Rubsamen, Walter (Howard)
Rubsamen, Walter (Howard)
Rubsamen, Walter (Howard) , renowned American musicologist; b. N.Y., July 21, 1911; d. Los Angeles, June 19, 1973. He studied flute with Barrère in N.Y. and musicology at Columbia Univ. with Lang (B.A., 1933), then attended classes of Ursprung and Ficker at the Univ. of Munich, receiving his doctorate with the diss. Pierre de la Rue als Messenkomponist (1937). Returning to the U.S., he was appointed to the music faculty at the Univ. of Calif., Los Angeles, obtaining a full professorship in 1955; was chairman of the music dept. (1965–73). He ed. the Opera omnia of Pierre de La Rue for the American Inst. of Musicology and brought out a German 16th-century Magnificat on Christmas Carols (N.Y., 1971); contributed a number of informative articles on ballad opera in England and on Renaissance composers to various American and European publications.
Writings
Literary Sources of Secular Music in Italy c. 1500 (Berkeley, Calif., 1943); with D. Heartz and H.M. Brown, Chanson and Madrigal, 1480–1530 (Cambridge, Mass., 1964).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire