James Webster is a musicologist, specializing in the music of

Joseph Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...

and other composers of the

classical era Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...

. His professional position is as the Goldwin Smith Professor of Music at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teac ...

Research and writing

He has published several books in his field, including a massive study of Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony and (with Georg Feder) the Haydn article in the current edition of the

New Grove ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...

, spun off as a separate book. His website lists the following areas of specialization (links to articles in this encyclopedia are added): *History and theory of music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a particular focus on

Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...

*Mozart (especially his operas), Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms *

Performance practice Historically informed performance (also referred to as period performance, authentic performance, or HIP) is an approach to the performance of classical music, which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of the musical era in whi ...

*Editorial practice *Historiography of music *Issues of

musical form In music, ''form'' refers to the structure of a musical composition or performance. In his book, ''Worlds of Music'', Jeff Todd Titon suggests that a number of organizational elements may determine the formal structure of a piece of music, such ...

(including analytical methodology) *

Schenkerian analysis Schenkerian analysis is a method of analyzing tonal music based on the theories of Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935). The goal is to demonstrate the organic coherence of the work by showing how it relates to an abstracted deep structure, the ''Ursatz' ...

Webster's work is notable for his willingness to sift through and assess conflicting sources of historical evidence. His biography of Haydn particularly reflects this tendency, and unlike several earlier Haydn biographers, he is generally unwilling to fill in the narrative with conjecture, particularly conjecture about how Haydn must have felt or what he must have done on some particular occasion. Webster is highly devoted to the earlier works of Haydn, and has consistently asserted his opposition to the views of

Charles Rosen Charles Welles Rosen (May 5, 1927December 9, 2012) was an American pianist and writer on music. He is remembered for his career as a concert pianist, for his recordings, and for his many writings, notable among them the book '' The Classical St ...

and others who assert a course of "progress" and learning through the composer's career. He has expressed strong views on the quality of current urtext editions and their appropriateness for use in performance; for quotations and discussion see

Urtext edition An urtext edition of a work of classical music is a printed version intended to reproduce the original intention of the composer as exactly as possible, without any added or changed material. Other kinds of editions distinct from urtext are facs ...

Books authored and edited

*Webster, James; Caplin, William; and Hepokoski, James (2009) ''Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre: Three Methodological Reflections.'' ''Ed. Berge, Pieter. Leuven: Leuven University Press.'' *Webster, James and Georg Feder (2002) ''The New Grove Haydn''. London: Macmillan; New York: Palgrave, 2002. *''Opera Buffa in Mozart's Vienna''. Ed. Mary Hunter and James Webster. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997. *Webster, James (1991) ''Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style: Through-Composition and Cyclic Integration in His Instrumental Music''. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. *''Haydn Studies: Proceedings of the International Haydn Conference, Washington, D.C., 1975''. Ed. Jens Peter Larsen, Howard Serwer, and James Webster. New York: Norton, 1981. ncludes seven articles by James Websterref name="vivo"/>

Honors

Webster is the dedicatee of a

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the ...

volume published 2014 by Cambridge University Press, with contributions by colleagues including

Elaine Sisman Elaine Rochelle Sisman (born January 20, 1952) is an American musicologist. The Anne Parsons Bender Professor of Music at Columbia University, Sisman specializes in music, rhetoric, and aesthetics of the 18th and 19th centuries, and has written o ...

Neal Zaslaw Neal Zaslaw (born June 28, 1939) is an American musicologist. Life and career Born in New York, Zaslaw graduated from Harvard in 1961 with a BA and obtained his master's from Juilliard in 1963. He played flute in the American Symphony Orchestra ...

, and

Lewis Lockwood Lewis H. Lockwood (born December 16, 1930) is an American musicologist whose main fields are the music of the Italian Renaissance and the life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven. Joseph Kerman described him as "a leading musical scholar of the postwa ...

; see References below.

Notes

References

*Jones, David Wyn (1993) Review of Webster (1991). ''Journal of the Royal Musical Association'', Vol. 118, No. 1. (1993), pp. 147–151. Available on

JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

. A sympathetic and appreciative review of Webster's ''Farewell Symphony'' book by another leading Haydn scholar; it defends, in part, Rosen's views. *Hunter, Mary and Richard Will (2014) ''Engaging Haydn: Culture, Context, and Criticism''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

External links

Professor Webster's page at Cornell University
includes partial bibliography {{DEFAULTSORT:Webster, James Cornell University faculty Haydn scholars Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people)