Nigel Fortune
Encyclopedia
Nigel Cameron Fortune was an English musicologist and political activist. Along with Thurston Dart
, Oliver Neighbour, and Stanley Sadie
he was one of Britain's leading musicologists of the post-World War II
generation. He played an instrumental part in
improving professional musicological standards in England through research initiatives, conferences and scholarly publications. This greatly increased his country's international reputation in the field of music scholarship.
Fortune's specialty in musicological research was in 17th-century Italian music and on the lives and works of George Friederich Handel and Henry Purcell
. He contributed articles to several encyclopedias and was notably one of the senior editors of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He also contributed writings or served as an editor to numerous music publications and books. For many years he was the co-editor of the journal Music & Letters
.
, Fortune was the son of an insurance salesman. An only child, he moved with his parents at the age of 10 to the Handsworth, West Midlands
area of Birmingham
. He lived in the same house there for his entire life; notably living next door to the mother of British Labour Party
MP
Clare Short
. He served as Short's agent during most of her time as an MP and was also highly active in the education system in Birmingham; serving for many years as a chairman of school governors.
After receiving his childhood education at the Handsworth Grammar School
, Fortune attended the University of Birmingham
from 1947–1950 where he earned degrees in music and the Italian language. He went on to earn a PhD from the University of Cambridge
in 1954; becoming the second person to be awarded a doctorate for music in the history of the United Kingdom. His doctoral thesis on the development of monody
in Italy was overseen by Thurston Dart
. With Dart he later edited John Dowland's Ayres for Four Voices (1953–63). One of his other important mentors at Cambridge was professor Sir Anthony Lewis
, then honorary secretary of the Purcell Society
and a co-founder of the Musica Britannica
. With Lewis he worked on The Works of Henry Purcell, "which played a significant role in establishing the position of the major English composer".
From 1956–1959 Fortune served as music librarian at Senate House
of the University of London
. He left there to become a lecturer at the University of Birmingham in the Fall of 1959. He remained there until his retirement in 1985; at which point he had been working there as a reader
. From 1957–1971 he was the Royal Musical Association
's secretary and later served as the organization's vice president; posts through which he encouraged many young music scholars. During the 1970s and 1980s he worked under Stanley Sadie
as one of the senior editors and as a writer for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980, 1rst edition). From 1980–2008 he served as co-editor of the journal Music & Letters
.
In the 1960s Fortune and musicologist Denis Arnold
founded an important annual conference for graduate students in music in England which established for the first time in that country a community for music scholarship in that nation. With Arnold he also collaborated on The Monteverdi Companion (1968, enlarged and reissued as The New Monteverdi Companion, 1985) and The Beethoven Companion (1971). He collaborated on several other publications with a variety of scholars, mostly as an editor, including a collection of essays in honour of Winton Dean
in 1987. He contributed several articles to Musica Britannica
from 1975–1977 and to The New Oxford History of Music in 1985. While his scholarly work tended to focus on early music, he was a champion of the music of contemporary composer John Casken
and for many years provided significant financial support to the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
. He died in Birmingham at the age of 84 having never married or driven a car.
Thurston Dart
Robert Thurston Dart , was a British musicologist, conductor and keyboard player. From 1964 he was Professor of Music at King's College London....
, Oliver Neighbour, and Stanley Sadie
Stanley Sadie
Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
he was one of Britain's leading musicologists of the post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
generation. He played an instrumental part in
improving professional musicological standards in England through research initiatives, conferences and scholarly publications. This greatly increased his country's international reputation in the field of music scholarship.
Fortune's specialty in musicological research was in 17th-century Italian music and on the lives and works of George Friederich Handel and Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
. He contributed articles to several encyclopedias and was notably one of the senior editors of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He also contributed writings or served as an editor to numerous music publications and books. For many years he was the co-editor of the journal Music & Letters
Music & Letters
Music & Letters, also known as Music and Letters, is an international journal published quarterly by Oxford University Press with a focus on musicology. Its ISSN is 00274224...
.
Life and career
Born in NorthumberlandNorthumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
, Fortune was the son of an insurance salesman. An only child, he moved with his parents at the age of 10 to the Handsworth, West Midlands
Handsworth, West Midlands
Handsworth is an inner city area of Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. The Local Government Act 1894 divided the ancient Staffordshire parish of Handsworth into two urban districts: Handsworth and Perry Barr. Handsworth was annexed to the county borough of Birmingham in Warwickshire in 1911...
area of Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
. He lived in the same house there for his entire life; notably living next door to the mother of British Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
Clare Short
Clare Short
Clare Short is a British politician, and a member of the Labour Party. She was the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood from 1983 to 2010; for most of this period she was a Labour Party MP, but she resigned the party whip in 2006 and served the remainder of her term as an Independent. She...
. He served as Short's agent during most of her time as an MP and was also highly active in the education system in Birmingham; serving for many years as a chairman of school governors.
