Remembering Joe Kerman

His just-published Contemplating Music was one of the reasons I chose Berkeley for graduate school in 1985, and I was awed and a little cowed to have him lead the “musicology boot camp” course for entering Master's students. Later, as I was preparing for my comprehensive exams, he helped lead me through a focused independent study on Schubert, whom I had chosen as the "outside focus" for the comps, and I learned to love and understand that repertory much more deeply thanks to his guidance. At my doctoral graduationhe made a point of running up to his office for his regalia so that we could have a good “photo-op”; and ever since then he was always kind, gracious, generous in our interactions. He lived a long life, and shaped our discipline in so many important ways. May his memory always be for a blessing.

A giant. I count myself lucky to have studied with him (I even TA'd for his Beethoven class). One of his best, and simplest, teaching strategies was to have those of us in his Renaissance proseminar sing and play through whole volumes of the complete edition of Clemens non Papa, as a way of acquiring a trained ear for the period's style, and also in order to actually make use of one of the many Gesamtausgaben piling up on the library shelves.

When I first started in musicology more years ago than I will admit, one of my teachers stated that his mentor thought some of Kerman's language a "bit too vernacular." I disagreed then and I disagree now. Who among us will ever forget the line, directed at Puccini's Tosca:“that shabby little shocker” ? In my dissertation, I quoted one of my favorite Kerman passages, from an article of his from 1980, “How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get Out.” Lamenting back then that “expression in music” seldom plays a role in musicological discussion, Kerman concluded that when anyone states such is “beyond the confines” of their study “one hears the sound of windows closing.” Just these seven words made a profound impression on me. They still do. Kerman opened many windows and doors. I daresay he will continue to inspire that in we who remain.

He not only was a great scholar, he actually loved music.

I had looked forward to sending Joe Kerman greetings and perhaps a bottle on his 90th birthday next month! He was my principal mentor at Berkeley and was enormously kind and helpful to me. One example, I had been a history and social sciences major in college and had a relatively weak background in music other than piano playing (not that I was strong in that either). Joe spontaneously volunteered to meet with me one-on-one every week to talk about, well, thinking and talking about music (mainly about Beethoven quartets—he was working on the book then).

Kerman was a brilliant man who, though a musicologist, was able to write like a human being.

Joe Kerman died just a few weeks shy of his 90th birthday (he was born in the same year as my own father). To take “Introduction to Musicology” from this man was a life-changing experience. I will never forget his generosity in seminars and in the two independent studies I was fortunate enough to be able to take with him (on Sibelius and on Berlioz). His death leaves a massive void in the hearts of his former students, and really the entire profession.