John W. Hill

Professor Emeritus of Musicology

A.B., University of Chicago; M.A. and Ph.D., Harvard University

A specialist in the music of the Baroque and Classical periods, John Walter Hill’s research has taken him to Italy for several extended periods. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, American Philosophical Society, American Fulbright Commission, University of Illinois, and IBM Corporation. He was editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Musicological Society, 1984-86.

His articles on Baroque monody, the early oratorio, 18th-century opera seria, post-Baroque style, court musical spectacle and pageantry, early violin ensembles and repertoire, and the history of music theory have been printed, reprinted, and translated in important journals, congress reports, collections, and anthologies in Europe and the United States. He is the author of The Life and Works of Francesco Maria Veracini and Vivaldi's Ottone in Villa: A Study in Musical Drama. His book Roman Monody, Cantata, and Opera from the Circles around Cardinal Montalto was published by the Oxford University Press in 1997.

Professor Hill's book Baroque Music and the accompanying Anthology of Baroque Music was published in 2005 by W. W. Norton. This book completes the series called A Norton Introduction to Music History, and it is intended to replace Bukofzer's classic treatment of the subject (published by Norton in 1947) as the standard account of the period. Biographical articles about Professor Hill are published in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., and in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (MGG), 2nd ed."

Learning is the goal of teaching.  The most powerful engines for learning are the student’s time and effort. Teaching can provide inspiration, direction, structure, information, materials, and correction. But it cannot provide or substitute for the student’s time and effort. This may be more obvious in the studio teaching of musical performance, but it is equally true of classroom subjects. In the classroom, I always combine verbal, visual, and musical presentation. What I present in class is always reinforced by the assigned readings, printed scores, and recorded performances, which are provided to the students in convenient form — specially produced course packets, inexpensive publications, and on-line audio reserves. I make it plain that I want every student to succeed. The fundamental object of my particular field of teaching — music history — is the kind of musical understanding that forms the true foundation of artistic performance, original composition, and creative scholarship.