Bruno Nettl | |
|---|---|
 Nettl before 2014 | |
| Born | (1930-03-14)March 14, 1930 Prague, Czechoslovakia |
| Died | January 15, 2020(2020-01-15) (aged 89) Urbana, Illinois, US |
| Known for | Scholarship on music of theBlackfoot people,Iran,Southern India andethnomusicology as a discipline |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | American Indian Music North of Mexico: Its Styles and Areas (1953) |
| Doctoral advisor | George Herzog |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Ethnomusicology |
| Institutions | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| Website | brunonettl |
Bruno Nettl (March 14, 1930 – January 15, 2020) was an Americanethnomusicologist and academic of Czech birth.[1] A central figure ofethnomusicology, he was among the discipline's most influential scholars. Nettl's research interests varied widely; he wrote on music of theBlackfoot people,Iran,Southern India and particularly the scope and methods of ethnomusicology as a discipline. His lengthy teaching-career centered on theUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where his many students includedStephen Blum andPhilip V. Bohlman.
Bruno Nettl was born on March 14, 1930 inPrague, then in Czechoslovakia, to a musical family.[2] His father wasPaul Nettl [de] (1889–1972), a well-known musicologist who researchedMozart as well as the connections between Czech, German and Jewish musical traditions.[3] Among the elder Nettl's work was theHandbuch der Musikgeschichte (1930) withGuido Adler, and theBeethoven Encyclopedia (1956).[4] His mother, Gertrude (née Hutter) Nettl (1905–1952), was both a pianist and piano teacher.[3][5] Bruno played violin in his youth, at one point in an orchestra underKurt Weill.[3] He also studied piano and took part inDalcroze eurhythmics classes taught by his mother.[6] Two childhood events galvanized an early interest in the study of music: at age six he heard his father's student discuss his upcoming trip to India, saying "much of the music [there is] improvised"; later that year, his father captivated him with theMusiques de Oriente anthology compiled byErich von Hornbostel, including music from across Asia.[6]
The Nettl family, of Jewish descent, fled Europe in 1939 amid Nazi Germany'soccupation of Czechoslovakia.[2] Nettl and his parents settled in thePrinceton, New Jersey, US, while other family members fled worldwide; numerous Nettl relatives died during the Holocaust.[5] His father taught at Princeton'sWestminster Choir College,[2] and the family became American citizens in 1945.[7] After attending high school in Princeton, the family moved toBloomington, Indiana, where Nettl attended theIndiana University Bloomington (IU).[7] From IU he would receive aBachelor of Arts (1950),Master of Arts (1951) andPhD (1953),[1] all inmusicology.[6] The latter PhD was inmusicology, for which his thesis concerned themusic of the Blackfeet people, under the advisement ofGeorge Herzog.[8][9] This dissertation "marked the first ever doctorate in the nascent field of ethnomusicology".[8] He later received a second Masters inlibrary science fromUniversity of Michigan.[7]
| External videos | |
|---|---|
| Lecture by Nettl for the Charles Homer Haskins Prize | |
 A Life of Learning |
Nettl's career centered around theUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC),[1] where he founded an ethnomusicology department and taught from 1964 to 2011.[5][8] He was gradually appointed higher positions at UIUC: Associate Professor of Music in 1964, Professor of Music and Anthropology in 1967, and Professor Emeritus of Music and Anthropology in 1992.[1] Nettl rose UIUC's ethnomusicology department to national eminence, with 6 full-time professors.[10] His own course teachings included topics on folk music, improvisation,world music and the musics of the Czech Republic, Native Americans, and the Middle East.[10] Although Nettl retired in 1992, he continued part-time teaching until 2011.[11]
President of theSociety for Ethnomusicology from 1969 to 1971,[12] he held honorary doctorates from the University of Illinois,Carleton College,Kenyon College, and theUniversity of Chicago. He was a recipient of theFumio Koizumi Prize for ethnomusicology, and was a fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences. TheSousa Archives and Center for American Music holds the Bruno Nettl Papers (1966–1988), which consists of administrative and personal correspondence while Nettl was a professor and head of the Musicology Division for the University of Illinois School of Music.[1] Nettl received the first Taichi Traditional Music Award in 2012 from theChina Conservatory of Music,[13] and was named the 2014 Charles Homer Haskins Prize Lecturer by theAmerican Council of Learned Societies.[14]
