People | Faculty | Thomas Christensen

Thomas Christensen

Appointments:

Professor of Music and the Humanities in the College; Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division

Education:

Ph.D., Yale University, 1985

Contact:

Office: Goodspeed Hall 308
Phone: (773) 702-8030
Email: tchriste@uchicago.edu
Website:

Thomas Christensen’s scholarly research centers on the history of music theory. Fundamental to his work has been a desire to situate the many intellectual frames, arguments and linguistic models used by writers in the early modern period deeply within cultural discourses. Hence, as one example, Christensen’s 1993 monograph on Jean-Philippe Rameau attempted to analyze his music theory as a complex response to both the empirical as well as synthetic values of Enlightenment science. Some of his more recent work on the writings of the 17th-century savant, Marin Mersenne or the 19th-century Belgian scholar Joseph Fetis, have likewise sought to analyze their enigmatic writings in the light of coterminous intellectual currents and social frames. But Thomas Christensen’s research is not solely focused on individual theorists. He has also attempted more synthetic surveys of problems in music theory, particularly as editor of the Cambridge History of Western Music Theory (published in 2003). His work has received support and recognition over the years from a variety of academic associations and funding agencies. In turn, Christensen has been an active citizen in the broader intellectual community of music scholars, with a particular interest in fostering collaborative ties with German and French colleagues in music.

Recent Courses Taught

  • Stravinsky. Spring, 2008.
  • Schenkerian Analysis. Winter 2008.
  • Sonata Theory. Spring 2007.
  • Music and Science in the Early Modern Period. Spring 2006.
  • History of Medieval Music Theory. Winter 2006.

Selected Publictions

  • “The Sound World of Father Mersenne,” Sound and Sensibility in the 17th Century, ed. Susan McClary (Garland Press, forthcoming).
  • “Harmonia Temporis: Seth Calvisius und Chronologie,” in Sethus Calvisius, Kongress Bericht, ed. Gesine Schroeder.  (Olms Verlag, forthcoming).
  • Cambridge History of Western Music Theory (general editor). Cambridge University Press, 2002 (Second, Paperback Edition, 2005). 
  • Aesthetics and the Art of Musical Composition in the German Enlightenment: Selected Writings of Johann Georg Sulzer and Heinrich Koch (co-authored and translated with Nancy Baker) Cambridge University Press, 1995 (Second Paperback Edition, 2007)
  • Rameau and Musical Thought in the Enlightenment.  Cambridge University Press, 1993 (Second Paperback Edition, 2004).
  • Handwörter Buch der musikalischen Terminologie,  „Fundamentum, fundamental, basse fondamentale“ (Mainz, 2005)
  • “Bemetzrieder’s Dream: Diderot and the Pathology of Tonal Sensibility in the Lecons de clavecin,” in Music, Sensation and Sensuality, ed. Linda Austern (New York: Garland Press, 2001), 39-56.
  • "Public Music in Private Spaces: Piano-Vocal Scores and the Domestication of Opera,” in Music and the Cultures of Print," ed. Kate van Orden (New York: Garland Press, 2000), 67-93.
  • "Four-Hand Piano Transcriptions and Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Musical Reception." Journal  of the American Musicological Society 52/2 (1999), 255-98.
  • "Bach Among the Theorists," Bach Perspectives 3 (1998), 23-46.