Spivacke, Harold, 1904-1977

Musicologist.

Biographical Note

Harold Spivacke was born July 18, 1904 in New York City. He studied at New York University, where he received his B.A. in 1923 and his M.A. in 1924. He attended the University of Berlin and received his Ph.D. in 1933, magna cum laude, with the dissertation Über die objektive und subjektive Tonintensität (Beyond Objective and Subjective Tonal Intensity) . During this time, he also studied music privately with Henry Levey in New York and Eugen d'Albert and Hugo Leichtentritt in Berlin.

After finishing his dissertation in 1933, Spivacke returned to New York City, where he began work as a research assistant to Olin Downes, a well-known music critic for the New York Times . While assisting Mr. Downes, it was discovered, and confirmed by Fritz Kreisler, that some compositions performed by Kreisler and attributed to such composers as Vivaldi, Couperin, Pugnani and others, were actually composed by Kreisler himself.

In 1934, Spivacke moved to Washington to become the assistant chief of the Music Division at the Library of Congress. After three years, he was promoted to chief of the Music Division (1937), in which capacity he worked for thirty-five years until his retirement in 1972. During his tenure, the holdings of the Music Division almost tripled and the activities and services of the division were significantly expanded. The Library's Coolidge Auditorium chamber music programs grew under Spivacke's tenure, with the help of the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge and Gertrude Clarke Whittall foundations, established before 1937, and later by the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation and the McKim Fund, established in 1949 and 1970 respectively. It was also during the Spivacke era that the Library continued to commission and perform works by contemporary composers through these foundations and to acquire manuscripts from such noted composers and musicians as Richard Rodgers, George and Ira Gershwin, Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker, Igor Stravinsky, and Arnold Schoenberg.

During his service to the Library of Congress, Spivacke held numerous advisory positions with various government agencies, including the Department of State, the Joint Army and Navy Committee on Recreation and Welfare, UNESCO, and the Pan American Union. He was also an active member of many professional organizations, including the National Music Council, the Music Library Association, the International Association of Music Libraries, and the American Musicological Society. He received honorary degrees from Baldwin-Wallace College in 1947, the University of Rochester in 1955, and the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1969. Throughout his career, he received numerous awards for his contributions to the fields of musicology and librarianship.

Harold Spivacke was married in 1927 to Carolyn Le Fèvre, a concert violinist with whom he had two sons, Joseph L. and Robert C. Spivacke. They were divorced in 1953. In 1955, he married Rose Marie Grentzer, a noted teacher and choral conductor. Harold and Rose Marie remained married until his death in Washington on May 19, 1977, at the age of 72. Rose Marie Spivacke died on November 11, 1985.