Paul Henry Lang (August 28, 1901 – September 21, 1991) was a Hungarian- American

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

music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...

Career

Lang was born as "Pál Láng" in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

, and was educated in Catholic schools. In 1918, as World War I was coming to an end, he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army though he had not completed school, and sent to the Italian front. When the war ended, he had to make his own way home, and then studied at the University of Budapest and the Budapest Music Academy, under

Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (, ; , ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music education. ...

and Erno Dohnanyi, among others. Kodály, learning that he only played piano, assigned him to learn to play the bassoon. After graduating in 1922, he was an assistant conductor at the Budapest Opera, but was encouraged to study musicology by Kodály and

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...

. At that time serious study in musicology was only available in France and Germany. He began at the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

where he attended classes in philosophy and literature as well. He was not happy in Germany and moved on to the Sorbonne in Paris, where he studied with Andre Pirro. In the

1924 Summer Olympics The 1924 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the VIII Olympiad () and officially branded as Paris 1924, were an international multi-sport event held in Paris, France. The opening ceremony was held on 5 July, but some competitions had al ...

Lang participated as part of the French National rowing team. He supported himself by playing bassoon in various orchestras and also conducted an emigrant Hungarian chorus. While a student in Paris he began his career as a music critic, writing for the '' Revue Musicale''. He completed his dissertation on French lute music, but was not awarded his doctoral degree because he could not afford the large sum needed to engrave the unpublished scores he was discussing and print the dissertation, as required by the university. In 1928, knowing no English, Lang moved to the United States as a junior scholar of the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

. He took a few English classes and then picked up more from motion pictures. He taught music, including harmony and counterpoint, for a year at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college be ...

(1930–31), filling in for a professor on sabbatical. Then at Wells College (1932–34), he taught music history and analysis and led the chapel choir. At the same time he worked on a dissertation on the literary history of French opera, earning a doctorate degree from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in 1934. Having by now published a few articles in English, he was invited to teach at both Wellesley College and Columbia. For one year he taught at both colleges. Lang joined the music faculty of Columbia University in 1934 with the first professorship of musicology in America, and quickly began changing the way music was taught there by adding courses, such as the esthetics of music, and by expanding the musicology department. In 1940, after Bartók fled Hungary during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Lang arranged for Columbia to hire him as an ethnomusicologist. As musicology was a nascent field at the time, Lang had a strong influence on its development, especially in the United States, and advised a number of students who would go on to become prominent musicologists, including James McKinnon,

Dika Newlin Dika Newlin (November 22, 1923 – July 22, 2006) was a composer, pianist, professor, musicologist, and punk rock singer. She received a Ph.D. from Columbia University at the age of 22. She was one of the last living students of Arnold Schoenberg ...

, Joel Sachs, Rose Rosengard Subotnik,

Richard Taruskin Richard Filler Taruskin (April 2, 1945 – July 1, 2022) was an American musicologist and music critic who was among the leading and most prominent music historians of his generation. The breadth of his scrutiny into source material as well as ...

, Piero Weiss, and Neal Zaslaw. Lang became best known for his often provocative articles and books on both contemporary trends in music and music history. He was from 1954 to 1964 the chief music critic for the ''

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the '' New York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and compet ...

'', succeeding Virgil Thomson, and was editor of ''

The Musical Quarterly ''The Musical Quarterly'' is the oldest academic journal on music in America. Originally established in 1915 by Oscar Sonneck, the journal was edited by Sonneck until his death in 1928. Sonneck was succeeded by a number of editors, including C ...

'' from 1945 to 1973. He published a number of books, the most famous of which is '' Music in Western Civilization'' (1941), called " model of scholarship and style" by

Will Durant William James Durant (; November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was an American historian and philosopher, best known for his eleven-volume work, '' The Story of Civilization'', which contains and details the history of Eastern and Western civil ...

. He was an adviser to his publisher, W.W. Norton, and edited several books for them. He was a founding member of the American Musicological Society and in 1955 was elected for a term as president of the International Musicological Society. In addition to his most famous work, '' Music in Western Civilization'', Lang wrote ''George Frideric Handel'', collaborated with Otto Bettmann on ''A Pictorial History of Music'', and edited several compilations, including ''The Creative World of Mozart'' and ''One Hundred Years of Music in America''. In 1936 he married Anne Pecheux, a Barnard graduate who had taken his undergraduate music history course. They had four children. Among Lang's pupils were Mary Ann Feldman and Walter H. Rubsamen. He died in Lakeville, Connecticut, aged 90.

Career

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Further reading