In Memoriam
Anthony Newcomb
Professor of Music & Italian Studies, Emeritus
UC Berkeley
1941-2018
Former UC Berkeley Dean of Arts and Humanities and Professor Emeritus Anthony Newcomb passed away peacefully at his home in Berkeley on November 18, 2018. Professor Newcomb joined the music faculty at Berkeley in 1973 and remained there until his retirement in 2005.
A widely known and respected music scholar, Professor Newcomb’s early research focused primarily on the Italian madrigal in the period from 1540 to 1640, especially the music of the concerto delle donne of Ferrara. His later work ranged to the more modern, to meaning and expression in the music of Wagner, as well as aesthetics and critical interpretation in the music of Schumann and Mahler.
Professor Newcomb was born in New York City on August 6, 1941 and grew up in Berkeley. In his early years he took organ lessons and studied conducting, taking musicianship lessons with composer Darius Milhaud at Mills College in Oakland in the early 1950s. He graduated with a B.A. from UC Berkeley in 1962, with studies in music, English, and economics. Before going on to graduate school, he studied harpsichord and organ in the Netherlands with Gustave Leonhardt on a Fulbright award. He went on to receive his M.F.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1969) in musicology from Princeton, studying with Lewis Lockwood, Arthur Mendel, and Oliver Strunk. Before returning to Berkeley, he taught at Harvard from 1968 to 1973, first as an instructor and then as an assistant professor.
At the suggestion of harpsichordist and scholar Ralph Kirkpatrick, Newcomb studied the early musical influences on Girolamo Frescobaldi at the court of Alfonso II d’Este in late sixteenth century Ferrara. His dissertation became a path-breaking two-volume work, The Madrigal at Ferrara 1579-1597 (Princeton University Press, 1980), described by musicologist Thomas Grey as drawing “on a richly detailed 1594 correspondence from Este courtier and musician Alfonso Fontanelli to Duke Alfonso II.”
His work in Italian music also includes the noted articles “Carlo Gesualdo and a Musical Correspondence of 1594,” in Musical Quarterly (1968), and “Courtesans, Muses, or Musicians: Professional Women Musicians in Sixteenth-Century Italy” in Women Making Music: The Western Musical Tradition, 1150-1950 (edited by Jane Bowers and Judith Tick, 1987), as well as numerous articles in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. His transcription and translation of correspondence involving the composer Gesualdo sheds light on musical activities and performance practice in Ferrara, Florence, and Naples.
In later works, Professor Newcomb turned to studies of formal process as generating levels of meaning and expression in the music of Wagner; this was a sign of the early influence of Carl Dahlhaus on American musicology. In the later 1980s and early 1990s, his interest in aesthetics and critical interpretation led him to innovative research on ideas of musical “narratology” in Schumann and Mahler.
He returned in his last writings to studies of early Italian music, making a complete annotated edition of the works of Alfonso Fontanelli, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, and Giovanni Maria Nanino (the latter with Christina Boenicke), which was published by A-R Editions between 1998 and 2018. This multiple-volume edition contained extensive critical commentary of texts and musical settings, including the largely unpublished poetry of the school of Ferrarese poets.
At Berkeley, Professor Newcomb was “Tony” to the staff and faculty he led, and his warmth and skill in the classroom was recognized with a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1989. Anyone who crossed his path might hear his soft humming of musical passages that matched his mood. Tony was also deeply involved in administration, serving as dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities in the College of Letters and Science from 1990 to 1998. Other administrative positions included chairing the Department of Art History from 2000-2002, and the Department of Music from 2003-2004, shortly before his retirement the following year. He had a long affiliation with the Department of Italian Studies, appointed to an endowed chair as Gladyce Arata Terrill Distinguished Professor of Music and Italian Studies in 2002. His service extended to the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate, where he served on committees for a total of 20 years, including stints on the Committee on Teaching, Committee on Committees, Committee on Academic Planning and Resource Allocation, and Graduate Council. He was especially committed to the Berkeley Libraries, serving on the Senate's Library Committee for eleven years, including 3 as chair. He was elected to the Berkeley Society of Fellows in 2007.
In his professional activities outside of UC Berkeley, Professor Newcomb served on a number of committees for the American Musicological Society, including its Board of Directors. He also served as the chief editor for the editorial board of the Journal of the American Musicological Society (JAMS) from 1986-1989. He received the prestigious Dent Medal from the Royal Musical Association in 1981, and in 1992 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Newcomb was elected an American Musicological Society Honorary Member in 2009.