Active principally in the field ofethnomusicology, Nettl's scholarship covered many diverse musical traditions throughout the world.[15] The musicologistPatricia Shehan Campbell described him as "probably the field's most prolific writer".[6] By the reckoning of ethnomusicologist David McDonald, Nettl'sœuvre included at least 36 books and 137 articles.[12] His research ranged from themusic of Iran tomusic of South India and the music ofCentral Europe to the traditions of North America, particularly themusic of the Native Americans.[12] Other interests includefolk music,improvisation in general,Slavic music urban musical cultures and the history and definition of ethnomusicology as a discipline.[3][16] Nettl himself cited Blackfeet, Iranian, and Southern Indian music as his fields of expertise, having donefieldwork with all three cultures.[17] He authored the article onmusic forThe New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.[18][19]
Native American music was the focus of Nettl's early career, a typical subject for American ethnomusicologists of the mid-20th century.[6] He did field research in Montana on the Blackfeet people's music for his 1953 PhD dissertation;[8][9] It was republished in 1954.[20] Nettl applied theKulturkreis anthropological theory to the topic, but later reflected on its faults: "The idea was: each tribe had one musical style, and I would ignore other kinds of music in their repertory. No one cares much about this style of analysis now, but several people did follow up on my example and [...] I don't think it works".[21] Over three decades later Nettl publishedBlackfoot Musical Thought: Comparative Perspectives (1989).[22]
Nettl's research included themusic of the Middle East, particularly that of Iran/Persia.[16] He lived in the capitalTehran during the late 1960s and early 1970s, working alongside performers ofPersian traditional music.[17] This led to a 1972 monograph on theperformance practice of Persian music, co-authored with Béla Foltin.[3][23] For half a year, Nettl also did fieldwork in what is nowChennai, southern India.[7]
McDonald remarked that Nettl's "most important research contributions, however, involved historicizing the discipline [of ethnomusicology] from its early origins to the present day."[12] Nettl'sThe Study of Ethnomusicology: Twenty-Nine Issues and Concepts (1983), later revised toThirty-One Issues and Concepts (2005), is "considered a classic in the field".[24] He authored other surveys, such as theTheory and Method in Ethnomusicology (1964) and editedComparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music (1991), alongside his studentPhilip V. Bohlman.[16] From 1961–1965 and 1998–2002, Nettl edited theEthnomusicology journal, also serving on an AMS advisory board for bothAmerican music publications, and theGarland Encyclopedia of World Music, as well as advising for the Detroit Monographs in Musicology and Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology.[16]
Nettl was a central figure in ethnomusicology.[25] Musicologist Jeffrey Sposato, a colleague of Nettl, remarked that "to describe Bruno as a giant in the field of ethnomusicology hardly does him justice. His work was seminal in establishing the discipline in the United States, both through his research and via the army of ethnomusicologists he has trained over the years".[26] Several of Nettl's students became important music scholars, Samuel Araujo, Carol Babiracki,Gérard Béhague, Virginia Danielson,Victoria Lindsay Levine,Ali Jihad Racy, Melinda Russell,Margaret Sarkissian,Stephen Slawek,Ted Solis,Christopher Waterman, and notably,Stephen Blum andPhilip V. Bohlman.[27]
Michael Beckerman concluded that "Partially as a result of Bruno's influence, Ethnomusicology has always been among the least pretentious fields in the humanities and social sciences, because after all, if one of the founders and leaders of the field is more interested in what is being studied than how he appears studying it, such a thing filters down to younger scholars".[3]
Nettl met his wife, the artist Wanda Maria White, while he was a student at Indiana University and the couple married in 1952.[28] The couple founded an annual ethnomusicology lecture series aimed at a "general academic audience" in 2000: The Bruno and Wanda Nettl Distinguished Lecture in Ethnomusicology.[29] They had two children, Rebecca and Gloria.[28] His daughters continued living in Champaign in their adulthood.[28]
Outside of music, Nettl enjoyed spending time with family, attending concerts, playing casual poker, baking and solvingThe New York Times crossword.[30] He frequently wrote comedic verses for close friends and family; they were collected and published in the anthologyPerverse at Eighty (2010), which included drawings by his daughter Gloria.[30][31] He continued to publish prolifically until his death on January 15, 2020 inUrbana, Illinois, US.[1]
Sources:[23]
