Robert Stevenson

Robert Murrell Stevenson (3 July 1916 in Melrose, New Mexico – 22 December 2012 in Los Angeles) was an American musicologist. He studied at the College of Mines and Metallurgy of the University of Texas at El Paso (BA 1936), the Juilliard School of Music (piano, trombone and composition; graduated 1939), Yale University (MM) and the University of Rochester (PhD in composition 1942); further study took him to Harvard University (STB 1943), Princeton Theological Seminary (ThM 1949) and Oxford University (BLitt 1954). He taught at the University of Texas and at Westminster Choir College in the 1940s. In 1949 he became a faculty member at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he taught until 1987. Stevenson is well known for having studied with Igor Stravinsky when he was young, and for later being a teacher of influential minimalist La Monte Young.

Stevenson was focused on Latin American music, and made it his mission to rediscover the music of New Spain. He contributed significantly to the historical record of Spanish, Portuguese and American music. He wrote extensively on African-American music and the music of the Protestant church within the Americas. In 1978 he became founder-editor of the Inter-American Music Review; now in its thirteenth volume. His works include nearly 30 books, a vast quantity of journal articles, and a large number of encyclopedia entries. He was coordinator of American entries for the Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart supplement and wrote over 300 articles for the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

Works Books Music in Mexico: a historical Survey, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1952 (revised, 1971). Patterns of Protestant church music, Duke University Press, 1953. La música en la Catedral de Sevilla 1478-1606, Los Angeles, 1954 (Spanish version edited by Sociedad Española de Musicología-SEdeM in 1985). Music before the classic era: an introduction guide, Macmillan & Co. Ltd. Editors, 1955. Shakespeare´s religious frontier, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1958. Juan Bermudo, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960. Spanish music in the age of Columbus, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1958 (revised, 1960). The Music of Peru. Aboriginal and Viceroyal Epochs, Pan American Union, Washington, 1959. Spanish cathedral music in the Golden Age, University of California Press, 1961 (Spanish version: La música en las catedrales españolas del siglo de oro, translated by María Dolores Cebrián de Miguel and Amalia Correa Liró. Revised by Ismael Fernaández de la Cuesta), Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 1993. Music in Aztec (and) Inca Territory, University of California Press, 1961 (revised, 1968). Protestant Church Music in America, a short survey of men and movements from 1564 to the present, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1966. Portuguese music and musicians abroad (to 1650), Lima: Pacific Press, 1966. La Música en Quito, Arnahis, editors, 1968. Music in El Paso 1919-1939, University of Texas at El Paso, 1970. Renaissance and Baroque Musical Sources in the Americas, Washington: General Secretariat, Organization of American States, 1970. Foundations of the New World Opera: with a transcription of the earliest extant American opera, 1701, Lima: Pacific Press, 1973. (Spanish version: Torrejón y Velasco, Tomás de, La Purpura de la rosa, estudio preliminar y transcripción de la música, Lima: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Biblioteca Nacional, 1976). Christmas Music from Baroque Mexico, University of California Press, 1974. Latin American Colonial Music Anthology, Washington: General Secretariat, Organization of American States, 1975. Caribbean Music History a Selective Annotated Bibliography with Musical Supplement, Gemini Graphics editors, 1981.

Recording

Justo Sanz and Sebastián Mariné. Robert Stevenson, Obras para Clarinete y piano, Homenaje al compositor, pianista y musicólogo en su 90º aniversario. Real Conservatorio Superior de Música d Madrid, CD-06-II, Madrid, 2005.