Society for American Music
Bulletin, Volume XXV, no. 1 (Spring 1999)
Obituaries
Alan Clark Buechner
16 April 1926-10 December 1998
On 10 December, 1998, Alan C. Buechner, one of the founding members of The Sonneck Society for
American Music, died at a convalescent center in Woburn, Massachusetts. The Sonneck Society Board
had approved awarding Alan the Distinguished Service Citation, the Society's highest award for
members, at the Board meeting in Boston. Feeling that his time was limited and that he would
probably not be able to attend the March meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, several of the officers
bestowed the award in person on 31 October. He was in good spirits on that day, and the giving
of the award and some of his commentary on the early days of the Society were recorded on
videotape.
A Brief Biography
Alan C. Buechner, Ed.D. (Music), was born in El Paso, Texas on 16 April 1926. He had been
Professor of Music and Coordinator for Music Education at the Copland School of Music, Queens
College, CUNY, from 1967 to his retirement in 1992. Dr. Buechner's career was devoted to musical
scholarship and to teacher education in music, and included prior appointments at Harvard
University, the University of Texas, and the University of Hartford. His study, "Yankee Singing
Schools and the GOlden Age of Choral Music in New England, 1760-1800" (Ed.D. dissertation,
Harvard, 1960), laid the foundation for many subsequent studies of that popular institution.
During the past two decades his investigations into American revivalism of the 1840s, into
19th-century American music and dance as reflected by the fiddle tune collection of W.S. Mount,
and into the musical activities of the painter Thomas Hart Benton have been the subjects of papers
delivered at meetings of the American Folklore Society; the Old Sturbridge Conference "Joyful
Sounds"; the Berea Conference on Rural Hymnody; the Stony Brook Conference "Catching the Tune";
the American Musicological Society; the Violin Society of America; and the Sonneck Society. He
has also lectured on various topics in American mujsic at Emory University, the University of Kansas,
the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and at Bard College. One of these lectures was
published as "Die Welt des Charles Ives" by the Oesterreichische Musikzeitschrift in
1979. The recording of The New England Harmony, a collection of early American choral music
(Folkways FA 3.2377) was produced under his direction at Old Sturbridge Village in 1964. Articles
and reviews have been published in the Journal of the American Musicological Association;
in Symposium, the Journal of the College Music Society; in American Music, the
Journal of the Sonneck Society for American Music; the Music Educators Journal; and the
Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife.
A founder and officer of the Sonneck Society for American Music, he served on the Board as its
vice-president as well as chairing the Nominating, Bylaws, and American Music in American Schools
and Colleges Committees.
Eulogy given by Allen McConnell at the memorial service, 16 January 1999, Saint Paul's
Episcopal Church, Glen Cove, New York
Alan Buechner as a remarkable man. He was distinguished by scrupulousness, intelligence,
kindness, and courage. His scrupulousness marked all that he did, whethr it was in speech,
choosing the precise word, or in his impeccable scholarship, or in deciding the best course
of action in a delicate human situation. He was a man of his word. He never "blew his own
horn."
His fine intelligence was evident on whatever subject one touched upon, and if one put forth a
concept with which he was unfamiliar, he was pleased to learn something and always put the
right questions. His discourse was marked by common sense, humor, and occasional irony. He was
a keen reader from boyhood, when poliio (contracted in the Philippines) kept him from contact
sports that boys find so important in their school years. (Not that he disliked sports; he became a
marksman, an experienced horseman, and a devoted sailor). His father had been a career army officer
(he had received a battlefield commission in World War I), and his family had to move often from
base to base, and this forced mobility further hindered making friendships with classmates.
His high intelligence facilitated a career as a scholar of music. His dissertation on American colonial
music, written decades ago, has been one of the most consulted and cited. It is a reminder of
his scrupulousness that he published so little when his gifts were so great, for he defied the
harsh dictum of post-World War II American higher education: "Publish or perish." Translated,
this means: never mind the students; get the books out. He did mind the students. His
students came first. And he took on the graduate program of music education at Queens College
when it had sixty-five students to shepherd, a sure sign to me he could not think of his
publications. He was still helping students in the last year of his life, five years into
retirement.
His instinctive kindness could be seen when you asked him a complicated question, and he answered
gently, fully, and precisely. Or when we spoke of other persons. Or when I mensioned a part of
the country my wife and I were planning to visit, and recieved not only perceptive observations
but the next day a bundle of maps, hotel and cabin data, lists of attractions (all annotated). Or
when he urged me to get a newer car and insisted on accompanying me on the dreary business of
buying a used car.
His intelligence -- and his courage -- were most evident in his reaction t the most dreaded doctor's
verdict: "you have cancer." This was the scourge that was to hound him in one form or another --
prostate, colon, liver, the left hand, the right lung, colon again -- for the last eight years
of his life. Instead of reacting with dismay or panic, he set out to learn more of "the enemy,"
as he called it.
He succeeded so well in this self-disciplined study of a complicated field, that he was invited to
attend a conference of oncologists with his own ID badge by the then head of the famed Lahey
Clinic's oncology department, and subsequently its head, Dr. John Libertino, a fellow Mozart
lover. Later, when he was in chemo-therapy treatment of colon cancer, I once dropped in on him and
found him in terrible condition -- his one weakness as he stoicism, his lack of self-pity, his wish
not to trouble friends -- and took him to the hospital at once. I knew what he would want as soon
as he could sit up, and the next day brought him the latest Merck Manual, Grey's Anatomy,
and a magnifying glass. Scientific curiosity merged with the joy of battle against a deadly foe,
known to give no quarter.
His courage could be seen in his youth. When our generation was growing up, it was a rare lad who
would defy his father. Alan's father wished his son to be an engineer. Perhaps the father saw in
this solid profession - during our worst economic depression -- the best way to make a living. And
music the most precarious. Alan went to Renssalaer Polytech and failed at math. Certainly not
because of low aptitude. He transferred to Pennsylvania State University to study his true love:
music. At his own expense. And on to Harvard for the Ph.D. Again, largely at his own expense. He
was undone with life's most important decision by his scrupulousness, his sense of fairness, for he
did not propose to the girl heloved, since he felt he, as a graduate student, could not support her
or ask her to wait until he had a job. (Those were the days when marriage was almost the only
career for girls.)
His courage was most impressive in the years of unrelenting illness. He was a gentle man, a
gentleman of the old school. Modest and kind. I told him, "Alan, you're a fighter, right to the
end." And so he was. May you rest in peace, Alan, after your brave battle. We will always
remember you.
Robert Shaw -- 1916-1999
Robert Shaw, Music Director Emeritus and Conductor Laureate of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, died
on 25 January 1999 at the age of 82. He was at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on Saturday
to see the play Endgame, which was he son Thomas's senior directing and acting project,
when he suffered a massive stroke.
Robert Lawson Shaw was born in Red Bluff, California, on 30 April 1916. He came from a line of evangelical
preachers, and the family often sang gospel hymns around his mother's piano. He was a student
conductor of the college's glee club, which brought him to the attention of radio entertainer Fred
Waring. Waring brough the young Shaw to New York and assigned him to form and conduct the Fred
Waring Glee Club. In 1941 he formed the Collegiate Chorale, an all-volunteer chorus. Quickly
noticed for its high standards and its racially integrated membership ("a melting pot that sings"),
the Choral eventually was noticed by Arturo Toscanini, who invited it to perform Beethoven's
Symphony No. 9 with his orchestra. After attending a Shaw rehearsal, Toscanini remarked, "I have
at last found the maestro I have been looking for."
In 1949 he formed the Robert Shaw Chorale, which for two decades reigned as America's premier touring
choral group. With this group Mr. Shaw won the first four of his fourteen Grammy awards. Mr. Shaw
came to Atlanta in 1967 to become Music Director and Conductor of the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra.
During his twenty-one years in that capacity, the ASO grew from a part-time, part-year regional
ensemble to become a full-time, year-round orchestra, recognized internationally for its excellence.
He led it on tours across the United States, including a 1971 Carnegie Hall debut that became the first
of many ASO appearances in that prestigious space. He took the ASO and its Chorus to Washington in
1977 to perform at the Inaugural Concert for President-elect Jimmy Carter, and he led both ensembles
on an acclaimed concert tour of Europe in 1988.
The 200-voice Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and the smaller ASO Chamber Chorus were his creations. Both
were trained to the perfection he demanded and continue to be an important part of the ASO's musical
programs -- at home in Atlanta on a regular basis and occasionally on tour as well. The excellence of the
ASO Chorus under his direction has been recognized by six Grammy awards for Best Choral performacne and by
The Georgia Governor's Award in the Arts.
Retirement as the ASO's Music Director in 1988 did not bring any lessening of Mr. Shaw's musical
activities. As he cut back on his ASO conducting appearances, he was freed to accept more guest
engagements and to focus on realizing a cherished dream, the Robert Shaw Choral Institute. Concentrating,
for the first time in 21 years, on choral literature without orchestral accompaniment, he conducted a
landmark series of summer festivals in the south of France (and more recently in Greenville, South
Carolina) and made a number of recordings with his Robert Shaw Festival Singers. In Atlanta his
Robert Shaw Chamber Singers gave an acclaimed series of concerts at Spivey Hall and also made recordings.
Mr. Shaw's annual Robert Shaw Choral Workshops drew choral directors and singers from across the
nation for week-long sessions of preparation and study, culminating in performances received with
both acclaim and affection. His many other Carnegie Hall concerts included a performance of Handel's
Messiah on the 250th anniversary of the work's premier and, on his own 80th birthday,
performances of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chrous and other choral groups.
W. Thomas Marrocco -- 1909-1999
W. Thomas Marrocco, musicologist and violinist, died in Eugene, Oregon in 1 January 1999. He was 89.
Marrocco was known to many teachers of American music for his publications Music in America, An
Anthology (Norton, 1964) with H. Gleason, and Music in the United States (Wm. C. Brown,
1968) with Arthur C. Edwards. Marrocco earned a bachelor's degree at the Eastman School, a master's
degree at the University of Kansas, and Ph.D. at UCLA. While a professor of music at UCLA, he performed
with the Roth String Quartet, wrote fifteen books and numerous articles, mainly in the area of
Renaissance music, but also in American music.
Updated 06/15/99