Paul Henry Lang (August 28, 1901 – September 21, 1991) was a Hungarian-

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

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 ...

and

music critic ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...

Career

Lang was born as "Pál Láng" in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

, and was educated in Catholic schools. In 1918, as World War I was coming to an end, he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army though he had not completed school, and sent to the Italian front. When the war ended, he had to make his own way home, and then studied at the University of Budapest and the Budapest Music Academy, under

Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music ed ...

and Erno Dohnanyi, among others. Kodály, learning that he only played piano, assigned him to learn to play the bassoon. After graduating in 1922, he was an assistant conductor at the Budapest Opera, but was encouraged to study musicology by Kodály and

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...

. At that time serious study in musicology was only available in France and Germany. He began at the

University of Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

where he attended classes in philosophy and literature as well. He was not happy in Germany and moved on to the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

in Paris, where he studied with Andre Pirro. In the

1924 Summer Olympics The 1924 Summer Olympics (french: Jeux olympiques d'été de 1924), officially the Games of the VIII Olympiad (french: Jeux de la VIIIe olympiade) and also known as Paris 1924, were an international multi-sport event held in Paris, France. The op ...

Lang participated as part of the French National rowing team. He supported himself by playing bassoon in various orchestras and also conducted an emigrant Hungarian chorus. While a student in Paris he began his career as a music critic, writing for the '' Revue Musicale''. He completed his dissertation on French lute music, but was not awarded his doctoral degree because he could not afford the large sum needed to engrave the unpublished scores he was discussing and print the dissertation, as required by the university. In 1928, knowing no English, Lang moved to the United States as a junior scholar of the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

. He took a few English classes and then picked up more from motion pictures. He taught music, including harmony and counterpoint, for a year at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

(1930–31), filling in for a professor on sabbatical. Then at

Wells College Wells College is a private liberal arts college in Aurora, New York. The college has cross-enrollment with Cornell University and Ithaca College. For much of its history it was a women's college. Wells College is located in the Finger Lakes reg ...

(1932–34), he taught music history and analysis and led the chapel choir. At the same time he worked on a dissertation on the literary history of French opera, earning a

doctorate degree A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1934. Having by now published a few articles in English, he was invited to teach at both Wellesley College and Columbia. For one year he taught at both colleges. Lang joined the music faculty of Columbia University in 1934 with the first professorship of musicology in America, and quickly began changing the way music was taught there by adding courses, such as the esthetics of music, and by expanding the musicology department. In 1940, after Bartók fled Hungary during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Lang arranged for Columbia to hire him as an ethnomusicologist. As musicology was a nascent field at the time, Lang had a strong influence on its development, especially in the United States, and advised a number of students who would go on to become prominent musicologists, including

James McKinnon James William McKinnon (April 7, 1932 – February 23, 1999) was an American musicologist most known for his work in the fields of Western plainchant, medieval music, medieval and renaissance music, Latin liturgy and musical iconography. Life an ...

Dika Newlin Dika Newlin (November 22, 1923 – July 22, 2006) was a composer, pianist, professor, musicologist, and punk rock singer. She received a Ph.D. from Columbia University at the age of 22. She was one of the last living students of Arnold Schoenberg ...

, Joel Sachs,

Rose Rosengard Subotnik Rose Rosengard Subotnik (née Rosengard; born 1942) is a leading American musicologist, generally credited with introducing the writing of Theodor Adorno to English-speaking musicologists in the late 1970s. Early life Subotnik was born in 1942 to ...

Richard Taruskin Richard Filler Taruskin (April 2, 1945 – July 1, 2022) was an American musicologist and music critic who was among the leading and most prominent music historians of his generation. The breadth of his scrutiny into source material as well as ...

Piero Weiss Piero Weiss (January 26, 1928 – October 2, 2011) was an Italian-American pianist and musicologist. Born in Trieste, his mother was a symphony violinist and the niece of novelist Italo Svevo. In 1938, at the age of 10, he fled Fascist Italy wi ...

, and

Neal Zaslaw Neal Zaslaw (born June 28, 1939) is an American musicologist. Life and career Born in New York, Zaslaw graduated from Harvard in 1961 with a BA and obtained his master's from Juilliard in 1963. He played flute in the American Symphony Orchestra ...

. Lang became best known for his often provocative articles and books on both contemporary trends in music and music history. He was from 1954 to 1964 the chief music critic for the ''

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the ''New-York Tribune'' acquired the ''New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed ...

'', succeeding

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassic ...

, and was editor of ''

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 ...

'' from 1945 to 1973. He published a number of books, the most famous of which is ''

Music in Western Civilization Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

'' (1941), called " model of scholarship and style" by

Will Durant William James Durant (; November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was an American writer, historian, and philosopher. He became best known for his work '' The Story of Civilization'', which contains 11 volumes and details the history of eastern a ...

. He was an adviser to his publisher, W.W. Norton, and edited several books for them. He was a founding member of the American Musicological Society and in 1955 was elected for a term as president of the International Musicological Society. In addition to his most famous work, ''

'', Lang wrote ''George Frideric Handel'', collaborated with Otto Bettmann on ''A Pictorial History of Music'', and edited several compilations, including ''The Creative World of Mozart'' and ''One Hundred Years of Music in America''. In 1936 he married Anne Pecheux, a Barnard graduate who had taken his undergraduate music history course. They had four children. Among Lang's pupils were Mary Ann Feldman and Walter H. Rubsamen. He died in Lakeville, Connecticut, aged 90.

Career

References

Bibliography

Further reading