Hitchcock, H. Wiley

H. Wiley Hitchcock was an American musicologist who did much to advance the study of American music in the United States. Born in Detroit in 1923, he received his BA from Dartmouth College in 1944 and his MM from the University of Michigan in 1948, after which he studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He returned to Michigan, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1954 and began his teaching career. In the early 1960s he moved to New York, where he was professor of music at Hunter College, CUNY from 1961-1971.

In 1971 he moved to Brooklyn College, CUNY, where he became professor of music and founder-director of the Institute for Studies in American Music; in 1980 he was named Distinguished Professor. He retired in 1993. He was among the first group of Getty scholars at the J. Paul Getty Center for Art History and the Humanities (1985-6). In 1994 he was made an honorary member of the AMS, and in 1995 Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Hitchcock made significant contributions to the study of 17th-century French and Italian music and music in the United States. His research on the vocal and instrumental music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier led to editions of the music as well as the preparation of a catalogue raisonn, Les oeuvres de Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1982), and the book Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1990). His edition of Giulio Caccini's Le nuove musiche (1970) includes a detailed study and an annotated translation of the original preface.

Among his publications on American music are a study of Ives (1977) and an important survey, Music in the United States (1969), in which he develops the idea of a distinction between vernacular and cultivated traditions in American music, particularly in the period from 1820 to 1920. He was president of the Music Library Association (1966-7), of the Charles Ives Society (1973-93) and of the American Musicological Society (1990-92). He acted as adviser on American music for the sixth edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and was coeditor of The New Grove Dictionary of American Music ; he was also editor of the series Recent Researches in American Music (1976-94).

Hitchcock died in New York in 2007.

Source: Paula Morgan. "Hitchcock, H. Wiley." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/13093 (accessed July 26, 2010).

From the guide to the H. Wiley Hitchcock papers, 1949-2007, 1971-2007, (The New York Public Library. Music Division.)