Robert Thurston Dart

Robert Thurston Dart studied at Royal College of Music. Training under Charles Van den Borren is recorded. Igor Kipnis, Ian Bent and Margaret Bent are recorded as having studied under Robert Thurston Dart. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is musicology, conducting and music. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are Baroque music. Employment is recorded with King's College London and University of Cambridge. Distinctions recorded are Walter Willson Cobbett Medal.

• Name — Thurston Dart • Born — 3 September 1921 • Birthplace — Surbiton • Died — 6 March 1971 • Place of death — The London Clinic • Occupation — Musicologist, Professor

Dart was born on 3 September 1921 in Surbiton, then part of Surrey. His father, Henry Thurston Dart, a merchant's clerk, married his mother, Elizabeth Martha Orf in 1915. He attended Hampton Grammar School and sang in the choir at Hampton Court. There he encountered Edmund Fellowes, who gave him encouragement. A student at the Royal College of Music in London 1938–9, Dart went on to study mathematics at University College, Exeter, being awarded an external BA degree from the University of London in 1942, and in the same year qualified with ARCM status. He then served as a Junior Scientific Officer statistician and researcher in the RAF, working on operational research, until 1945. He was in the strategic bombing Planning Unit under Air Vice Marshal Basil Embry. Dart was injured in a plane crash in Calais in November 1944, and while convalescing from his injuries at a nursing home in Swanley, he first met Neville Marriner. After leaving the RAF, he studied for a year 1945–6 on a grant with the Belgian musicologist Charles Van den Borren. A further early teacher and influence was Arnold Goldsbrough, a founder of the ensemble that later became the English Chamber Orchestra.

Dart returned to England in 1946 as research assistant to Henry Moule, a music lecturer at the University of Cambridge. In 1947 he was appointed assistant lecturer in music in the university, subsequently having posts as lecturer (1952) and professor (1962), and was a Fellow of Jesus College. During this time, Dart was an effective British supporter of early music revival, in part through his influence on those who went on to form such groups as the Early Music Consort of London: he lent its founder David Munrow, then reading English at Pembroke College, a crumhorn. He taught conductor/musicologist Christopher Hogwood of the Academy of Ancient Music. He taught the conductor John Eliot Gardiner, after Gardiner had left Cambridge, who was also studying with George Hurst. Philip Brett has been described as "Dart's star pupil". He worked as an undergraduate on the music manuscripts in the collection of Edward Paston, providing provenances and attributions of some pieces to William Byrd. Dart involved him in part of his extensive editorial work of revision of books by Edmund Fellowes. In 1964 Dart was appointed King Edward Professor of Music at the University of London, based at King's College London. According to Denis Arnold, his reason for leaving Cambridge was the conservatism in its approach to music education. Among his students there was Peter Holman. Michael Nyman, another of his students at King's, wrote in 1972 that Dart "finally realised his vision of a musical education freed from the pointless strangulation of a system still obsessed with harmony and counterpoint."

As a versatile historical performer, Dart was a successor in the United Kingdom to Arnold Dolmetsch. A continuo player, he made numerous appearances on the harpsichord; he was also a conductor. He performed with the Boyd Neel Orchestra, and when in 1955 Neel moved to Canada, he became its artistic director. The ensemble, renamed Philomusica of London, performed works from Dart's own editions. He resigned his post with it in 1959. • Illustration — Thurston Dart (far right) in 1961. From left: Robert Casadesus, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Bernard Haitink, MS. Schil, Jack Boyce and Thurston Dart During the 1950s Dart participated in annual concerts featuring four harpsichordists, the three others being George Malcolm, Denis Vaughan and Eileen Joyce. Ultimately Valda Aveling replaced Joyce. Their instruments at this point were modern. Dart and Malcolm were later among those trying replica period harpsichords.

Dart died from stomach cancer in London on 6 March 1971. He was unmarried.

Dart's book The Interpretation of Music (London, 1954), was influential and led to further research into performance. He also wrote numerous articles on aspects of musical sources, performance and interpretation. He was a major contributor to the Musica Britannica volumes. He left an unfinished biography of John Bull. He served as editor of the Galpin Society Journal from 1947 to 1954. As secretary of Musica Britannica from 1950 to 1965, he saw 34 volumes through the press. He also oversaw the re-editing of the multi-volume series by Edmund Fellowes on William Byrd and the English madrigalists.