(b Melrose, NM, 3 July 1916). American musicologist. He studied music at the University of Texas at El Paso (BA 1936), the Juilliard School of Music (graduated 1939), Yale University (MM) and the University of Rochester (PhD in composition 1942); further study took him to Harvard University (STB 1943), Princeton Theological Seminary (ThM 1949) and Oxford University (BLitt 1954). His teachers included Schrade and Westrup (musicology), Hutcheson and Schnabel (piano), and Hanson and Stravinsky (composition). After working as an instructor and assistant professor at the University of Texas (1941–3, 1946) and as a staff member of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey (1946–9), he was appointed professor of musicology at UCLA (1949), from which he retired in the 1990s, after almost half a century of teaching. A number of highly successful American and Latin American scholars were trained by him. He has received numerous grants, awards and recognitions, among them the Gabriela Mistral prize (1985) and the Award of the Lifetime Achievement Citation by the Sonneck Society for American Music (1999).
Stevenson’s chief interest has been Latin American colonial music, in which his work has been outstanding; through archival research in Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, he was the first to discover essential documents for the reconstruction of cathedral music history, and to make known many colonial music manuscripts. He has also contributed substantially to the history of Spanish music and of American church music. His extensive publications reveal an impressive command of bibliographical tools and of the literature. The Music of Peru (1960), Renaissance and Baroque Musical Sources in the Americas (1970) and Foundations of New World Opera (1973) provide new information and understanding for a wealth of Latin American colonial music; Spanish Music in the Age of Columbus (1960) and Spanish Cathedral Music in the Golden Age (1961) give valuable accounts of a much neglected aspect of Renaissance music. In 1978 he founded and became editor of the Inter-American Music Review. Robert Stevenson has been one of the most prolific American musicologists of the 20th century in American, Iberian and Latin American musical studies. Excluding the several hundred dictionary and encyclopedia articles, his output numbers some 30 books, monographs and musical editions and almost 300 articles on Spanish, Portuguese and North and Latin American music, in addition to numerous articles on various topics of West European music.
‘Music in the Cathedral of Mexico in the 16th Century’, Hispanic American Historical Review, xxvi (1946), 293–319
Music in Mexico: a Historical Survey (New York, 1952/R1971)
Patterns of Protestant Church Music (Durham, NC, 1953)
La música en la Catedral de Sevilla 1478–1606 (Los Angeles, 1954, 2/1985)
‘The “Distinguished Maestro” of New Spain: Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla’, Hispanic American Historical Review, xxxv (1955), 363–73
Music before the Classic Era (London, 1955/R1973 with musical appx)
‘Ancient Peruvian Instruments’, GSJ, xii (1959), 17–43
Cathedral Music in Colonial Peru (Lima, 1959)
J.S. Bach, su ambiente y su obra (Lima, 1959)
‘Opera Beginnings in the New World’, MQ, xlv (1959), 8–25
‘Early Peruvian Folk Music’, Journal of American Folklore, lxxiii (1960), 112–32
Juan Bermudo (The Hague, 1960)
The Music of Peru: Aboriginal and Viceroyal Epochs (Washington DC, 1960)
Spanish Music in the Age of Columbus (The Hague, 1960)
Spanish Cathedral Music in the Golden Age (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961)
