Becoming an Ethnomusicologist: A Miscellany of Influences

by Bruno Nettl

Overview

Becoming an Ethnomusicologist centers on the life and education of the author, Bruno Nettl, a well-known ethnomusicologist. Focusing on eleven individuals who influenced him significantly, it follows their roles through his career from his childhood in Czechoslovakia and his family's forced departure in 1939 to his education in the United States and career as a scholar. These essays contribute to an understanding of the life of Jewish and German minorities in Bohemia through the first half of the 20th century, of pre-World War II Prague, of the experience of intellectual and academic refugees in the United States during and after World War II, and of the early development of ethnomusicology as a field of study.

This work opens with the author's exploration of the careers of his father, the well-known music historian Paul Nettl, and his mother, Gertrud Nettl, a pianist and piano teacher. From his boyhood in Prague, Nettl provides insights into his own evolution as a musicologist.He discusses the rise of the discipline of ethnomusicology, from the studies of Native American music by his mentor George Herzog to the work of linguist C. F. Voegelin and folklorist Stith Thompson.He also looks back on the contribution and input of his principal consultants in his fieldwork on Native American, Iranian, and Indian music.

These essays contribute significantly to the history of musicology, containing the longest—to date—treatments of the contributions of the distinguished scholars Paul Nettl and George Herzog. This work will interest students and scholars of immigration history, Native American culture, and the history of ethnomusicology itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810886971
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/04/2013
Series:	Europea: Ethnomusicologies and Modernities , #14
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Bruno Nettl was born in Prague in 1930, immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1939, grew up in Princeton, NJ, and received most of his highe education at Indiana University. An ethnomusicologist, he carried out reserach with Native Americna peoples, in Iran, and in India. He is the author of several books, the best known being The Study of Ethnomusicology: 31 Issues and Concepts (2005), and Nettl's Elephant: On The History of Ethnomusicology (2010). He has spent most of his career teaching at the University of Illinois, where he is now professor emeritus of music and anthropology.

Table of Contents

Foreword: On Miscellany, Modernity, and Memoir in Ethnomusicology ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Chronology xv

Introduction xvii

1 My Mother, the Pianist 1

The Schumann Fantasie 1

Mozart's D-Minor Concerto, No. 20 5

Victor Ullmann's Sonatas 8

Novak's Sonata Eroica 13

Bach's "Capriccio" 20

Smetana's "Chicken" 23

2 George Herzog and the Study of Native American Music 27

A Comparative Musicologist 28

The Ecology of Herzog's Researches 47

The Major Articles 60

Conclusion 81

3 Studying Anthropology at Indiana University, 1949 to 1953 85

Inspired by Statistics and Maps 86

He Was a Polymath, but He Couldn't Teach Apes How to Talk 91

A Teacher Too Few of Today's Students Would Recognize 96

The Dean and Occasional Folksinger 100

4 Teachers in the Field: Bloomington, Browning, Tehran, Chennai 107

You Can't Be a Member of This Nation Without Knowing Its Songs 108

To Sing the Right Song 111

The Nightingale Does Not Repeat Itself 114

The Legend Lives On 120

Conclusion 125

5 Remembering Paul Nettl-Free Associations 127

A Little Night Music, or the Family Composer 127

The Magic Flute 130

Kertzinger's Branle 134

The battle of Kosovo 139

"Auf dem Pripetschek" 143

The "Catalog Aria" 146

From Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3-"Air," for Strings and the Gavotte 147

Haydn's Anthem for the Emperor 151

"Sleepers, Awake!" 154

Die schöne Müllerin 156

"The Academic Festival Overture" 160

"The Moldau," and a Song About a Fox 168

The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto 172

Gamelan Angklung 176

Die Meistersinger von Nümberg 178

"Das Lied von der Erde" 181

"The Third Rasoumovsky Quartet" 186

The Reformation Symphony 189

The Spring Sonata 191

Mozart's "Violet" 195

Citations 199

Index 209

About the Author 219

Editorial Reviews

Among the highlights of Becoming an Ethnomusicologist are its evocative accounts of pre-World War II Prague, postwar Bloomington, and the international network of comparative musicologists, anthropologists, and folklorists engaged in research on forms of traditional music during the first half of the twentieth century. This network provided a foundation for the institutionalization and growth of North American ethnomusicology after 1950 and was the milieu for the development of Nettl’s own distinguished career. ... In this wonderful book, we learn not only about the substantial impact of European scholars on ethnomusicology in the U.S. but also how musicians and researchers throughout the world have collectively constructed this field of knowledge. At the same time, we gain many insights on the life and work of Nettl himself, who has done so much to build this field over the past half-century through his many publications, teaching at the University of Illinois, and service to the Society for Ethnomusicology and other organizations. This book is highly recommended to practitioners of ethnomusicology, historical musicology, folkloristics, linguistics, and anthropology—all fields that have been embraced and synthesized by Nettl in his exceptional career.

Journal of Folklore Research

Among the highlights of Becoming an Ethnomusicologist are its evocative accounts of pre-World War II Prague, postwar Bloomington, and the international network of comparative musicologists, anthropologists, and folklorists engaged in research on forms of traditional music during the first half of the twentieth century. This network provided a foundation for the institutionalization and growth of North American ethnomusicology after 1950 and was the milieu for the development of Nettl’s own distinguished career. ... In this wonderful book, we learn not only about the substantial impact of European scholars on ethnomusicology in the U.S. but also how musicians and researchers throughout the world have collectively constructed this field of knowledge. At the same time, we gain many insights on the life and work of Nettl himself, who has done so much to build this field over the past half-century through his many publications, teaching at the University of Illinois, and service to the Society for Ethnomusicology and other organizations. This book is highly recommended to practitioners of ethnomusicology, historical musicology, folkloristics, linguistics, and anthropology—all fields that have been embraced and synthesized by Nettl in his exceptional career.

Journal Of Folklore Research