Howard Mayer Brown (April 13, 1930 – February 20, 1993) was an 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 ...

. Brown obtained his BA from

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 le ...

in 1951 and his Ph.D. in 1959, studying under

Walter Piston Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter Ha ...

and Otto Gombosi among others. He conducted and performed on flute often as a graduate student. He taught at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

, 1958–60, and then at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

from 1960, where he became chair of the music department in 1970. In 1972 he became professor at King's College in London, but returned to Chicago in 1974. Brown was editor of ''Renaissance Music in Facsimile'', published 1977–1982, and was the general editor of several other monument series of musical editions. He contributed prolifically to 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 ...

''. He served as president of 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 ...

, 1978–80. Brown's scholarship covered a wide range of subjects. He published on the music of the Renaissance, especially the ''

chanson A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic s ...

'' and

instrumental music An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

, and frequently returned to problems in historical

performance practice Historically informed performance (also referred to as period performance, authentic performance, or HIP) is an approach to the performance of classical music, which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of the musical era in whic ...

, a subfield in which he was one of the most important commentators. His work ''Musical Iconography'' (1972) was an important study of the depictions of musical instruments in the visual arts. He also made contributions to the study of Baroque opera. The Howard Mayer Brown fellowships of the American Musicological Society were established his honor on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. Each fellowship supports a year of graduate studies for a member of a group historically underrepresented in musicology.

Books

*''Music in the French Secular Theater'', 1400–1550 (dissertation Harvard U., 1959; publ. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963) *''Instrumental Music Printed Before 1600: a Bibliography'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1965) *(with J. Lascelle) ''Musical Iconography: a Manual for Cataloguing Musical Subjects in Western Art before 1800'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972) *''Sixteenth-Century Instrumentation: the Music for the Florentine Intermedii'' (1973) *''Embellishing Sixteenth-Century Music'' (London, 1976) *''Music in the Renaissance'' (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1976) *(ed. with

Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...

) ''Performance Practice, i: Music before 1600'' (London, 1989); ''ii: Music after 1600'' (1989)

References

*Ellen T. Harris: "Howard Mayer Brown". ''

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 ...

'' online.

External links

Howard Mayer Brown Papers
a
the Newberry Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Howard Mayer 1930 births 1993 deaths Harvard University alumni Wellesley College faculty University of Chicago faculty 20th-century American musicologists