Forte, Allen, 1926-2014

Name: Allen M Forte
Birth Year: abt 1927
[abt 1927]
Gender: Male
Race: White
Age in 1930: 3
[3 3/12]
Birthplace: Minnesota
Marital Status: Single
Relation to Head of House: Son
Home in 1930: Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, USA
Map of Home: Portland, Multnomah, Oregon
Street Address: 48th St N
House Number: 252
Dwelling Number: 133
Family Number: 141
Attended School: No
Father's Birthplace: Minnesota
Mother's Birthplace: Minnesota

Allen Forte (December 23, 1926 – October 16, 2014) was an American music theorist and musicologist.[1] He was Battell Professor Emeritus of the Theory of Music at Yale University and specialized in 20th-century atonal music and music analysis.[2]

Early life and education
Forte was born in Portland, Oregon. At the age of ten he appeared "on a [local] radio show as a solo pianist among a bevy of similarly youthful performers," where he played the music of Cole Porter and others.[3] He was in the US Navy and served in the Pacific Theatre toward the end of World War II.

Afterwards, he relocated to New York City to study music at Columbia University where he received his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. There, he studied composition with Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky, although his main interests were forming around music theory and analysis.[4]

Academic career
In the late 1950s, Forte taught music at various New York institutions: Columbia University Teachers College, Manhattan School of Music, and Mannes College of Music. In fall 1959 he began his long-term appointment at Yale, where he eventually became the Battell Professor of Music (retiring in 2003).[5] He was influential there as both scholar and teacher, and in the latter capacity served as advisor to seventy-two Ph.D. dissertations completed between 1968 and 2002. (Yale did not offer a Ph.D. in theory for the first several years Forte was there.) A list of all his advisees and their dissertation titles appears in David Carson Berry, "The Twin Legacies of a Scholar-Teacher: The Publications and Dissertation Advisees of Allen Forte," Gamut 2/1 (2009), 197-222. The list is ordered chronologically by submission, and each advisee is given an "FA" number to denote his or her ordering among the advisees. ("FA" stands for “Forte Advisee,” and is also a retrograde of Allen Forte's initials.)

Publications
Forte is well known for his book The Structure of Atonal Music (1973), which traces many of its roots to an article of a decade earlier: "A Theory of Set-Complexes for Music" (1964).[6] In these works, he "applied set-theoretic principles to the analysis of unordered collections of pitch classes, called pitch-class sets (pc sets). [...] The basic goal of Forte's theory was to define the various relationships that existed among the relevant sets of a work, so that contextual coherence could be demonstrated." Although the methodology derived from Forte’s work "has had its detractors ... textbooks on post-tonal analysis now routinely teach it (to varying degrees)."[7]

Forte published analyses of the works of Webern and Berg and wrote about Schenkerian analysis and music of the Great American Songbook. A complete, annotated bibliography of his publications appears in the previously cited article, Berry, "The Twin Legacies of a Scholar-Teacher." Excluding items only edited by Forte, it lists ten books, sixty-three articles, and thirty-six other types publications, from 1955 through early 2009.

Forte was also the editor of the Journal of Music Theory during an important period in its development, from volume 4/2 (1960) through 11/1 (1967). His involvement with the journal, including many biographical details, is addressed in David Carson Berry, "Journal of Music Theory under Allen Forte's Editorship," Journal of Music Theory 50/1 (2006): 7-23.

Honors and awards
He has been honored by two Festschriften (homage volumes). The first, in commemoration of his seventieth birthday, was published in 1997 and edited by his former students James M. Baker, David W. Beach, and Jonathan W. Bernard (FA12, FA6, and FA11, according to Berry's list). It was titled Music Theory in Concept and Practice (a title derived from Forte's 1962 undergraduate textbook, Tonal Harmony in Concept and Practice). The second was serialized in five installments of Gamut: The Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic, between 2009 and 2013. It was edited by Forte's former student David Carson Berry (FA72) and was titled A Music-Theoretical Matrix: Essays in Honor of Allen Forte (a title derived from Forte's 1961 monograph, A Compositional Matrix). It included twenty-two articles by Forte's former doctoral advisees, and three special features: a previously unpublished article by Forte, on Gershwin songs; a collection of tributes and reminiscences from forty-two of his former advisees; and an annotated register of his publications and advisees.

Personal life
Forte was married to the French-born pianist Madeleine (Hsu) Forte, emerita professor of piano at Boise State University.

