The U C Berkeley Department of Music, established in 1905, is one of the oldest and most prominent in the country (See History, below). Here, the serious student, both undergraduate and graduate, can undertake a program of study that balances composition, musical scholarship, and performance in a liberal arts setting (within the College of Letters and Science) and is grounded in the resources of a major research university. The department has assembled a faculty of eminent scholars, composers, and performers and houses a world-famous research library (Hargrove), excellent instrument collections (Salz and O'Neill), and a major composition facility (CNMAT).

Campus studies take place against the backdrop of the Bay Area's rich musical life: its diverse array of performing organizations reflects a complete spectrum of musical activity, a sampling of which includes the world-renowned San Francisco Opera, the Oakland Ballet, the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Ali Akbar College of Music, numerous venues for performance of a wide range of musics from around the world, as well as a panoply of popular music and great jazz venues such as Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, Kimball's in Emeryville, and Yoshi's in Oakland.

Faculty

The faculty of the Berkeley Department of Music is one of the most distinguished in the country; its composers, scholars--musicologists and ethnomusicologists--and performer/scholars combine notable work in their respective fields with a strong commitment to teaching. The faculty is regularly supplemented by eminent visitors, through the department's Ernest Bloch Visiting Professorship, which invites noted figures in music from outside the university to teach and lecture in the department for a semester, the university's Regents Professorship, which bring to the campus world-renowned figures in the arts, and the graduate colloquia, a weekly series of lectures given by local and visiting scholars, composers, and graduate students. Frequently, productions of special musical or historical significance unite the work of a faculty scholar or composer with the performing forces of the department--for example, the revival of an early opera from a manuscript in the Music Library's exceptional collection, or the first performance of a major contemporary work. In addition to the permanent faculty, an extensive roster of Bay Area professional musicians provides specialized instruction in performance of European, African, Latin American, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and Asian traditions.

Facilities and Resources

Two department facilities, the May T. Morrison Hall and the Alfred P. Hertz Hall bring many of the department's resources together in a centralized, communal setting: classrooms, practice rooms, faculty offices, a 700-seat concert hall, and a 100-seat lecture/recital hall. Another of our buildings, the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library, provides a stunning setting in a state-of-the-art facility housing our world-class music library. These three buildings are clustered together near the top of Faculty Glade. A fourth facility, the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies,a cutting-edge composition and performance space for music and technology, is housed just off-campus at 1750 Arch Street.

For students of western classical music, a complete collection of modern orchestral instruments is available; advanced string players may perform on some of the rare violins and violas in the Salz Collection. Harpsichords, fortepianos, and other early keyboard instruments and an exceptional collection of modern and antique organs provide a special resource for keyboard players. Students of early western music may play antique wind and stringed instruments or modern reproductions. For students specializing in various musical traditions from around the world, the beautiful Javanese gamelan, Kyai Udan Mas, and a Balinese gamelan highlight the growing collection of instruments from around the globe. Students of these traditions can study and perform on the Japanese koto, on Indian stringed instruments,and in performance labs of Middle Eastern, Caribbean, Latin American, African, African-American, and other Asian musics.

History of the Department of Music

The Department of Music was officially established by the California State Legislature in 1905 as a result of previously existing interest in music within the university. An allocation of $6,000 was made, designated as the salary for two years of John Frederick Wolle, who served as Chair from 1905–12. A second person, Richard Scholz, was hired as Assistant Professor from 1906–12.

In its first years the department had just a handful of students and few courses. Writing in 1907 Wolle noted,

The Department of Music of the University of California has been in operation for nearly one and a half [years], embracing in its activities the symphony orchestra, the student chorus, and classes in harmony and counterpoint. …a beginning has been made. The chorus was at last given the opportunity of celebrating the earthquake postponed [April 1906] as it were, second coming of the Messiah. But splendid though it sounded, the results thus far achieved will pale into significance before the greater triumphs which lie before.

Indeed!

Wolle noted that the University Orchestra rendered the first series of symphony concerts in the Greek Theater, achieving “success beyond the fondest hopes of its promoters.” Crowds filled the Theater at every concert. The university concerts of the first year were financially successful but not so much in the second year; due to the earthquake, these concerts had to depend for their extra-University attendance solely upon the population of Oakland and Berkeley, although the audience never fell below 2,000.

Yet another musical program was at the instigation of President Wheeler who had noted that he never went to the Greek Theater on a Sunday afternoon without people there enjoying the beauty of it and the surrounding hillside and, thinking that it would interest them in the acoustic perfection of the theater, suggested that the Glee Club be asked to sing a song or two there some Sunday afternoon. From that grew the institution of the “Half Hour of Music” which brought in 1,000–5,000 persons every Sunday while the University was in session. For the first year the Music was performed only by University musical organizations or individual students or alumni. Thereafter, professional musicians and groups were invited to perform; professionals began to use the Theater more and more, but the University musical organizations continued to perform there and in other venues around campus. In addition to groups mentioned above, the Department of Music and University musical organizations included the Cadet Band, the Treble Clef, and the Mandolin and Guitar Club.

