Stanley Sadie Passes Away

March 22, 2005 12:30 PM

Stanley Sadie has passed away. For those of us in various fields of music, we saw his work almost every day in the New Grove dictionaries, the unflagging starting point for any and all historical research in music.

In an email forwarded from one of my professors: After the concert was over the Chilingirian [Quartet] quietly came over and, sitting down in the room with Stanley, played the slow movement from op.135. It was deeply moving - Stanley gradually woke up and listened, gently, all alert again, but so weak. He rallied enough to be helped upstairs but then lapsed into a peaceful sleep.
posted by teletype1 (7 comments total)

Thats how I want to go.
posted by goethean at 1:00 PM on March 22, 2005

I guess he means Beethoven's Op. 135? Gorgeous stuff. Also how I'd like to go.
posted by tepidmonkey at 2:21 PM on March 22, 2005

Truly a sad day for the world of musicology. I shall heft a drink and play some Mozart in his honor.
posted by ilsa at 5:46 PM on March 22, 2005

Even Dag Henrik Esrum-Hellerup is crying!
posted by gdav at 6:35 PM on March 22, 2005

Personally, I think I'd go for Dvorak's American Quartet instead of the Beethoven op.135... but for Stanley Sadie, what a perfect sendoff!

With him and Slonimsky gone, we've pretty much closed the book on 20th-century music reference.
posted by soyjoy at 10:05 PM on March 22, 2005

Thanks for the post, and the e-mail quote makes a perfect frame for it.
posted by languagehat at 1:38 PM on March 23, 2005

Indeed, according to the NY Times obituary, it is the Beethoven Quartet in F, op. 135. As we are remembering great musicologists of the twentieth century, it is worth noting that Claude Palisca and Donald Grout (of the authoritative tome A History of Western Music) have also passed away within the past few years.
posted by PadrePuffin at 1:53 PM on March 23, 2005