Barbour, J(ames) Murray

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Barbour, J(ames) Murray

Barbour, J(ames) Murray, American musicologist; b. Chambersburg, Pa., March 31, 1897; d. Homestead, Pa., Jan. 4, 1970. He studied at Dickinson Coll. (M.A., 1920) and Temple Univ. (Mus.B., 1924), then with Kinkeldey at Cornell Univ., where he received the first doctorate in musicology awarded by a U.S. univ. in 1932 with the diss. Equal Temperament: Its History from Ramis (1482) to Rameau (1737); subsequently received a second Ph.D. in music from the Univ. of Toronto in 1936. He taught English at Ithaca Coll. (1932–39); then was a teacher at Mich. State Coll. (later Univ.), where he was a prof. (1954–64). He contributed learned essays to music journals; also publ. Tuning and Temperament: A Historical Survey (East Lansing, 1951; 2nd ed., 1953), The Church Music of William Billings (East Lansing, 1960), and Trumpets, Horns and Music (East Lansing, 1964). Among his compositions are a Requiem and some chamber pieces.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire