Westrup, Sir Jack (Allan)

Westrup, Sir Jack (Allan), eminent English musicologist; b. London, July 26, 1904; d. Headley, Hampshire, April 21, 1975. He received his education at Dulwich Coll., London (1917-22), and at Balliol Coll., Oxford (B.A. and B.Mus., 1926; M.A., 1929). He was an asst. classics master at Dulwich Coll. (1928-34), then was a music critic for the Daily Telegraph (1934-39); he also was ed. of the Monthly Musical Record (1933-45). He gave classes at the Royal Academy of Music in London (1938-10), then was lecturer in music at King’s Coll., Newcastle upon Tyne (1941-44), the Univ. of Birmingham (1944-47), and Wadham Coll., Oxford (1947-71). In 1946 he received an honorary degree of D.Mus. at the Univ. of Oxford. In 1947 he was named chairman of the editorial board of The New Oxford History of Music. In 1959 he succeeded Eric Blom as ed. of Music & Letters. From 1958 to 1963 he was president of the Royal Musical Assn. He was also active as a conductor; he conducted the Oxford Opera Club (1947-62), the Oxford Univ. Orch. (1954-63), and the Oxford Bach Choir and Oxford Orch. Soc. (1970-71). He was knighted in 1961. Westrup prepared major revisions of Walker’s A History of Music in England (Oxford, 3^rd ed., 1952) and of Fellowes’s English Cathedral Music (London, 5^th ed., 1969); he also supervised rev. eds. of Blom’s Everyman’s Dictionary of Music (4^th ed., 1962; 5^th ed., 1971). He was co-ed., with F. Harrison, of the Collins Music Encyclopedia (London, 1959; American ed. as The New Coll. Encyclopedia of Music, N.Y., 1960).

Writings

(all publ. in London unless otherwise given): Purcell (1937; 4^th ed., rev, 1980); Handel (1938); Liszt (1940); Sharps and Flats (1940); British Music (1943; 3^rd ed., 1949); The Meaning of Musical History (1946); An Introduction to Musical History (1955); Music: Its Past and Its Present (Washington, D.C., 1964); Bach Cantatas (1966); Schubert Chamber Music (1969); Musical Interpretation (1971).

Bibliography

F. Sternfeld et al, eds., Essays on Opera and English Music in Honour of Sir J. W. (Oxford, 1975).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire