Anthony John Leonard Pople (18 January 1955 – 10 October 2003) was a British

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

and writer. He is known for his technological approach to musicology and music analysis. During his career, Pople held professorships at

Lancaster University Lancaster University (officially The University of Lancaster) is a collegiate public university, public research university in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established in 1964 by royal charter, as one of several new univer ...

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

and

University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield (informally Sheffield University or TUOS) is a public university, public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Its history traces back to the foundation of Sheffield Medical School in 1828, Fir ...

. He also served as the editor of '' Music Analysis'' for five years.

Early life and education

Pople was born on 18 January 1955 in

Croydon Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...

, Surrey. He attended

Dulwich College Dulwich College is a 2-18 private, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...

before studying mathematics at

St John's College, Oxford St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979.Communication from Michael Riordan, college archivist Its foun ...

, through an open scholarship. Pople then decided to pursue a doctorate in music at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. His research, supervised by

Arnold Whittall Arnold Whittall (born 1935) is a British musicologist and academic. Whittall's research areas have primarily been centred around the musical analysis of 20th-century music and aspects of the nineteenth-century, such as the music of Richard Wagner. ...

, culminated in his 1985 thesis: ''Skryabin and Stravinsky 1908–1914: Studies in Analytical Method'' (republished in 1989 as ''Skryabin and Stravinsky 1908-1914: Studies in Theory and Analysis'').

Career

Pople's specialist area of

musicology Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, ...

was the classical music of the early twentieth century, specifically the

Second Viennese School The Second Viennese School () was the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, particularly Alban Berg and Anton Webern, and close associates in early 20th-century Vienna. Their music was initially characterized by late ...

and pre-World War I

Russian classical music Russian classical music is a genre of classical music related to Russia's culture, people, or character. The 19th-century romantic period saw the largest development of this genre, with the emergence in particular of The Five, a group of composer ...

. He also published on the works of

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams ( ; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

Michael Tippett Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as o ...

and

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an ou ...

. Pople held various professorships in England, at

(lecturer 1983–95, professor 1995–97),

(1997–99),

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

(1999–2003) and

. During his time at Lancaster, he worked with Alan Marsden to implement computer-based music analysis. This led to Pople to develop two computer programs for this purpose in 1994: RowBrowser and SetBrowser. These programs used

spreadsheets A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in ce ...

to input

musical notation Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proce ...

, which was then analysed by a computer. Pople also created the "Tonalities" project, which is a software package for music analysis. Aside from teaching positions, Pople was director of the Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Music, Lancaster, from 1989 to 1997. He served as the editor of '' Music Analysis'' for five years, from 1995. Pople was also a proficient violin player. According to

Jonathan Dunsby Jonathan Mark Dunsby (born 16 March 1953) is a British classical pianist, musicologist, author and translator, particularly known for his research in musical analysis. His introductory textbook, ''Music Analysis in Theory and Practice'' (1988), co ...

, Pople was not only an important musicologist, but also "a most gifted composer and performer of music".

Personal life

Pople married Angela Horrocks in 1988 and they had two daughters. He died from cancer on 10 October 2003 in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located south-east of Sheffield and nor ...

Early life and education

Career

Personal life

Works

Books

Written

Edited

Chapter(s) in

Other

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading