Utrecht: Class of '52 
Denis Stevens 

Almost every musicologist recognizes the importance of 
conventions-even those of the less conventional kind sponsored 
by the International Musicological Society. Savoring more of 
the master class than the slave market, these meetings (now, alas, 
five years apart instead of three) bring together scholars and 
students from dozens of different nations, so that the general 
impression tends to be one of colorful eclecticism and exotic 
charm. The first meeting to take place after World War II was 
at Basel, but I found it impossible to attend since I was otherwise 
engaged. Engaged to be married, in fact; and I had been 
gently reminded that the doctrine of sponsus amat sponsam would 
naturally exclude the possibility of a musicological honeymoon. 

I waited patiently for the next meeting-Utrecht, 1952. 
Increasing travel commitments to Europe, for musical and 
musicological purposes, had begun to make my existence 
resemble that vie trifurquee of which Liszt so often complained. 
My original plan was to attend the congress, and then go on to 
Zurich where an orchestra was waiting for me to record some 
music by Telemann. When I arrived in Zurich, however, limp 
from a surfeit of Dutch cuisine and international musicology, the 
news came through that the place for the actual recording had 
been changed to Hilversum, so back we went to Holland-my 
wife having traveled separately by the Rheinpfeil since she was 
unable to find time for the congress. 

The kindly and hospitable Dutch sensibly did very little to 
change the relaxed, sleepy atmosphere of the old university town 
of Utrecht, which seemed to absorb without too much effort the 

( 

sudden inundation of what Doc Davison used to call "schafters" 
intent on what EdwardJ. Dent used to call "vidge."l They were 
a splendid crowd, young and old, male and female, professors 
and students; and needless to say there was an especially large 
contingent from Germany. I had long looked forward to meeting 
some of the luminaries of that very musicological nation, and 
recall even now the conversations I had with Rudolf von Ficker; 
some of whose imaginative practical editions of medieval music 
I had produced for the BBG Third Programme. 

Prominent among the seniores were Jeppesen, Smijers, and 

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Angles, all legendary names then as now; and although I had 
already met Van den Borren in Brussels and the Countess de 
Chambure in Paris, it was heart-warming to see them once again 
in the midst of long-lost friends and colleagues. Many of these 
came from America, and their remarkable contributions to 
scholarship were among the most talked-of subjects in the 
unofficial gatherings without which no convention would be 
really worth attending. Dapper and delightful, Dragan Plamenac 
spoke about his Faenza discoveries, while two centuries back the 
formidable Manfred Bukofzer linked together the twin pheno-
mena of conductus and clausula with all the skill of a born 
scientist. It was an inspiration to me, this opportunity to speak 
with scholars whom I had known imperfectly only through their 
published work, but I was also slightly scared when Bukofzer 
asked me to be his slide-operator. To project something the 
wrong way up or left-to-right during a lecture by this terrifyingly 
efficient figure would have been disastrous, but fortunately 
everything went well. 

When the Countess de Chambure lectured on the Chansonnier 
Nivelle de la Chaussee, producing the original manuscript from 
her capacious handbag at a climactic point in the address,. 
excitement knew no bounds, for we recognized this as a gracious 
musicological gesture rather than (as it could have been, in 
lesser hands) a staged gambit pour epater les bourgeois. Not every-
thing succeeded in so rooting our attention. One paper appeared 
to consist of little more than a recitation of obvious errors in a 
Medieval manuscript, the occasion being made all the more 
uncomfortable by the chairman's failure to stop this chronic 
logorrhoea, even when its time of expiration had long passed. 
Another paper, delivered in heavily-measured, polysyllabic 
pseudo-English of a type now familiar from doctoral dissertations, 
left little more than an abstract impression in spite of the fact 
that the author-reader clearly thought of himself as some latter-
day Moses propounding musicological law. 

As the bemused and bewildered audience left the hall, a tall, 
well-dressed gentleman across the 'aisle, speaking in a stage-
whisper of no mean dynamic range, languidly summed up his 
own feelings: "Well, fellers, don't blame us!" Paul Henry Lang 
was referring to the American contingent, and his cautionary 
words were then, as so often later, both necessary and accurate. I 
found myself agreeing with him, in subsequent conversations, 

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that clarity of thought .and elegance of style were virtues fre-
quently lacking in musicological matter; and that sheer weight of 
learning and bulk of research needed to call on those virtues for 
support and sustenance, rather than reject them out of hand. 
Lang's manner was relaxed, casual, yet dignified. He seemed 
to have many friends, and one or two enemies. But he was 
obviously no harborer of grievances or resentments, for whenever 
somebody tried to cut him, he would wheel round, clap them on 
the back, and greet them with an affable "Hi!" so that they 
would be bound to make at least a cringing acknowledgment. 

I was much amused, and not a little impressed, by this kind of 
diplomacy; yet it hardly prepared me for what followed in the 
business meeting a day or so later. The council of the society was 
one of those self-perpetuating, self-ossifying bodies which, with 
an unbelievable lack of tact, conducted its entire business in the 
German language. Objections were made from the floor by the 
more vociferous of the French, English, and American contin-
gents, but these had little effect since the Teutonically inclined 
Oherappellationsgerichtmitglieder apparently understood no English. 
As in similar confrontations (as they are now fashionably called) 
the tension rose because neither side understood what the other 
was talking about. At this point Lang, who was known to most of 
us through his sinewy editorials in The Musical Quarter(y, stood up 
and gave them a long harangue in German, a lead which 
inspired Bukofzer to do the same thing, only at greater length, 
the result of which was the removal of the entire council and the 
voting in of a new one. 

And that is how the )nternational Musicological Society 
became truly international. 

NOTE 

1 "Schafters" is apparently derived from Musikwissenschafter; "vidge" seems to be 
a corruption of some ancient payment in pennies, such as "Item, to Mr Robert for 
ye tunynge of ye organys ..... vijd" -thus, any kind of dusty documentary research. 

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