Holdings Fine Arts and Applied Arts School of Music Hymn Tune Index Records Finding Aid Holdings Fine Arts and Applied Arts School of Music Hymn Tune Index Records Finding Aid By Ryan Chaglasian, Mikael Fox, Eden Irwin, Xochitl Quiroz, Hailey Vasquez, and Nolan Vallier
Title: Hymn Tune Index Records, 1964-2007
ID: 12/5/81
Primary Creator: Temperley, Nicholas (1932-2020)
Extent: 4.75 cubic feet
Arrangement: Materials are arranged into four series: Series 1) Hymn Tune Index Data, Series 2) Research Notes and Research Correspondence, Series 3) Administrative Records, and Series 4) Digital Content. Series 1 is arranged into two sub-series, Sub-Series 1) Data Input Cards and 2) Data Source Information and Research Files. This material follows the original order of the files, which are arranged by Generic Code, Title Code, and Compiler Code and Alphabetically therein. Series 2 is arranged into 5 subseries: 1) Correspondence, 2) Bibliographies, 3) Articles, 4) Material from other Institutions, and 5) Parodies. This material follows the original order. Series 3 is arranged into two subseries 1) Internal and 2) Publication, both follow the original order. Series 4 is arranged into two subseries 1) Computer Storage and Disks and 2) Paper copies.
Date Acquired: 06/21/2021
Subjects: Choral music, Church music, Databases, Early music collection, Musicology, Vocal music
Formats/Genres: Catalogs
Languages: English
Consists of handwritten data entry cards, HTI entries, photocopies of newspaper articles, advertisements and books, professional correspondence, a photograph, floppy disks, a CD, typed and handwritten pages of notes, newspaper subscriber lists, genealogies, library catalogs, and sheet music, documenting the development of the Hymn Tune Index, an early digital reference guide to sources on hymn tunes.
The Hymn Tune Index was a project founded by Nicholas Temperley after the publication of his 1979 book, The Music of the English Parish Church. Temperley, who sought to compile a list of historic sources of hymns, won a three-year grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities to fund the project. The Index includes a comprehensive census of English-language hymn tunes, except for tunes found within single manuscripts and barrel-organs, from 1535 up to 1820. Many of the sources were gathered by Temperley himself, while others were gathered by Carl Manns and graduate assistant Joseph Herl. The team gathered as many original sources as possible in the form of photocopies, microfilm, and handwritten indexes for sources that could not be duplicated. Between 1982 and 1985, the HTI team compiled their index in a database created by George Chaltas, which was written in FORTRAN 77. Due to the limits of the technology, tune citations were initially limited to 80 characters, including source code, tune incipit, text code, tune name, attribution, voice setting, and key. Attribution was limited to 15 characters, which resulted in a loss of information about the composer that has never been remedied. In 1988, the database was transfered to a Unix operating system and further programming was done by Eric Loeb, Jehng-Jung Kao, and Joseph Herl. In 1993, the database was transfered again to Paradox, which ran under Microsoft Windows 3.1.
The first printed edition of the Hymn Tune Index was completed in 1998 and published by Oxford University Press in four volumes. Two years later Joseph Herl redesigned the Online Index interface. On June 30, 2007, the management of the interface was transferred to the University of Illinois Library.
Nicholas Temperley (1932-2020) was born in Beaconsfield, England on August 7, 1932. His parents were Arthur Cecil Temperley, a Major-General of the British Army who served as a representative at the League of Nations, and Joyce van Oss, a Dutch musician and author. Temperley began his musical studies at the age of five, performing on piano and studying composition. After his father died in 1939, Temperley was admitted to an all-boy's boarding school. In this same year, he published his first composition, "Elegy," which appeared in a British publication called The Young Musician. In 1945, Temperley won a Foundation Scholarship to study at Eaton College, where he received further musical instruction until 1951. In 1948, his mother married a German refugee named Donald von Hirsch, who would go on to lead the German Institute in London. Temperley then earned his associate degree in piano performance at the Royal College of Music in 1952 as well as a certificate in organ performance at the Royal College of Organists in 1954. Following this, he earned another Foundation Scholarship to study music at King's College, Cambridge University where he earned a bachelor of arts degree (Double First in Music) in 1955, a bachelor's of music degree in 1956, and his doctoral degree in 1959. While at King's College, Temperley specialized in the history of English music during the Classical and Romantic periods and he took additional courses in composition and organ performance.