‘La música colonial en Colombia’, RMC, nos.81–2 (1962), 153–71; Eng. trans. in The Americas, xix (1962), 121–36
‘Música en Quito’, RMC, nos.81–2 (1962), 172–94; Eng. trans. in Hispanic American Historical Review, xliii (1963), 247–66
‘European Music in 16th-Century Guatemala’, MQ, l (1964), 341–52
‘Mexico City Cathedral Music: 1600–1750’, The Americas, xxi (1964), 111–35; pubd separately (Washington DC, 1964)
‘Estudio biográfico y estilístico de T.L. de Victoria’, RMC, no.95 (1966), 9–25
Protestant Church Music in America: a Short Survey of Men and Movements from 1564 to the Present (New York, 1966, 2/1971)
Portugaliae musica: a Bibliographical Essay (Lima, 1967)
‘The Afro-American Musical Legacy’, MQ, liv (1968), 475–502
‘Chilean Music in the Santa Cruz Epoch’, Inter-American Music Bulletin, no.67 (1968), 1–18
‘Francisco Correa de Arauxo: New Light on his Career’, RMC, no.103 (1968), 7–42
Music in Aztec & Inca Territory (Berkeley and London, 1968, 2/1976)
‘Some Portuguese Sources for Early Brazilian Music History’, YIAMR, iv (1968), 1–43
‘The First New World Composers: Fresh Data from Peninsular Archives’, JAMS, xxiii (1970), 95–106
Music in El Paso (El Paso, 1970)
Philosophies of American Music History (Washington DC, 1970)
Renaissance and Baroque Musical Sources in the Americas (Washington DC, 1970)
‘Josquin in the Music of Spain and Portugal’, Josquin des Prez: New York 1971, 217–46
‘Tribute to José Bernardo Alcedo, 1788–1878’, Inter-American Music Bulletin, no.80 (1971), 1–22
‘America’s First Black Music Historian’, JAMS, xxvi (1973), 383–404
‘English Sources for Indian Music until 1882’, EthM, xvii (1973), 399–442
Foundations of New World Opera (Lima, 1973) [Louis Charles Elson Lecture, Library of Congress, 9 Jan 1969]
‘The Toledo Manuscript Polyphonic Choirbooks and some other Lost or Little Known Flemish Sources’, FAM, xx (1973), 87–107
‘Written Sources for Indian Music until 1882’, EthM, xvii (1973), 1–40
‘Protestant Music in America’, in F. Blume: Protestant Church Music: a History (London, 1974), 637–90 [enlarged Eng. trans. of F. Blume: Die evangelische Kirchenmusik (Potsdam, 1931)]
A Guide to Caribbean Music History (Lima, 1975)
‘American Musical Scholarship: Parker to Thayer’, 19CM, i (1977–8), 191–210
‘Sixteenth- through Eighteenth-Century Resources in Mexico’, FAM, xxv (1978), 156–87
‘Music in the San Juan, Puerto Rico Cathedral to 1900’, Inter-American Music Review, i (1978–9), 73–95
‘Caribbean Music History: a Selective Annotated Bibliography with Musical Supplement’, Inter-American Music Review, iv/1 (1981–2) [whole issue]
‘Hispanic-American Music Treasury, 1580–1765’, Inter-American Music Review, vi/2 (1984–5); vii/1 (1985–6) [whole issues]
Francisco Asenjo Barbieri (Madrid, 1986)
with J.A. Guzman Bravo: La música de México, i/2: Historia: periodo virreinal (1530 a 1810) (Mexico City, 1986)
Numerous articles in Heterofonía, Inter-American Music Review
Christmas Music from Baroque Mexico (Berkeley, 1974)
Seventeenth-Century Villancicos from a Puebla Convent Archive (Lima, 1974) [transcr. with optional added parts from ministriles]
Latin American Colonial Music Anthology (Washington DC, 1975) [with transcrs.]
T. de Torrejón y Velasco: La púrpura de la rosa (Lima, 1976)
Vilancicos portugueses, PM, ser. A, xxix (1976)
with L. Pereira Leal and M. Morais: Antologia de polifonia portuguesa, 1490–1680, PM, ser. A, xxxvii (1982)
S. Claro Valdes: ‘Veinticinco años de labor iberoamericana del doctor Robert Stevenson’, RMC, nos.139–40 (1977), 122–39
L. Merino: ‘Contribución seminal de Robert Stevenson a la musicología histórica del nuevo mundo’, RMC, no.164 (1985), 55–7
GERARD BÉHAGUE