LaRue, (Adrian) Jan (Pieters)
LaRue, (Adrian) Jan (Pieters)
LaRue, (Adrian) Jan (Pieters), eminent American musicologist; b. Kisaran, Sumatra (of American parents), July 31, 1918. During this period in Sumatra, his father invented the budgrafting method now used on all rubber plantations. After attending Harvard Univ. (B.S., 1940), he pursued his studies in composition with Sessions and in musicology with Strunk at Princeton Univ. (M.F.A., 1942). He then saw military service (from 1943), and was active in the Okinawa Campaign. Following his discharge in 1946, he returned to Harvard Univ. to complete his education under Piston and Davison (Ph.D., 1952, with the diss. The Okinawan Classical Songs: An Analytical and Comparative Study). Having taught at Wellesley Coll. in 1942-43, he was again on its faculty from 1946 to 1957, and also served as chairman of its music dept. (1950–57). In 1957 he became prof, of music at N.Y.U. (dept. chairman, 1970-73; director of graduate studies, 1973-80), retiring in 1988 as prof. emeritus. In addition to a Fulbright Research Followship (Austria, 1954-56), he received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies (1964), the Guggenheim Foundation (1965–66), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (1980–84). From 1966 to 1968 he was president of the American Musicological Soc, and in 1998 was made an honorary member. LaRue has written pioneering articles on style analysis, authenticity and style in 18th century music, harmonic rhythm in Beethoven’s syms., the music of Okinawa, catalogues and bibliographical methods, watermarks, and computer aids to music. He served as ed. of the Report of the Eighth Congress of the International Musicological Society (2 vols., 1961-62), and as co-ed, of the Festschrift Otto Erich Deutsch (1963) and of Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese (1966; 2nd. ed., 1978).
Writings
Guidelines for Style Analysis (1970; 2nd ed., 1992); A Catalogue of 18th-Century Symphonies (1988); with M. Ohmiya, Methods and Models for Comprehensive Style Analysis (1988); Writing on Music Style: Models for a Comprehensive Approach (1994).
Bibliography
E. Wolf and E. Roesner, eds., Studies in Musical Sources and Style: Essays in Honor of]. L. (Madison, Wise, 1990).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire