Theodore Cyrus Karp (17 July 1926 – 5 November 2015) was an 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 ...

. His principal area of study was

Secular music Non-religious secular music and Religious music, sacred music were the two main genres of Western world, Western music during the Middle Ages and Renaissance music, Renaissance era. The oldest written examples of secular music are songs with Lat ...

, mainly

mediaeval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and t ...

monophony In music, monophony is the simplest of texture (music), musical textures, consisting of a melody (or "tune"), typically sung by a single singer or played by a single instrument player (e.g., a flute player) without accompaniment, accompanying har ...

, especially the music of the

trouvère ''Trouvère'' (, ), sometimes spelled ''trouveur'' (, ), is the Northern French ('' langue d'oïl'') form of the '' langue d'oc'' (Occitan) word ''trobador'', the precursor of the modern French word '' troubadour''. ''Trouvère'' refers to po ...

s. He was a major contributor in this area to the ''

Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''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 th ...

''.

Biography

Born in

New York, New York New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on New York Harbor, one of the world's largest natural harb ...

, he attended

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the New York City borough of Queens. Part of the City University of New York system, Queens College occupies an campus primarily located in Flushing. Queens College was established in 1937 and offe ...

of the

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

, where he received his

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

in 1947. He later attended the

Juilliard School of Music The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became the Juilliard School, named afte ...

and, from 1949 to 1950, the

Catholic University Catholic higher education includes universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher education privately run by the Catholic Church, typically by religious institutes. Those tied to the Holy See are specifically called pontifical univers ...

Leuven Leuven (, , ), also called Louvain (, , ), is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipalit ...

. He returned to

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

, where he studied under

Curt Sachs Curt Sachs (; 29 June 1881 – 5 February 1959) was a German musicologist. He was one of the founders of modern organology (the study of musical instruments). Among his contributions was the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which he created with Eric ...

and

Gustave Reese Gustave Reese ( ; November 29, 1899 – September 7, 1977) was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications ''Music in the Middle Ages'' (1940 ...

. He received his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from New York University in 1960. In 1963 he was taken on as a faculty member by the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

at Davis and in 1971 became a music professor. He moved to

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

in 1973, where he was dean of the department until 1988 and a professor until his retirement in 1996. Besides trouvère monophony, Karp wrote articles on the

polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chord ...

of the schools of

Saint Martial Martial of Limoges (3rd century), whose name is also rendered as Marcial, Martialis, and Marcialis, and is also called "the Apostle of the Gauls" or "the Apostle of Aquitaine," was the first bishop of Limoges. Venerated as a Christian saint, Mar ...

Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela, simply Santiago, or Compostela, in the province of Province of A Coruña, A Coruña, is the capital of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city ...

, and Notre Dame. He proposed new methods for the transcription of polyphony from the

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

s. In more recent research Karp studied the application of computers to his field.

Writings

*(with Gustave Reese) "Monophony in a Group of Renaissance Chansonniers", ''JAMS'', v (1952), 4–15. *"Borrowed Material in Trouvère Music", ''AcM'', xxxiv (1962), 87–101. *"A Lost Medieval Chansonnier", ''MQ'', xlviii (1962), 50–67. *"The Trouvère Manuscript Tradition", ''The Department of Music, Queens College of the City of New York: Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Festschrift'', ed. A. Mell (New York, 1964), 25–52. *"Modal Variants in Medieval Secular Monophony", ''The Commonwealth of Music, in Honor of Curt Sachs'', ed. G. Reese and R. Brandel (New York, 1965), 118–29. *"The Secular Works of Johannes Martini", ''Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: a Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese'', ed. J. LaRue and others (New York, 1966), 455–73. *"Towards a Critical Edition of Notre Dame Organa Dupla", ''MQ'', lii (1966), 350–67. *"St. Martial and Santiago de Compostela: an Analytical Speculation", ''AcM'', xxxix (1967), 144–60. *"Rhythmic Architecture in the Music of the High Middle Ages", ''Medievalia et humanistica'', new ser., i (1970), 67–80 Dictionary of Music (New York, 1973, 2/1983). *"Medieval Music in Perspective", ''Medieval Studies'', ed. J. M. Powell (Syracuse, NY, 1976, 2/1992), 401–31. *"Interrelationships between Poetic and Music Form in Trouvère Song", ''A Musical Offering: Essays in Honor of Martin Bernstein'', ed. E. H. Clinkscale and C. Brook (New York, 1977), 137–61. *"Music", ''The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages'', ed. D. L. Wagner (Bloomington, IN, 1983), 169–95. *"The Trouvère Chansons in Mensural Notation", ''Gordon Athol Anderson (1929–1981) in Memoriam'' (Henryville, PA, 1984), 474–94. *"The Cataloguing of Chant Manuscripts as an Aid to Critical Editions and Chant History", ''Foundations in Music Bibliography'' (Evanston, IL, 1986), 241–69. *"Compositional Process in Machaut's Ballades", ''Music from the Middle Ages through the Twentieth Century: Essays in Honor of Gwynn S. McPeek'', ed. C. P. Comberiati and M.C. Steel (New York, 1988), 64–78. *"Interrelationships among Gregorian Chants: an Alternative View of Creativity in Early Chant", ''Studies in Musical Sources and Style: Essays in Honor of Jan LaRue'', ed. E. K. Wolf and E. H. Roesner (Madison, WI, 1990), 1–40. *"Interrelationships between Old Roman and Gregorian Chant: some New Perspectives", ''Cantus Planus IV'': Pécs (1990), 187–203. *"Mensural Irregularities in La Rue's Missa de Sancto Antonio", ''Israel Studies in Musicology'', v (1990), 81–95. *"Some Chant Models for Isaac's Choralis Constantinus", ''Beyond the Moon: Festschrift Luther Dittmer'', ed. B. Gillingham and P. Merkley (Ottawa, 1990), 322–49. *''The Polyphony of Saint Martial and Santiago de Compostela'' (Berkeley and Oxford, 1992). *"Editing the Cortona Laudario", ''JM'', xi (1993), 73–105. *"The Offertory in die solemnitatis", ''Laborare fratres in unum: Festschrift Laszlo Dobszay zum 60. Geburtstag'', ed. J. Szendrei and D. Hiley (Hildesheim, 1995), 151–65. *''Aspects of Orality and Formularity in Gregorian Chant'' (Evanston, IL, 1998). *''An Introduction to the Post-Tridentine Mass Proper'' (Middleton, Wisconsin, 2005). *"Some Tropes in Provins, Bibl. mun. MS 12", ''John Ohl Festschrift'' (Evanston, IL, forthcoming).

''Grove'' articles

Grove Music Online ''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 ...

''. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 2001 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

*Morga, Paula
"Karp, Theodore C.."
''Grove Music Online''. ''Oxford Music Online''. Accessed 20 September 2008.

External links

Obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Karp, Theodore Cyrus 1926 births Writers from New York City American musicologists American medievalists New York University alumni University of California, Davis faculty Northwestern University faculty 2015 deaths Historians from New York (state)