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A Tribute to Gerard Béhague
- Latin American Music Review
- University of Texas Press
- Volume 26, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2005
- pp. 143-157
- 10.1353/lat.2006.0011
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Latin American Music Review 26.2 (2005) 143-157
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A Tribute to Gerard Béhague
John M. Schechter
Click for larger view | Figure 1 Gerard Béhague |
Gerard Béhague
(2 November 1937–13 June 2005)
Latin American Music Review
Executive Editor, Teacher, and Scholar
I mourn the passing of my teacher, Gerard Béhague, just now on June 13. He was a guiding force in my life for thirty years, from 1974 to 2005, the year of his untimely departure.
This tribute will address Professor Béhague's extraordinary contributions as teacher and scholar. Word limitations will not permit me to address his enormous achievements as editor (Latin American Music Review; Ethnomusicology; "Music" section of the Handbook of Latin American Studies), prolific book reviewer, and collaborator (within the Society for Ethnomusicology, and elsewhere). [End Page 143]
If one seeks to encapsulate the essence of Dr. Béhague's scholarly contribution, it might well be that he established the examination of the art musics and traditional musics of Latin America as a legitimate endeavor of musicology and ethnomusicology. Equally powerful, though, was his pedagogical legacy: through his teaching of dozens of graduate students, he inspired them to delve deeply into musics that had often, theretofore, been unknown, marginalized, or disparaged. The insistence upon the legitimacy of these musics must be counted as one of Dr. Béhague's signal accomplishments. Finally, and most fundamentally, the breadth of Gerard Béhague's knowledge of the broad sweep of Latin American musics, musical traditions, composers, and repertoire was enormous—astounding and most likely without par, by any conceivable standard of measurement.
Teacher
"Dear Mr. Schechter:
Your letter to Professor Gerard Béhague was forwarded to me since he has, unfortunately, left the University of Illinois. . . ."
Professor of Music and Anthropology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
30 July 1974
"Mr. Gerard Béhague
Dear Sir:
This letter is to express an interest in ethnomusicology and to ask some questions relative to studying ethnomusicology at The University of Texas . . . I am particularly interested in the music of Andean South America. I would appreciate your describing the orientation and objectives of the Ethnomusicology Department at The University of Texas. . . ."
11 October 1974
"Dear Mr. Schechter:
Many thanks for your letter of 11 October 1974 expressing interest in doctoral study in ethnomusicology at the University of Teas. I am quite interested in your educational background and your [Peace Corps Volunteer] experience in Colombia. Since this is my first year at the University of [End Page 144] Texas I can only give at this time impressions and hopes concerning the development of a program in ethnomusicology. As you may know, this campus has a very strong program in Latin American Studies and I was brought here to develop a musicological program dealing with Latin America. Library resources on Latin America are certainly the very best I have ever seen . . . I personally belong to the group of ethnomusicologists that believes that an ethnomusicologist should be a musician first and a social scientist second. My plan of action for developing doctoral studies in ethnomusicology is fairly straightforward: 1. admitting doctoral students with a good music and musicological background, if possible with some cultural experience in the area of the student's interest; 2. providing a sound training in the theory and the methods of the discipline as well as in cultural and social anthropology of the area of interest; and 3. make it possible for the student to carry on field work for at least a year. Whether all this will be possible at the University of Texas in the immediate future remains to be seen. . . ."
17 October 1974
The years 1975 to 1982, when I was a doctoral student at the University...