Eager to enhance the university’s reputation and bolster the department’s standing, Benjamin Ide Wheeler, Berkeley’s long-time president and graduate of Brown University and a strong supporter of the arts, traveled to the East Coast to seek out qualified Ivy League personnel. On the recommendation of Harvard music faculty he met with Charles Seeger in New York City and offered him the job as chairman for what Seeger described as the “glorious” salary of $3,000 a year.

When Wolle departed in 1912, he left behind 25 students, no real music curriculum, and no physical “department.” Seeger arrived to find music classes being taught at several venues, some in the YMCA, others in the foyer of the Hearst Mining Building. In 1913, department personnel and teaching apparati were moved to music’s first building, “an old, smelly house on Bancroft” according to Seeger.

Seeger had been hired to teach theory, harmony, counterpoint, and music history. He also conducted the 120-voice chorus, which Wolle had initiated, and he and his wife, the concert violinist Constance Edson Seeger, launched a series of chamber music recitals patterned after those given in Ivy League colleges. Because he had a low opinion of what then passed for music history (musicology), taught in only a few American universities at that time, he set out to remedy the situation. Chair from 1912–18, in 1913 he initiated a four-year curriculum in music, although there was not yet a formal degree program. Beginning with a summer session—in those days primarily for public school teachers—he experimented with a new history of music course. In a paper, “Toward an Establishment of the Study of Musicology in America,” (c. 1913) he outlined aspects of his basic approach to the discipline and during the academic year 1913–14 offered the first full course in musicology in the United States.

Until Seeger arrived, there had been no systematic development of a corpus of materials such as books and scores that are necessary for the regular study of music. Seeger’s relations with President Wheeler were good and he had enough money for books, instruments, and library materials. The young, ambitious chair convinced the main library at Berkeley to begin a music section. He was also able to expand the faculty. Paul Steindorff was hired in 1912 and remained through 1923. Two other men came in 1913:
George Bowden, who stayed until 1917; and Edward Stricklen, who remained until 1948. Our longstanding tradition of attracting exceptional students began in the fall of 1914, when sixteen-year-old Henry Cowell came to UC Berkeley to study music. He worked on theory with Edward Stricklen, and composition with Seeger.

The 1915–16 academic year began with a fully functioning Department of Music with an enrollment of several hundred students. Part of this success was undergirded by requirements: the music history course was required of juniors, and an introduction to musicology of seniors. Seeger also started a seminar in which students Henry Cowell, later one of America’s most famous composers, and Glen Haydon, later a major figure in American musicology, were participants. In 1916, the Department of Music graduated its first class; Glen Haydon, the first graduate in musicology in the United States, conducted the graduation performance and Seeger hosted the party afterwards.

Seeger took sabbatical in 1918 and never returned to teach although he left behind a flourishing legacy. One aspect of that has been the Berkeley sense of place in the greater world of scholarship. Members of the department have been leaders in the American Musicological Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, in both of which Seeger was a founding member. Through the decades of the twentieth century, Seeger’s catholicity of musical spirit (husband to violinist Constance Edson and to composer Ruth Crawford and father to folksingers Peggy, Michael and Peter Seeger) has come to characterize the Berkeley music curriculum, integrating as it does performance, theory, composition, history, and the study of diverse traditions.

The department’s next great leap forward came under the aegis of Albert Elkus who was chairman from 1937–51. From the Elkus days onward, the department burgeoned. Vincent Duckles, the most famous name in music library circles, built the collection of not only secondary but also primary sources into one of the greatest of its kind in the world.

Many have added to the luster of the department’s reputation in the fields of composition and scholarship. The composition faculty has counted numerous major figures among its members from Roger Sessions (appointed in 1944), Ernest Bloch, and Joaquin Nin-Culmell to Andrew Imbrie, Richard Felciano, Olly Wilson, and Randall Thompson . Like its cohorts in scholarship, the younger generation of composers continues the Berkeley tradition of excellence. At the heart of this now is CNMAT, Center for New Music and Audio Technology, founded by Richard Felciano, now under the direction of David Wessel and Edmund Campion.

The scholarship program offers two focuses: musicology, aka the History and Literature of Western Music (H&L), and ethnomusicology. The department’s reputation grew in H&L from the time of the appointment of Manfred Bukofzer (in 1941, on the faculty until his untimely death in 1955), through numerous illustrious scholars such as Edward Lewinsky, Joseph Kerman, Daniel Heartz, and Richard Crocker. Instruction in the younger field of ethnomusicology (celebrating its 50th year in 2005) was established in the Department with the arrival of Bonnie Wade in the 1975–76 academic year. With three professors now, the ethnomusicology program is acknowledged as one of the top in the country.

As we enter the next century of our existence, the department is positioned to maintain its reputation through the recruitment of the best faculty, the admittance of stellar students, its outstanding Jean Gray Hargrove Library and Salz instrument collection, and the upgrading of its facilities. To the new Hargrove Library and refurbished Hertz Hall, we hope to add a renovated Morrison Hall and a Powerhouse performance space as we continue our march of excellence.

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Bonnie C. Wade, Chair, Department of Music
For more about the department on-line see Illuminations.Berkeley.edu (April 2005) for articles entitled “Sound Reasoning” and “Charles Seeger.” Information on Seeger and the department is derived from Ann M. Pescatello’s Charles Seeger. A Life In American Music (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992, pp. 52–73 passim).