After graduating in English Literature (1961) and Musicology (1963) at the University of Sarajevo (my birthplace) in the then Yugoslavia, I came to Oxford in 1963 and four years later completed a D.Phil. in Music. After a brief spell in Yugoslavia, I was a Lecturer in Music at Reading University (1969-1978), and then, until my retirement in 2005, a University Lecturer (later Reader) in Musicology and a Fellow of Magdalen. At various times I also held a Visiting Fellowship at Cornell University and a Visiting Lecturership at King’s College, London.
- Music in European Thought, 1851-1912: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
- Arnold Schoenberg: London: Phaidon, 2011.
- “Chamber Music in the Twentieth Century–Cultural and Compositional Crisis of a Genre”, The British Journal of Aesthetics 20, 1982.
- “Musicology and Intellectual History: A Backward Glance to the Year 1885”, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 111, 1984-85.
- “ ‘Figura poetica molto vaga’: Structure and Meaning in Rinuccini’s Euridice”, Early Music History 10, 1991.
- “Humanist Tradition, Geography and the Style of Late Sixteenth-century Music”, Acta Musicologica 55, 1993.
- “Notation and Realization: Musical Performance in Historical Perspective”, in M. Krausz, ed., The Interpretation of Music: Philosophical Essays: Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993.
- “Música en palabras: los aspectos cambiantes del evasivo concepto de ‘expresión’”, in Juan Cruz Cruz, ed., La realidad musical: Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 1998.
- “Form and Forming: From Victorian Aesthetics to the Mid-twentieth-century Avant-garde”, in Wyndham Thomas, ed., Composition, Performance, Reception. Studies in the Creative Process in Music: Aldershot, Ashgate, 1998.
- “Palestrina, Willaert, Arcadelt and the Art of Imitation”, Recercare 10, 1998.
- “Rinuccini the Craftsman: a View of his L’Arianna”, Early Music History 18, 1999.
- “Le tradizioni nazionali”, in J.-J. Nattiez, ed. Enciclopedia della musica, vol. 1, Torino: Einaudi, 2001. French version: ‘Nationalismes et traditions nationales’, in J.-J. Nattiez, ed., Musiques. Une encyclopédie pour le XXIe siècle: Arles and Paris: Actes Sud, 2003.
- “Stilemi petrarcheschi nei libretti delle prime opere in musica”, in Loredana Chines, ed., Il Petrarchismo. Un modello di poesia per l’Europa, vol. 1: Rome: Bulzoni, 2006.
- “Siate cauto di non far barbarismi: Intellect and Feeling in the Music of the Early Cinquecento”, in Ole Kongsted, Niels Krabbe, Michael Kube and Morten Michelsen, eds., A due. Musical Essays in Honour of John D. Bergsagel and Heinrich W. Schwab: Copenhagen: The Royal Library, 2008.
As a graduate student at Oxford I was a medievalist but soon moved to the areas which, as I realized, interested me more: music of the Italian high renaissance, aesthetics of music and the music of Viennese modernism. As a Tutor in Music at Magdalen I followed the usual pattern of teaching a wide repertory of music history subjects, but in my lecturing and graduate teaching I concentrated on my research interests. In my retirement I continue to research, write and, occasionally, take part in broadcasts and scholarly gatherings.
