The Indiana University School of Music: A History (review)

The Indiana University School of Music: A History. By George M. Logan. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. [xvii, 360 p. ISBN 0-253-33820-4. $29.95.]

In 1994-95, George M. Logan, professor of English, scholar of Renaissance literature, and former head of the Department of English at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, spent a year as a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study at Indiana University. One of the factors influencing his choice of Bloomington for his sabbatical was the presence of the Indiana University School of Music, well-known as one of the largest and most comprehensive institutions offering conservatory training within a university setting. He imagined spending evenings and weekends listening to classical music and was delighted to find his expectations for available performances surpassed in terms of both quality and quantity. After many evenings spent in Recital Hall, he became intrigued by the question of how a music school of such stature could have emerged "at a state university in a provincial town, amid the cornfields of southern Indiana" (p. 5). When a library search revealed no existing comprehensive history of the institution, Logan, with the support of key members of the school and the university, decided to pursue the question himself. The Indiana University School of Music: A History is a readable, well-researched narrative portraying the growth of music instruction from the time of the establishment of Indiana University in 1824 through the administrations of Deans Barzille Winfred Merrill (1921- 38), Robert L. Sanders (1938-47), Wilfred Bain (1947-73), Charles Webb (1973-97), and David Woods (1997-99).

Logan sets the stage for his story in a "Prelude" that presents a snapshot view of the school in all its glory during the dedication of the Bess Meshulam Simon Music Library and Recital Center in November 1995. As he describes the impressive facilities and the multiple performances by students and guest celebrities, many of whom were also graduates of the school, he evokes an atmosphere of opulence and grandeur that accurately characterizes the institution's current image and provides a stark contrast to its modest beginnings.

In the first chapter, anecdotes and photographs from a variety of archival sources successfully depict the woeful state of music—and life in general—at Indiana University in the early days. In one example, Professor Ebenezer Elliott is quoted as reporting that the orchestra for the 1833 Commencement "was composed of two flutes, one of them cracked" (p. 6). The first music building, Mitchell Hall, was a simple wooden structure built in 1885, already in poor condition when it became available to music in 1906. On the other hand, portents of the future were already visible during the administration of William Lowe Bryan, who became president of the university in 1902. Among other priorities, he sought to increase university enrollment and to establish professional schools, including a school of music. Bryan encountered difficulties in recruiting a suitable musician to lead the new school but, in 1910, compromised by appointing Charles Diven Campbell, an associate professor of German and amateur musician, as temporary head of the Department of Music. Campbell, an advocate of both academic and applied music, made several contributions to the advancement of music among the humanities at the university. In 1916, a performance of his "Pageant of Bloomington and Indiana University" brought music at Indiana to the attention of the national press and in 1918, he was able to hire three performers—a violinist, a cellist, and a pianist—as members of the faculty. Several recurring themes that appear throughout the evolution of the school are already evident in these early events: the importance of the concept of a professional school or conservatory within a university; a focus on continually increasing enrollment; hiring professional performers as professors; public performance as a means of attracting positive attention for the institution; a pattern of moving ahead with or without adequate resources; and the continuing need for better...