Willi Apel (10 October 1893 – 14 March 1988) was a German-American
musicologist and noted author of a number of books devoted to music. Among his most important publications are the 1944 edition of ''
The Harvard Dictionary of Music
''The Harvard Dictionary of Music'' is a standard music reference book published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
The first edition, titled ''Harvard Dictionary of Music'', was published in 1944, and was edited by Willi Apel. ...
'' and ''French Secular Music of the Late Fourteenth Century''.
Life and career
Apel was born in
Konitz,
West Prussia, now Chojnice in
Poland. He studied mathematics from 1912 to 1914, and then again after
World War I from 1918 to 1922, in various universities in
Weimar Germany. Throughout his studies, he had an interest in music and taught piano lessons. He then turned to music full-time, and essentially taught himself about musicology. He received his Ph.D. in 1936 in
Berlin (with a dissertation on 15th and 16th century tonality) and immigrated to the USA the same year. He taught at
Harvard
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 l ...
from 1938 to 1942, but moved on to spend twenty years at
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
*Indiana Universit ...
beginning in 1950. In 1972 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university.
Apel's work of the 1940s included books of broad scope, such as ''
The Harvard Dictionary of Music
''The Harvard Dictionary of Music'' is a standard music reference book published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
The first edition, titled ''Harvard Dictionary of Music'', was published in 1944, and was edited by Willi Apel. ...
'' (1944), which he edited, and ''
Historical Anthology of Music'' (1947–1950, co-authored with
Archibald Thompson Davison). His approach was to give as much attention to Medieval, Renaissance and world music as was given to familiar subjects such as
Mozart and
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
; this influenced the higher music education in the USA. His book on the
notation of early polyphonic music was also written in the 1940s, and still serves as one of the essential works on the subject.
In 1950 Apel's interest in early polyphonic notation resulted in an important edition, ''French Secular Music of the Late Fourteenth Century''. In 1958 he published a large work on
plainchant, which provided a comprehensive guide of the repertoire and its sources. In early 1960s he founded the Corpus of Early Keyboard Music (CEKM), a series of editions devoted to early keyboard music. Over the years, CEKM presented the music of less known composers such as
Johann Ulrich Steigleder
Johann Ulrich Steigleder (22 March 1593 – 10 October 1635) was a German Baroque composer and organist. He was the most celebrated member of the Steigleder family, which also included Adam Steigleder (1561–1633), his father, and Utz Steigleder ...
,
Bernardo Storace
Bernardo Storace ( fl. 1664) was an Italian composer. Almost nothing is known about his life; his only surviving collection of music contains numerous variation sets and represents a transitory stage between the time of Girolamo Frescobaldi and ...
,
Peeter Cornet, and others, and also included modern editions of various important manuscripts such as the 16th century
Jan z Lublina
Jan z Lublina, or Joannis de Lublin, was a Polish composer and organist who lived in the first half of the 16th century. Not much is known about his life - he was a member of the Order of Canons Regular of the Lateran, circa 1540 he was possibly t ...
tablature. Apel was the general editor for CEKM and edited a total of ten volumes; his pupils provided dozens more.
1967 saw the publication of ''Geschichte der Orgel- und Klaviermusik'', a large work on the history of keyboard music. An English translation (by Hans Tischler) appeared in 1972. Apel's last book was a collection of essays from 1973–81, all dedicated to Italian violin music of the 17th century.
Willi Apel died at age 94 in
Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside the Indianapolis metropolitan area. According to the Mon ...
.
Major works
* ''The Notation of Polyphonic Music 900–1600'' (1942)
* ''Harvard Dictionary of Music'' (1944) (editor)
* ''Masters of Keyboard'' (1947)
* ''Historical Anthology of Music Volume I: Oriental, Medieval and Renaissance Music'', (1947) (with Davison)
* ''Historical Anthology of Music Volume II: Baroque, Rococo and Pre-Classical Music'', (1950) (with Davison)
* ''Gregorian Chant'' (1958)
* ''The History of Keyboard Music to 1700'' (1967, English edition published 1972)
* ''Italian Violin Music of the Seventeenth Century'' (1983, English edition published 1990)
References
*
External links
Willi Apel page at the Indiana University website includes a comprehensive list of Apel's writings.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Apel, Willi
1893 births
1988 deaths
People from Chojnice
American musicologists
Musicologists from Berlin
Harvard University faculty
Indiana University faculty
German emigrants to the United States
People from West Prussia
Musical notation
Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America
20th-century German musicologists