Abstract

Nigel Fortune was a brilliant, cultured, and charismatic man. Possessing a very keen intellect and legendary powers of memory and recall, Nigel was perfectly at ease in the company of fellow academics from different disciplines across the humanities. At the same time he relished the company of people from all walks of life, as shown, for example, by his selfless help for Claire Short (his MP and neighbour) at her local Advice Bureau every Saturday morning. For all that he was seen as a high-powered university don, it was his total commitment to local people and local issues that showed his deep humanity as an individual. To those to whom he was close, Nigel was a loyal friend and an inspiring companion, but at the same time modest and very private. In his professional career he was a formidable scholar and musicologist and will be remembered for his contributions to research in early seventeenth-century Italian solo song, as co-editor and author of the Monteverdi and Beethoven Companions, and for his invaluable work on the editorial staff of the New Grove Dictionary. But, for many of us, he will also be remembered for all he brought to make the Music Department at Birmingham one of the finest in the country. He dedicated his academic career to Birmingham and even under the leadership of Anthony Lewis and Ivor Keys, Nigel was both the rock and anchor of that Department.

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