Thomas Christensen

Thomas Christensen is a Professor of Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago whose research interests are in 18th century music. His scholarly research centers on the history of music theory. Fundamental to his work has been a desire to situate the many intellectual frames, arguments and linguistic models used by writers in the early modern period deeply within cultural discourses. Hence, as one example, Christensen’s 1993 monograph on Jean-Philippe Rameau attempted to analyze his music theory as a complex response to both the empirical as well as synthetic values of Enlightenment science. Some of his more recent work on the writings of the 17th-century savant Marin Mersenne, or the 19th-century Belgian scholar Joseph Fetis, have likewise sought to analyze their enigmatic writings in the light of coterminous intellectual currents and social frames. But Christensen’s research is not solely focused on individual theorists. He has also attempted more synthetic surveys of problems in music theory, particularly as editor of the Cambridge History of Western Music Theory (published in 2003). A Chinese edition of CHWMT will appear in 2011. His work has received support and recognition over the years from a variety of academic associations and funding agencies. In turn, Christensen has been an active citizen in the broader intellectual community of music scholars, with a particular interest in fostering collaborative ties with German and French colleagues in music. In 2011-12 he was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin where he worked on writing a monograph on the early historiography of tonality.