Tunley, David 1930- (David Evatt Tunley)

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Tunley, David 1930- (David Evatt Tunley)

PERSONAL:

Born May 30, 1930, in Australia. Education: New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music, diploma, 1950; Trinity College, London, diploma, 1950; University of Durham, B.Mus., 1958, M.Mus., 1963.

ADDRESSES:

Office—School of Music, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy., Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia.

CAREER:

Writer, editor, musicologist, musician, educator, and composer. University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia, lecturer in music, 1958-79, professor of music, 1979-1994, professor emeritus and honorary senior research fellow in music, 1994—, personal chair, 1980, chair of music, 1989-94; Music Board of the Australia Council, chair, 1984-85; Australian Music Examinations Board, national chair, 1991-94. Former research fellow at Christ Church College and Wolfson College, Oxford, England, and the Rockefeller Study Center at Bellagio, Italy.

MEMBER:

Musicological Society of Australia (national president, 1980-81).

AWARDS, HONORS:

University of Western Australia, D.Litt., 1970; Australian Academy of the Humanities, fellow, 1980; Chevalier dans l'Order des Palmes Académiques, France, 1983; Order of Australia, 1987.

WRITINGS:

The Eighteenth-Century French Cantata, Dennis Dobson (London, England), 1974, 2nd edition, Clarendon Press (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor, with Frank Callaway) Australian Composition in the Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1978.

Couperin, British Broadcasting Corp. (London, England), 1982, revised and expanded edition published as Francois Couperin and "The Perfection of Music," Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2004.

(Editor) Music and Dance: Papers from the Fourth National Symposium of the Musicological Society of Australia, Held in Perth, August 1980: Together with a Cassette Recording of Interviews with Leading Participants, Department of Music (Nedlands, Western Australia, Australia), 1982.

Harmony in Action: A Practical Course in Tonal Harmony, Faber Music (Boston, MA), 1984.

(Editor) Le Bel Age: Ten Romantic French Songs for Medium Voice and Piano, Faber Music (London, England), 1985.

(Editor) Jean-Joseph Mouret, Cantatas, Garland (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor) Jean-Baptiste Stuck, Cantatas, Garland (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor) Nicolas Bernier, Cantatas, Garland (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor) Louis-Nicolas Clerambault, Cantatas, Garland (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor) Louis-Nicolas Clerambault, Andre Cardinal Destouches, and Jean-Philippe Rameau, Cantatas: Separate Cantatas, Garland (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor) Jean-Baptiste Morin and Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, Cantatas, Garland (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor and author of commentaries) Jean-Baptiste Morin, Cantatas, Garland (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor and author of commentaries) Andre Campra, Cantatas, Garland (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor) Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, Cantatas, Garland (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor and author of commentaries) Philippe Courbois and Thomas-Louis Bourgeois, Cantatas, Garland (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor) Louis Le Maire, Nicolas Racot de Grandval, and Laurent Gervais, Cantatas and Cantatilles, Garland (New York, NY), 1991.

(Editor, translator, and author of commentaries) Romantic French Song, 1830-1870, Garland (New York, NY), 1994.

The Bel Canto Violin: The Life and Times of Alfredo Campoli, 1906-1991, Ashgate (Brookfield, VT), 1999.

Salons, Singers, and Songs: A Background to Romantic French Song, 1830-1870, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2002.

Francois Couperin and "The Perfection of Music," Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2004.

William James and the Beginnings of Modern Musical Australia, Australian Music Centre (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Australian writer and editor David Tunley is a musician, musicologist, and composer. A scholar and educator, Tunley had an almost four-decade career in music education at the University of Western Australia, serving as lecturer, as professor of music, and currently as professor emeritus and honorary senior research fellow in music. As an academic, Tunley writes about topics such as French music in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries; twentieth-century British and Australian music; and the theory and practice of music education. Tunley "is internationally recognized as the leading authority on the 18th-century French cantata, and his book on the subject has become the classic study," noted a biographer on the University of Western Australia School of Music Web site.

