Musicology

Although the College has never advertised a fellowship specifically in musicology (nor is it one of the subjects for Fellowships by Examination), it does have a small but very distinguished record in the subject, and is open to applications from musicologists for several categories of fellowship. The late Alan Tyson won his original fellowship in Classics and pursued a psychiatric training; he then became a leading expert in the manuscripts and chronology of Mozart and Beethoven; the musicologist Margaret Bent won her fellowship in an open competition. A long tradition of musical connoisseurship among the Fellows most famously reached a wider public with the late Isaiah Berlin, and with Bernard Williams (On Opera, 2006). Noel Malcolm wrote George Enescu: His Life and Music (1990); Martin West wrote Ancient Greek Music (1992); Peregrine Horden edited Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy since Antiquity (2000) and maintains an interest in twentieth century musical modernism. Unlike New College, All Souls was not a choral foundation, but even by 1500, Fellows were cultivating music in Chapel on their own initiative. Occasional concerts now often have a scholarly dimension and present little-known repertory. Visiting Fellow musicologists have included Iain Fenlon, Andrew Wathey, Nicholas Kenyon, Thomas Schmidt, Ardis Butterfield (medieval English, French, and music), Jessie Ann Owens, and Peter Wright.