Raymond Monelle

Raymond Monelle (19 August 1937, in Bristol, England – 12 March 2010, in Edinburgh, Scotland). was a music theorist, teacher, music critic, composer and jazz pianist. Monelle wrote three books, dozens of articles on music, and many music criticism reviews in newspapers, mainly for Opera and The Independent[1] His main field of research was Music Signification or, as it is also known, Music Semiotics. Towards the end of his life he wrote a novel, yet to be published, entitled Bird in the Apple Tree, about the adolescence of the composer Alban Berg.[1]

Education

Monelle received a Master of Arts degree in Modern History from the University of Oxford and Bachelor of Music degree from the University of London. A member of the Royal Musical Association at least since 1968, he completed his Ph.D at the University of Edinburgh with a doctoral thesis on "Opera seria as drama: the musical dramas of Hasse and Metastasio", which he wrote under the supervision of Prof. David Kimbell.

Scholarship

Monelle was renowned for his research in the field of Music Signification (the Semiotics of Music). His three books, many articles and countless lectures, presented in various venues all over Europe, North America and Israel, had an immense impact on the international music scholarship scene. In 1988 he joined the Music Signification Project, founded by Eero Tarasti two years earlier, and became one of the project's leaders, acting as keynote speaker and editor of proceedings in all the International Congresses of Music Signification that followed.

His publications touch a wide variety of subjects and musical styles, but focus mainly on two subjects: the analysis of music as text and The Musical Topic. In the first subject, Monelle was strongly influenced by Derrida's writings on deconstruction. On the second subject, he presented a research into the topics of the military. Toward the end of his life, he began studying the subject of The Musical Sublime, inspired by the writings of Slavoj Žižek.

Teaching activities

Monelle joined the Faculty of Music at the University of Edinburgh in 1969 serving throughout the 1970s as conductor of the university society choir and opera club,[1] and teaching History, Counterpoint, Harmony, Analysis, and the Semiotics of Music. Most famous classes were his "Wagner Project Weeks" in which he took students for a week away from Edinburgh to Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland, for a week of listening and study of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. He was granted the title of a Reader in 1992(?) and full professorship in 2002(?) the year in which he retired from the university of Edinburgh. After his retirement he continued to teach theory and counterpoint at Napier University in Edinburgh.

Composition and performance

Monelle composed several works:[2][3] among them works for piano and for organ, choir arrangements of Christmas Carols and a Mass setting for choir and orchestra, which he later adapted for choir and organ for the choir of Old St Paul's, Edinburgh.. He did some conducting,[1][3] mainly of choral and opera productions, and was particularly known for his skilled jazz piano playing.[2][4] He also nurtured the careers of two of Scotland's most notable living musicians, Donald Runnicles and James MacMillan.[1]

Publications

Books

Editions

Articles

essays in honor of Peter Williams. 2007, Thomas Donahue Press.

Compositions (selection)

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Obituary: Raymond Monelle". The Scotsman. 10 April 2010.
  2. 1 2 Pirie, Peter (October 1973). "Carols". The Musical Times. 114 (1568): 1024–1025.
  3. 1 2 Wilson, Conrad (18 March 2002). "Obituary: Raymond Monelle; University lecturer, author, conductor, critic". The Scotland Herald.
  4. ↑ McAllister, Rita (August 1972). "Concert Review". The Musical Times. 113 (1554): 793.
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