Donald Jay Grout (September 28, 1902 – March 9, 1987) was an Americanmusicologist. He is best known as the author ofA Short History of Opera, first published in 1947. The fourth edition was published by Columbia University Press in 2003.

Grout was born inRock Rapids, Iowa. He attendedSyracuse University and graduated with a degree inphilosophy in 1923. He took his Ph.D. atHarvard University in 1939. He taught at Harvard from 1936 to 1942, at theUniversity of Texas from 1942 to 1945 and atCornell University until 1970.^[1]

Early in his career, Grout's main body of research was inopera. After 1960 he became more interested in philosophies of music history, due in large part to his publication of a general music history textbook,A History of Western Music. A ninth edition of the book was published in 2014; after Grout's death, the new editions were revised byClaude Palisca andJ. Peter Burkholder.^[2]

Grout also performed as a pianist and organist until the early 1950s. He served as editor ofJAMS from 1948 to 1951, and was president of theAmerican Musicological Society (1952–1954, 1960–1962) and theInternational Musicological Society (1961–1964).^[1]

A reassessment of Grout's historiography was published in 2011 in the inaugural volume ofJournal of Music History Pedagogy.^[3]

• The Origins of the "opéra comique" (diss., Harvard U., 1939)
• A Short History of Opera (New York, 1947, revised 3rd edition 1988 by H.W. Williams; 4th edition by Hermine Weigel Williams, published by Columbia University Press, 2003 )
• A History of Western Music (New York, 1960, 7th ed, 2005 withJ. Peter Burkholder)
• Mozart in the History of Opera (Washington DC, 1972)
• Principles and Practice in the Writing of Music History (Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1972)
• Alessandro Scarlatti: An Introduction to his Operas (Berkeley, 1979)

• 1902 births
• 1987 deaths
• Cornell University faculty
• International Musicological Society presidents
• Syracuse University alumni
• Harvard University alumni
• 20th-century American musicologists

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata