McCorkle, Donald M(acomber) Page 1 of 1

McCorkle, Donald M(acomber)

(b Cleveland, 20 Feb 1929; d Vancouver, 6 Feb 1978). American musicologist.
He attended Brown University and Bradley University, where he took the BMus
in 1951. At Indiana University he worked with Willi Apel and Paul Nettl, and
took the MA (1953) and the PhD (1958), with a dissertation on Moravian music
in Salem. From 1954 to 1964 he taught at Salem College, Winston-Salem,
North Carolina. He was also director of the Moravian Music Foundation in
Winston-Salem from 1956 to 1964, when he joined the University of Maryland
as professor of musicology. He was professor and head of the department of
music at the University of British Columbia, 1972–5, and professor of
musicology from 1972.
McCorkle was interested in 18th- and 19th-century historical musicology. He
studied and edited the music of the colonial German tradition in the USA,
particularly the musical culture of the Moravian settlers of North Carolina. In
1964 he began work on a thematic catalogue of Brahms's works and a
descriptive catalogue of the autographs. The catalogue was completed by his
wife, Margit, as Johannes Brahms: thematisch-bibliographisches
Werkverzeichnis (Munich, 1984). He was editor of College Music Symposium
in 1961–2 and 1970.
WRITINGS
‘Musical Instruments of the Moravians in North Carolina’, American-German
Review, xxi/3 (1954–5), 12–17
‘John Antes, “American Dilettante”’, MQ, xlii (1956), 486–99
‘The Collegium Musicum Salem: its Music, Musicians, and Importance’, North
Carolina Historical Review, xxxiii (1956), 483–98
‘The Moravian Contribution to American Music’, Notes, xiii (1955–6), 597–606
Moravian Music in Salem: a German-American Heritage (diss., Indiana U.,
1958)
‘Finding a Place for American Studies in American Musicology’, JAMS, xix
(1966), 73–84
‘Music in an Age of Rhetoric and Relevance’, College Music Symposium, x
(1970), 13–17
Introduction to The N. Simrock Thematic Catalog of the Works of Johannes
Brahms [1897] (R with addenda and corrigenda, New York, 1973)
‘Five Fundamental Obstacles in Brahms Source Research’, AcM, xlviii (1976),
253–72
EDITIONS
John Antes: Three Trios, for 2 Violins and Violoncello, op.3 (New York, 1961)
Johannes Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Haydn (New York, 1976)
Peter von Winter: Three Symphonic Works (New York, 1982)
PAULA MORGAN

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