Name: Allen M Forte
Age: 12
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1928
Gender: Male
Race: White
Birthplace: Oregon
Marital Status: Single
Relation to Head of House: Son
Home in 1940: Ryan, Multnomah, Oregon
Map of Home in 1940: Ryan, Multnomah, Oregon
Street: Spring Garden Road
House Number: 2739
Inferred Residence in 1935: Ryan, Multnomah, Oregon
Residence in 1935: Ryan
Sheet Number: 4B
Attended School or College: Yes
Highest Grade Completed: Elementary school, 8th grade

Allen Forte, a renowned music theorist and musicologist, died at his home in Hamden, Connecticut on Oct. 16. He was 87 years old.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, Oct. 25 at 11 a.m. in the Veterans Cemetery, 317 Bow Lane, Middletown, Connecticut, All are welcome.

Forte, the Battell Professor Emeritus of the Theory of Music, was a specialist in 20th-century atonal music, music analysis by Schenkerian methods, and the American popular ballad. He was the author of 12 scholarly books and 100 articles. His book “The Structure Of Atonal Music” has been hailed as one of the most important contributions to music theory in the 20th century. His use of the computer as well as traditional means of analysis led to fuller knowledge of musical structure, thereby enhancing both the understanding and the enjoyment of music.

“Forte was a model for our field — a widely influential adviser, a productive and agenda-setting scholar, and a tireless advocate for music theory and its practitioners. He was an extraordinary man,” wrote Yale professor Daniel Harrison in message to members of the Society of Music Theory, of which Forte was the founding president. Harrison is the current incumbent of the Forte Professorship, established at Yale in 2000 in honor of the musicologist.

Forte was born on Dec. 23 1926 in Portland, Oregon. During World War II he served in the American Navy from 1944 to 1946 on the U.S.S. General Butner in the Pacific. A graduate of Columbia University, where he earned both his B.A. and M.A. degrees, Forte joined the Yale faculty as an instructor in music theory after teaching at the Columbia University Teachers College. He became a full professor in 1968 and assumed the Battell Professorship in 1991. He was director of graduate studies from 1970 to 1977 and director of undergraduate studies from 1995 to 1996. During his 44 years at Yale, he advised 72 Ph.D. students.

Forte was the general editor of the Yale University Press series “Composers of the Twentieth Century” for more than two decades. He served for seven years as the editor of the Journal of Music Theory, and was on the advisory boards of The Musical Quarterly and Music Analysis. Forte’s papers are housed in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale.

A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Forte received numerous other honors, including fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Society for Music Theory awarded him its First Lifetime Membership in 1995, and the Eastman School of Music gave him an honorary Doctor of Music degree in 1978. A 1997 book of essays titled “Music Theory in Concept and Practice,” edited by David Beach, Jonathan Bernard and James Baker, was dedicated to the Yale professor.

Forte also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Yale Summer School of Music and Art, and the Eastman School of Music. He was a visiting lecturer at Columbia University and the University of British Columbia, and he served on four different occasions as director of the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College Teachers.

He is survived by his wife, concert pianist Madeleine Forte, her sons, and her grandchildren.

Name: Allen Forte
Gender: Male
Race: White
Age: 19
Relationship to Draftee: Self (Head)
Birth Date: 23 Dec 1926
Birth Place: Portland, Oregon, USA
Residence Place: Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, USA
Registration Date: 9 Jul 1946
Registration Place: Oregon, USA
Employer: Recently Discharged
Height: 5 7
Weight: 150
Complexion: Light
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Next of Kin: Charles O Gray

Abstract
This article tabulates the publications and dissertation advisees of the music theorist Allen Forte; they are called the “twin legacies” of one whose work in academe has been devoted to both scholarship and teaching. The publications, issued between 1955 and early 2009, are divided into nine categories, each ordered chronologically: (1) Books; (2) Articles; (3) Addresses, Responses, Forums, and Discussions; (4) Introductions, Forewords, Editorials, and Memorials; (5) Encyclopedia and Dictionary Entries; (6) Reviews; (7) Letters to Editors; (8) Libretto Translations, Liner Notes, and Recordings; and (9) Editorial Work. Entries are annotated with one or more of the following subfields, as necessary: Remarks, Ancillaries, Later Editions, Reprints, Translations, and (for books) Reviews. Excluding items only edited by Forte, these publications consist of ten books, sixty-three articles, and thirty-six other types of publications. An Appendix presents an abbreviated chronological listing of all his publications, without regard to categories. The list of advisees consists of the name, dissertation title, and date of submission for each of Forte’s seventy-two Ph.D. advisees at Yale University. The list is ordered chronologically by dissertation submission (which ranges from 1968 to 2002), and each advisee is given an “FA” number to denote his or her ordering among the advisees. (“FA” stands for “Forte Advisee,” and is also a retrograde of Allen Forte’s initials.) Together, the two tabulations document some of the reasons that Forte’s legacy looms so large in music theory. This article is part of a special, serialized feature: A Music-Theoretical Matrix: Essays in Honor of Allen Forte (Part I).