Once the student of noted French music teacher Nadia Boulanger, Tunley has been instrumental in establishing numerous community musical events. He founded the York Winter Music Festival, which enjoyed a ten-year run, and the Terrace Proms. Tunley also served as the founding conductor of the University Collegium Musicum.

Tunley has received numerous prestigious awards and recognition for his music scholarship. In 1983, he was made a Chevalier dans l'Order des Palmes Académiques by the government of France, in recognition of his services to French music. Similarly, the government of Australia made him a member of the Order of Australia for his services to music in his native country. In addition, the Australian Academy of the Humanities elected him a fellow in 1980. Tunley took an early retirement from academia in 1994, and has continued to devote himself to research in musicology and music history.

In Salons, Singers, and Songs: A Background to Romantic French Song, 1830-1870, Tunley "offers welcome illumination of a hazily known age," providing "essential historical, social, and aesthetic context for understanding that elegant and musically enthusiastic period," commented James William Sobaskie in Notes. Divided into nine chapters, the book includes material on the nature of Paris and its connection to music and performance in the 1830s. Tunley discusses the characteristics of French music salons, the types of music performed in them, and the audiences that they attracted. He carefully examines the Romantic style of music that was popular in the period under study, with detailed exploration of its numerous subtypes. He discusses the influence of numerous authors, musicians, and composers of the time, including Victor Hugo and Franz Schubert. The book "enhances our understanding of a vital milieu and its vocal music," Sobaskie remarked. "David Tunley deserves thanks for his advocacy of this overlooked domain, and Ashgate earns accolades for championing French music."

Francois Couperin and "The Perfection of Music" is a broad survey of the music of French composer Couperin, and an examination of the cultural and political era in which he lived. Tunley begins with a detailed biography of Couperin, "richly contextualized by his family dynasty, cultural life in Paris, and political and cultural developments at the French royal court," commented Lois Rosow in a Notes review. He considers Couperin's "response to the new Italian sounds that flooded French music around the turn of the eighteenth century," and the characteristics of French and Italian national styles, Rosow stated. He discusses sacred music as it was performed in France, with information on the construction of French organs and on French liturgical practices. Tunley also examines French chamber music and harpsichord music. "Throughout these chapters on Couperin's music, Tunley is concerned with cultural contexts and transmission as well as stylistic development," Rosow concluded. "While he does not provide sustained analysis of individual pieces, he does give frequent brief music examples to support well-chosen stylistic observations. The tone is engaging, and he introduces sophisticated ideas with a light touch."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Callaway, Frank, Essays in Honour of David Evatt Tunley, Callaway International Resource Centre for Music Education (Nedlands, Western Australia, Australia), 1995.

PERIODICALS

American Record Guide, November 1, 1983, review of Couperin, p. 69.

Choice, October, 2002, M.S. Roy, review of Salons, Singers, and Songs: A Background to Romantic French Song, 1830-1870, p. 290; February, 2005, J. Rubin, review of Francois Couperin and "The Perfection of Music," p. 1032.

Early Music, August 1, 2005, "Couperin in Context," review of Francois Couperin and "The Perfection of Music."

Musical Times, autumn, 2001, review of Salons, Singers, and Songs, p. 18.

Music & Letters, January, 2006, Greer Garden, review of Francois Couperin and "The Perfection of Music," p. 104.

Nineteenth-Century Music Review, July, 2004, Philip Young, review of Salons, Singers, and Songs, p. 118.

Notes, June, 1993, Bruce Gustafson, review of The Eighteenth-Century French Cantata, p. 1623; March, 1997, Donna M. Di Grazia, review of Romantic French Song, 1830-1870, p. 985; June, 2003, James William Sobaskie, review of Salons, Singers, and Songs, p. 909; March, 2006, Lois Rosow, review of Francois Couperin and "The Perfection of Music," p. 711.

Reference & Research Book News, September, 1995, review of Romantic French Song, 1830-1870, p. 45; May, 2000, review of The Bel Canto Violin: The Life and Times of Alfredo Campoli, 1906-1991, p. 126; August, 2002, review of Salons, Singers, and Songs, p. 170; November, 2004, review of Francois Couperin and "The Perfection of Music," p. 195.