Following his graduation from King's College, Temperley moved to the United States, becoming a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. It was here that Temperley met Mary Dorothea Sleator, an assistant professor of English. Sleator was also an active singer in Urbana. The two were married a year later in Ann Arbor, Michigan. While in Urbana, Temperley published several early articles on the influence of Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn upon English composers; founded an amateur carol group called the "Temperley Singers"; and served as a music critic for the Champaign-Urbana Courier.
In 1961, he and Mary moved to the UK, Temperley having accepted a position as an assistant lecturer at Cambridge University and the Director of Studies in Music at Clare College, Cambridge. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Temperley edited and revised both the entrance exams and the "Musical Tripos" final exams for graduate students. Two of Temperley's children were born during this time, Lucy (1962) and David (1963). During this period, Temperley began publishing short articles on the history of English Parish Church music and Victorian opera. He also combined his historical research with his interest in composition, arranging new editions of Victorian operas. While at Cambridge in 1966, he resurrected the Victorian-era composer Edward Loder's opera Raymond and Agnes. Soon after, Temperley accepted a position as an assistant professor at Yale University, where he taught for a year.
In 1967, Temperley returned to the University of Illinois as an assistant professor in musicology. On the first day of school, his third child, Sylvia, was born. Temperley was promoted to full professor in 1972, at which point he had already written nearly two dozen articles about English music in the Victorian era. Temperley published his first book, Jonathan Gray and Church Music in York, 1770-1840 five years later in 1977. Two years later he received the Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society for his book, The Music of the English Parish Church. Building upon his research on hymns and church music, Temperley founded the Hymn Tune Index at the University of Illinois in 1982. As a research center, the Hymn Tune Index compiled an archive of hymns printed in English texts up to 1820 and published a reference book of their findings in four volumes begininng in 1998.
In 1981, Temperley published The Romantic Age: 1800-1914, a groundbreaking book on the music of the Victorian era. He would go on to edit several other books related to Victorian music including the 20-volume series The London Piano Forte School 1766-1860. Tied to his research on this era, Temperley also completed critical editions of both Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (1971) and Haydn's The Creation (1988); a revised edition of John Gay's the Beggar's Opera (1984); and arrangements of two unfinished operas, George Friedrich Handel's Hercules (1985) and Mozart's L'Oca del Cairo (1991).
After serving two terms as department chair of the Musicology Division and being named a University Senior Scholar between 1986 and 1989, he retired in 1996. Temperley continued to research and publish in the areas of English church music and Victorian-era opera. In 2007, Temperley served as the co-editor alongside Sally Drage for a critical edition of 18th-Century English church music for the Musica Britannica series. In 2016, he published his twelfth book, Musicians of Bath and Beyond: Edward Loder (1809-1865) and His Family. In 2018, he and Beth Quitslund published the first critical edition of the Elizabethan era congregational book The Whole Book of Psalms, Collected into English Metre.
During his retirement, Temperley remained connected to the Musicology Division at the University of Illinois, establishing a dissertation prize in 2003 and a research prize in 2017. Temperley also spent his retirement staging Gilbert and Sullivan operettas in Urbana and in 2009 he published Christmas is Coming, a collection of original and arranged carols. Temperley died on April 19, 2020 in Urbana Illinois.
Repository: The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music
Acquisition Source: School of Music
Acquisition Method: Transfer.
Related Materials: Nicholas Temperley Music and Papers 12/5/80
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