After receiving his childhood education at the Handsworth Grammar School
Handsworth Grammar School
Handsworth Grammar School is voluntary aided grammar school that admits boys from the age of eleven and boys . The school was founded in 1862 and is located in Handsworth, Birmingham, England. it is situated just off the A41, near the junction with the A4040...
, Fortune attended the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
from 1947–1950 where he earned degrees in music and the Italian language. He went on to earn a PhD from the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
in 1954; becoming the second person to be awarded a doctorate for music in the history of the United Kingdom. His doctoral thesis on the development of monody
Monody
In poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death....
in Italy was overseen by Thurston Dart
Thurston Dart
Robert Thurston Dart , was a British musicologist, conductor and keyboard player. From 1964 he was Professor of Music at King's College London....
. With Dart he later edited John Dowland's Ayres for Four Voices (1953–63). One of his other important mentors at Cambridge was professor Sir Anthony Lewis
Anthony Lewis (musician)
Sir Anthony Carey Lewis KBE was an English conductor, composer, editor, and music educator. He is best known for co-founding and serving as the first chief editor of Musica Britannica...
, then honorary secretary of the Purcell Society
Purcell Society
The Purcell Society, founded in 1876 is an organization dedicated to making the complete musical works of Henry Purcell available. Between 1876 and 1965, scores of all the known works of Purcell were published, in 32 volumes...
and a co-founder of the Musica Britannica
Musica Britannica
Musica Britannica was founded in 1951 as an authoritative national collection of British music. It is designed to stand alongside existing library editions, and to explore the vast heritage of material still largely untouched by them, thus making available a representative survey of the British...
. With Lewis he worked on The Works of Henry Purcell, "which played a significant role in establishing the position of the major English composer".
From 1956–1959 Fortune served as music librarian at Senate House
Senate House (University of London)
Senate House is the administrative centre of the University of London, situated in the heart of Bloomsbury, London between the School of Oriental and African Studies to the north, with the British Museum to the south...
of the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
. He left there to become a lecturer at the University of Birmingham in the Fall of 1959. He remained there until his retirement in 1985; at which point he had been working there as a reader
Reader (academic rank)
The title of Reader in the United Kingdom and some universities in the Commonwealth nations like Australia and New Zealand denotes an appointment for a senior academic with a distinguished international reputation in research or scholarship...
. From 1957–1971 he was the Royal Musical Association
Royal Musical Association
The Royal Musical Association is a British scholarly society and charity. Founded in 1874, the Association claims to be the second oldest musicological society in the world, after that of the Netherlands...
's secretary and later served as the organization's vice president; posts through which he encouraged many young music scholars. During the 1970s and 1980s he worked under Stanley Sadie
Stanley Sadie
Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
as one of the senior editors and as a writer for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980, 1rst edition). From 1980–2008 he served as co-editor of the journal Music & Letters
Music & Letters
Music & Letters, also known as Music and Letters, is an international journal published quarterly by Oxford University Press with a focus on musicology. Its ISSN is 00274224...
.
In the 1960s Fortune and musicologist Denis Arnold
Denis Arnold
Denis Midgley Arnold, CBE was a British musicologist. After being employed in the extramural department of The Queen's University, Belfast, he became a Lecturer in Music at the University of Hull, and from 1969 to 1975 was Professor of Music at The University of Nottingham...
founded an important annual conference for graduate students in music in England which established for the first time in that country a community for music scholarship in that nation. With Arnold he also collaborated on The Monteverdi Companion (1968, enlarged and reissued as The New Monteverdi Companion, 1985) and The Beethoven Companion (1971). He collaborated on several other publications with a variety of scholars, mostly as an editor, including a collection of essays in honour of Winton Dean
Winton Dean
Winton Dean is an English musicologist of the 20th century, most famous for his research concerning the life and works—in particular the operas and oratorios—of Handel, as detailed in his book Handel’s Dramatic Oratorios and Masques .Dean was born in Birkenhead...
in 1987. He contributed several articles to Musica Britannica
Musica Britannica
Musica Britannica was founded in 1951 as an authoritative national collection of British music. It is designed to stand alongside existing library editions, and to explore the vast heritage of material still largely untouched by them, thus making available a representative survey of the British...
from 1975–1977 and to The New Oxford History of Music in 1985. While his scholarly work tended to focus on early music, he was a champion of the music of contemporary composer John Casken
John Casken
John Casken is an English composer, born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England.Casken read music at the University of Birmingham, studying composition and contemporary music with John Joubert and Peter Dickinson. He then went on to study in Poland with Andrzej Dobrowolski on a Polish government...
and for many years provided significant financial support to the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group is a chamber orchestra based in Birmingham, England. BCMG specialises in the performance of new and contemporary music. BCMG performs regularly at the CBSO Centre and Symphony Hall in Birmingham...
. He died in Birmingham at the age of 84 having never married or driven a car.