance'', music theorist Rebecca Jemian characterizes the primary focus of Berry's work as an investigation into structural processes in music: "The various structural elements
f a piece which include introduction, exposition, transition, development, and closure, are characterized by different functions; these diverse functions work to shape the musical whole. Circumstances of progression, recession, or stasis also contribute to musical shaping."
The clearest and most concise presentation of Berry's theoretical ideas is the article "Metric and Rhythmic Articulation in Music." The different musical elements create hierarchical streams that interact in cumulative processes of progression - accent - recession, where progression leads toward an accent and recession moves away from an accent. "Rhythm" thus refers to the individual streams, "meter" to their cumulative effects. As Berry puts it, "In thus suggesting that there are many interacting or cohering streams of rhythm in any individual structure, one acknowledges as well some ultimate rhythmic composite of all events. . . . Meter I regard as
rising fromsuch a punctuation of time."
["Metric and Rhythmic Articulation," 7.]
Wallace Berry Award
After Berry's death in 1991, the
Society for Music Theory
The Society for Music Theory (SMT) is an American organization devoted to the promotion of music theory as a scholarly and pedagogical discipline. It currently has a membership of over 1200, primarily in the United States.
In the 1970s, few schoo ...
established the "Wallace Berry Award," an annual citation recognizing outstanding books recently published in the field of music theory. A list of winners of the Wallace Berry Award is included on the SM
Past Publication Awardspage.
Compositions (selected)
*Five pieces for small orchestra. New York: Fischer, 1965
*Quartet no. 2, for strings. Philadelphia, Elkan-Vogel, 1967
*No man is an island: for mixed chorus (S.A.T.B.) and piano. New York: Southern Music; Hamburg: Peer Musikverlag, 1968
*Threnody: for violin alone. New York: Southern Music, 1968
*Canto lirico: viola and piano. New York: Carl Fischer, 1970
*Trio, piano, violin, and cello. New York, N.Y.: Carl Fischer, 1977
*Fantasy on Vom Himmel hoch: organ solo. New York: Carl Fischer, 1978
*Variations on a "Martyrs' tune": organ solo. New York: Carl Fischer, 1978
*Anachronisms: violin and piano. New York: Carl Fischer, 1984
Publications (selected)
Books
*''Form in Music'' (Prentice-Hall, 1966; 2d edition 1986).
* ''Eighteenth-century Imitative Counterpoint: Music for Analysis'', co-authored with Edward Chudacoff (Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969).
*''Structural Functions in Music'' (Prentice-Hall, 1976; reissued by Dover, 1987).
*''Musical Structure and Performance'' (Yale University Press, 1989).
Articles
* "The Music of Halsey Stevens," ''The Musical Quarterly'' 54/3 (1968): 287-308.
* "On Structural Levels in Music," ''Music Theory Spectrum'' 2 (1980): 19-45.
* "Text and Music in the Alto Rhapsody," ''Journal of Music Theory'', 27/2 (1983): 239-253.
*"Metric and Rhythmic Articulation in Music," ''Music Theory Spectrum'' 7 (1985): 7-33.
References
External links
. Includes a list of compositions.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berry, Wallace
Canadian composers
Canadian male composers
American emigrants to Canada
American music theorists
1928 births
1991 deaths
University of British Columbia faculty
University of Michigan faculty
20th-century American musicologists
University of Southern California alumni
American expatriates in France
20th-century Canadian male musicians