Elliot Forbes

• 1. Introduction

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  Elliot Forbes, known to those around him as "El", was an American conductor and musicologist who lived from the 20th of August 1917 to the 9th of January 2006. Late in life, he made a habit of turning up at undergraduate performances. Often he was the only faculty member in the audience. That small, steady loyalty says as much about him as his scholarship does. He came from a prominent Boston family, studied music at Harvard and spent most of his working life there. He also became a respected authority on Beethoven. How did a conductor with such a pedigree end up devoted to the lesser-known corners of Beethoven's choral music? And what did he build around Harvard's singers?

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• 2. Roots and Training

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  Forbes belonged to a Boston Brahmin family, one of the old, established households of that city. His father, Edward Forbes, directed Harvard's Fogg Art Museum. His mother was Margaret Laighton. Art and Harvard were therefore part of his surroundings from the start. Forbes himself chose music. He attended Harvard University and earned a BA in music in 1941. He returned for an MA, also in music, in 1947. His teacher was Walter Piston. As a graduate student, Forbes also served as assistant conductor of the Harvard Glee Club, a first taste of the podium that would shape his career. The year he finished his master's degree, he left Cambridge for another university.

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• 3. The Glee Club Years

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  From 1947 to 1958, Forbes taught at Princeton University. Then, in 1958, he went back to Harvard and stayed for the rest of his life. There he held the title of Fanny Peabody Professor of Music. After 1984, he became Professor Emeritus. The same year he returned, he took over as chief conductor of the Harvard Glee Club and the Radcliffe Choral Society. He kept both posts until 1970. In 1967, he led the two groups on a tour around the world. Two of his students went on to prominent careers. Isaiah Jackson became director of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston. William Christie founded and directs Les Arts Florissants, a European baroque ensemble. Forbes's podium work was only half of his reputation, because his research was tied to one composer.

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• 4. Beethoven Scholar

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  In 1957, Forbes published an essay on a neglected piece, Beethoven's Funeral Cantata. It appeared in Essays on Music in Honor of Archibald Thompson Davison, printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Choral music stayed at the center of his scholarship on Beethoven. In 1964, he edited Thayer's Life of Beethoven, with a second printing following in 1967. One assessment called the edition "a substantial contribution to Beethoven scholarship". An entire issue of the American Choral Review in 1968-69 carried his work on The Choral Music of Beethoven. A piece titled Beethoven as a Choral Composer followed in 1970-71. In 1982, he returned to the subject with Beethoven's Choral Music: a Reappraisal. Forbes also turned his attention to his own university, writing two notable volumes of A History of Music at Harvard, published from 1988 to 1993. He edited the Harvard-Radcliffe Choral Music Series as well.

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• 5. Boards, Honors and Family

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  At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a piano is dedicated in Forbes's honor. He sat on that museum's board. He also served on the boards of the New England Conservatory and the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra. Harvard gave him its Alumni Medal in 1991 and an honorary doctorate in 2003. Away from the podium, Forbes married Kathleen Brooks Allen. Their family connects to a very different corner of music. His grandson is Ed Droste, a musician with the band Grizzly Bear.

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