Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nketia, J(oseph) H(anson) Kwabena

(b Mampong, 22 June 1921). Ghanaian ethnomusicologist. He was educated at the Presbyterian Training College in Akropong (1937–41) and later studied linguistics and social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (1944–6). He gained music degrees from Trinity College of Music and Birkbeck College, London (BA 1949). He was a lecturer at the Presbyterian Training College in Akropong (1942–4, 1949–52), director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon (1965–80), professor of music at UCLA (1968–83) and Andrew Mellon Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh (1983–91). Since 1993 he has been director of the International Centre for African Music and Dance.

Nketia’s earliest writings focussed on the traditions of his own society, the Akan. Although he also composed, it was his scholarly work that attracted attention in Europe and America. In his first major project, Funeral Dirges of the Akan People (1955), he developed an interdisciplinary methodology. During the 1960s and 70s, his writings provided an important insight into research on Africa and the diaspora. In the 1980s, he began to investigate the practical issues of music and musical life and paid increasing attention to theoretical and methodological issues.

WRITINGS

Akanfoɔ Anansesɛm [Akan folktales] (London, 1949)

AkanfoɔNnwom Bi [Collection of traditional Akan songs] (London, 1949)

Funeral Dirges of the Akan People (Legon, 1955/R)

‘The Problem of Meaning in African Music’, EthM, vi (1962), 1–7

African Music in Ghana: a Survey of Traditional Forms (Evanston, IL, 1963)

Drumming in Akan Communities of Ghana (Edinburgh, 1963)

Folk Songs of Ghana (London, 1963/R)

The Music of Africa (New York, 1974)

‘Tradition and Innovation in African Music’, Jamaica Journal, no.9 (1978), 2–9

‘African Roots of Music in the Americas’, Jamaica Journal, no.43 (1979), 12–17

‘The Juncture of the Social and the Musical: the Methodology of Cultural Analysis’, World of Music, xxiii/2 (1981), 22–39

‘The Aesthetic Dimension in Ethnomusicological Studies’, World of Music, xxvi/1 (1984), 3–28

‘Universal Perspectives in Ethnomusicology’, World of Music, xxvi/2 (1984), 3–24

‘Integrating Objectivity and Experience in Ethnomusicological Studies’, World of Music, xxvii/3 (1985), 3–22

‘Contextual Strategies of Inquiry and Systemization’, EthM, xxx (1990), 75–97

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J.C. DjeDje and W.G. Carter, eds.: African Musicology: Current Trends: a Festschrift Presented to J.H. Kwabena Nketia (Los Angeles, 1989–92) [incl. list of writings]

JACQUELINE COGDELL DJEDJE

Nō.

Japanese theatrical form. See Japan, §VI, 1.

Noack, Fritz

(b Greifswald, Germany, 25 Sept 1935). American organ builder of German origin. He was apprenticed to Rudolph von Beckerath (1954–8) and worked later as a journeyman with Klaus Becker and Ahrend & Brunzema. He emigrated to the USA in 1959, working first for the Estey Organ Co., then for Charles Fisk, and opening his own workshop in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1960. He then moved to Andover, Massachusetts, and in 1970 the Noack Organ Co. Inc. established its base in Georgetown, Massachusetts. Noack’s work has been almost exclusively with mechanical-action organs, and although his background is German, he has also assimilated aspects of the American tradition. Influenced initially by Bauhaus ideas, his case designs tend to be simple, balanced, and musically functional in accordance with the Werkprinzip. His more important organs include those in Unity Church, St Paul, Minnesota (1965), Brandeis University (1967), Trinity Lutheran Church, Worcester, Massachusetts (1967), the Emma Willard School, Troy, New York (1970), Ardmore Methodist Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina (1978), the Presbyterian Church, Beckley, West Virginia (1979), the Wesley Memorial Methodist Church, Savannah, Georgia (1985), and Christ the King Lutheran Church, Houston, Texas (1995). The last-named was one of the first modern organs to be built in the 18th-century central German style. He has also built positive organs, regals and compact practice organs. In 1983 he completed a substantial restoration of an organ by Hook (1864) at Mechanics Hall, Worcester.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

F. Noack: ‘Designs for Small Organs’, The Diapason, lxii/10 (1970–71), 20–21

G. Bozeman: ‘The Noack Organ Co. of Georgetown, Mass.’, Art of the Organ, i/2 (1971), 19–32

U. Pape: The Tracker Organ Revival in America (Berlin, 1978)

C. Cramer: ‘An Interview with Fritz Noack’, American Organist, xxi/8 (1987), 40–45

L. Edwards, ed.: The Historical Organ in America (Easthampton, MA, 1992)

BARBARA OWEN

Noailles Chansonnier

(F-Pn fr.12615).

See Sources, MS, §III, 4.

Nobat.

Court ensemble of Malaysia and Indonesia. See Malaysia, §I, 1(ii) and Naqqārakhāna.

Nobel, Felix de.

See De Nobel, Felix.

Nobility Opera.

The name sometimes given to the London opera company active, in rivalry to Handel’s company, from 1733 to 1737, initially at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, later at the King’s Theatre. See London, §IV, 3.

Nobilmente

(It.: ‘nobly’, ‘majestically’; adverb from nobile: ‘noble’).

A direction used both as a tempo designation and as a mark of expression in the works of Elgar but few other composers. It appears on a sketch (at the Elgar Birthplace) for ‘Nimrod’ in the ‘Enigma’ Variations and on the published score (1899) of Elgar's piano transcription, but not in the orchestral full score published some months later. Its first appearance on one of his printed orchestral scores is in the overture Cockaigne (1901), and he used it often after that. Vaughan Williams used it in his film score for Coastal Command (1942), almost certainly with the Elgarian style in mind. Nobility in music is an ideal that has been favoured only by particular composers at particular times, so the history of this word is otherwise scattered. An early example is in François Couperin, who several times gave the direction noblement sans lenteur (nobly without being slow).

See also Tempo and expression marks.

DAVID FALLOWS, MICHAEL KENNEDY