Uccelli [née Pazzini], Carolina Uccellini, Marco

Upton, George Putnam

(b Roxbury, MA, 25 Oct 1834; d Chicago, 19 May 1919). American journalist and writer on music. After taking the AM from Brown University in 1854, he began a long journalistic career in Chicago, where he wrote the city's first music criticism. He served on the Chicago Tribune as music critic (1863–1881) and as senior editor until 1905. After the great fire of 1871, he helped restore the city's concert life by founding a choral society known as the Apollo Club. He was music consultant to the Newberry Library when it assembled its collection (1885–7).

Upton, like so many other New Englanders who dedicated themselves to the cultural development of America's frontier cities, wrote numerous popular books for the education of American audiences. Some of these appeared in Spanish and Braille editions; he also translated several books from German, including Nohl's biographies of composers. A staunch supporter of Theodore Thomas, he was instrumental in the foundation of the Chicago Orchestra. His Musical Memories (1908) chronicles Chicago's early music history.

WRITINGS

Woman in Music (Chicago, 1880, 2/1886/R)

The Standard Operas (Chicago, 1886, enlarged 3/1912/R, rev. 4/1928 by F. Borowski, new edn 1947 as The Standard Opera Guide)

The Standard Oratorios (Chicago, 1887)

The Standard Cantatas (Chicago, 1888/R)

The Standard Symphonies (Chicago, 1889/R)

Musical Pastels (Chicago, 1902)

The Standard Light Operas (Chicago, 1902)

ed.: Theodore Thomas: a Musical Autobiography (Chicago, 1905)

with G. Hack: Edward Remenyi (Chicago, 1906)

Musical Memories: my Recollections of Celebrities of the Half Century, 1850–1900 (Chicago, 1908)

The Standard Concert Guide (Chicago, 1908, 2/1917, rev. 3/1930/R by F. Borowski)

The Standard Concert Repertory (Chicago, 1909, 2/1917)

The Standard Musical Biographies (Chicago, 1910)

The Song: its Birth, Evolution, and Functions (Chicago, 1915)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Biographies of the Leading Men of Chicago (Chicago, 1868), 452

L. Elson: The History of American Music (New York, 2/1915), 327

Obituary, Chicago Tribune (20 May 1919)

J. Mussulman: Music in the Cultured Generation (Evanston, IL, 1971), 77–185 passim

M.A. Feldman: George P. Upton: Journalist, Music Critic and Mentor to Early Chicago (diss., U. of Minnesota, 1983)

MARY ANN FELDMAN

Upton, William Treat

(b Tallmadge, OH, 17 Dec 1870; d Adelphi, MD, 19 Jan 1961). American organist, pianist, teacher and musicologist. He studied music at Oberlin College and Conservatory (BA 1896, MusB 1904, MA 1924) and the piano with Leschetizky in Vienna (1896–8) and Josef Lhévinne in Berlin (1913–14). He taught the piano at Oberlin Conservatory (1894–1936) and served as organist at the Calvary Presbyterian Church, Oberlin (1903–18). His interest in contemporary American art song led to his major and probably most enduring work, the revision and expansion of O.G.T. Sonneck's Bibliography of Early Secular American Music, first published in 1905 and still central to American scholarship. His biographies of A.P. Heinrich and W.H. Fry have not been superseded. In 1945 Oberlin College awarded him an honorary doctorate in music.

WRITINGS

‘The Songs of Charles T. Griffes’, MQ, ix (1923), 314–28

‘Some Recent Representative American Song-Composers’, MQ, xi (1925), 383–417

‘Nature in Song’, The Chesterian, vii (1925–6), 181–92

‘Our Musical Expatriates’, MQ, xiv (1928), 143–54

‘Changing Types of Song in the Last Fifty Years’, The Musician, xxxiv/2 (1929), 13, 36 only

Art-Song in America: a Study in the Development of American Music (New York and Boston, 1930/R; suppl., 1938/R)

‘Frederic Ayres (1876–1926)’, MQ, xviii (1932), 39–59

‘Intellectual Sincerity in Modern Music’, The Chesterian, xv (1933–4), 158–67

‘Aspects of the Modern Art-Song’, MQ, xxiv (1938), 11–30

Anthony Philip Heinrich: a Nineteenth-Century Composer in America (New York, 1939/R)

‘Secular Music in the United States 150 Years Ago’, PAMS 1941, 105–11

ed.: O.G.T. Sonneck: Bibliography of Early Secular American Music (Washington DC, 2/1945, repr. 1964 with preface by I. Lowens)

The Musical Works of William Henry Fry in the Collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1946)

William Henry Fry, American Journalist and Composer-Critic (New York, 1954/R)

RODNEY H. MILL

Urania.

The Muse of astronomy. See Muses.

Uranova.

See Sandunova, elizaveta semyonovna.

Urban VIII.

Pope and music patron, member of the Barberini family.

Urbana-Champaign.

Twin cities in Illinois, USA, site of the university of Illinois school of music.

Urbánek, František Augustin

(b Moravské Budějovice, 24 Nov 1842; d Prague, 4 Dec 1919). Czech music publisher, father of Mojmír Urbánek. After his Gymnasium studies in Znojmo and Brno he was employed from 1862 by the bookseller and publisher J.L. Kober in Prague, for whom he became general manager (1866–70). In 1872 he established his own bookselling and publishing firm in Prague, where he first produced pedagogical publications and school textbooks. During the 1870s he gradually began to publish music, bringing out new works by Smetana, almost all of Fibich's compositions, and the early works of Foerster, Novák, Suk, Janáček, Křička, Axman and others. His series Dalibor, Lumír, Zora, Vesna, Lyra and Vlasta were important in the development of choral song; he also published tutors for the piano, violin, flute and harmonium as well as books on music (including Janáček's O skladbě souzvukův a jejich spojův in 1897) and the journals Dalibor (1879–99) and Kalendář českých hudebníků (1881–1908), serving as editor of both for some years. Besides reviewing Czech books and scores for the journal Oestrreich-ung. Buchhändler-Correspondenz (from 1864), he published Knihopisný slovník (‘Book dictionary’, 1865) and published and edited the Věstník bibliografický (‘Bibliographical bulletin’, 1869–84). In 1913 his sons František Augustin and Vladimír became partners in the firm and its name was changed to F.A. Urbánek a synové. The firm was nationalized in 1949.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ČSHS

V. Nejdl: 30 let českého hudebního nakladatele 1872–1902 [30 years of a Czech music publisher] (Prague, 1902)

L.K. Žižka: Mistři a mistříčkové: vzpomínky na české muzikanty let 1881–1891 [Masters and lesser masters: reminiscences of Czech musicians] (Prague, 1939, enlarged 2/1947)

Vzpomínka k stoletému výročí narozenin českého nakladatele Fr. A. Urbánka a na sedmdesát let trvání závodu: 1842–1872–1942 [Recollections on the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Czech publisher Urbánek and on the 70 years of the firm's existence] (Prague, 1942)

A. Zach: Stopami pražských nakladatelských domů [In the steps of Prague publishing houses] (Prague, 1996), 15–17

ZDENĚK CULKA