Professor Newcomb’s research visits to Italy in the late 1960s and early 1970s also led to a successful part-time career in the wine importing business. He is survived by his spouse, the Stanford University musicologist Thomas Grey.
Cindy Cox
2020
A widely known and respected music scholar, Professor Newcomb’s early research focused primarily on the Italian madrigal in the period from 1540 to 1640, especially the music of the concerto delle donne of Ferrara. His later work ranged to the more modern, to meaning and expression in the music of Wagner, as well as aesthetics and critical interpretation in the music of Schumann and Mahler.
Professor Newcomb was born in New York City on August 6, 1941 and grew up in Berkeley. In his early years he took organ lessons and studied conducting, taking musicianship lessons with composer Darius Milhaud at Mills College in Oakland in the early 1950s. He graduated with a B.A. from UC Berkeley in 1962, with studies in music, English, and economics. Before going on to graduate school, he studied harpsichord and organ in the Netherlands with Gustave Leonhardt on a Fulbright award. He went on to receive his M.F.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1969) in musicology from Princeton, studying with Lewis Lockwood, Arthur Mendel, and Oliver Strunk. Before returning to Berkeley, he taught at Harvard from 1968 to 1973, first as an instructor and then as an assistant professor.
At the suggestion of harpsichordist and scholar Ralph Kirkpatrick, Newcomb studied the early musical influences on Girolamo Frescobaldi at the court of Alfonso II d’Este in late sixteenth century Ferrara. His dissertation became a path-breaking two-volume work, The Madrigal at Ferrara 1579-1597 (Princeton University Press, 1980), described by musicologist Thomas Grey as drawing “on a richly detailed 1594 correspondence from Este courtier and musician Alfonso Fontanelli to Duke Alfonso II.”
His work in Italian music also includes the noted articles “Carlo Gesualdo and a Musical Correspondence of 1594,” in Musical Quarterly (1968), and “Courtesans, Muses, or Musicians: Professional Women Musicians in Sixteenth-Century Italy” in Women Making Music: The Western Musical Tradition, 1150-1950 (edited by Jane Bowers and Judith Tick, 1987), as well as numerous articles in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. His transcription and translation of correspondence involving the composer Gesualdo sheds light on musical activities and performance practice in Ferrara, Florence, and Naples.
In later works, Professor Newcomb turned to studies of formal process as generating levels of meaning and expression in the music of Wagner; this was a sign of the early influence of Carl Dahlhaus on American musicology. In the later 1980s and early 1990s, his interest in aesthetics and critical interpretation led him to innovative research on ideas of musical “narratology” in Schumann and Mahler.
He returned in his last writings to studies of early Italian music, making a complete annotated edition of the works of Alfonso Fontanelli, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, and Giovanni Maria Nanino (the latter with Christina Boenicke), which was published by A-R Editions between 1998 and 2018. This multiple-volume edition contained extensive critical commentary of texts and musical settings, including the largely unpublished poetry of the school of Ferrarese poets.
At Berkeley, Professor Newcomb was “Tony” to the staff and faculty he led, and his warmth and skill in the classroom was recognized with a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1989. Anyone who crossed his path might hear his soft humming of musical passages that matched his mood. Tony was also deeply involved in administration, serving as dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities in the College of Letters and Science from 1990 to 1998. Other administrative positions included chairing the Department of Art History from 2000-2002, and the Department of Music from 2003-2004, shortly before his retirement the following year. He had a long affiliation with the Department of Italian Studies, appointed to an endowed chair as Gladyce Arata Terrill Distinguished Professor of Music and Italian Studies in 2002. His service extended to the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate, where he served on committees for a total of 20 years, including stints on the Committee on Teaching, Committee on Committees, Committee on Academic Planning and Resource Allocation, and Graduate Council. He was especially committed to the Berkeley Libraries, serving on the Senate's Library Committee for eleven years, including 3 as chair. He was elected to the Berkeley Society of Fellows in 2007.
In his professional activities outside of UC Berkeley, Professor Newcomb served on a number of committees for the American Musicological Society, including its Board of Directors. He also served as the chief editor for the editorial board of the Journal of the American Musicological Society (JAMS) from 1986-1989. He received the prestigious Dent Medal from the Royal Musical Association in 1981, and in 1992 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Newcomb was elected an American Musicological Society Honorary Member in 2009.
Professor Newcomb’s research visits to Italy in the late 1960s and early 1970s also led to a successful part-time career in the wine importing business. He is survived by his spouse, the Stanford University musicologist Thomas Grey.
Cindy Cox
2020
