Revisions and Emendations

Abstract

It is with pleasure that I announce changes at the Musical Quarterly that will be evident to readers and subscribers in this first issue of volume 84. There are several new additions to the fine group of associate editors who share with me the editorial responsibility for the journal. In addition, Irene Zedlacher at Bard College has become a Managing Editor and will assume primary responsibility for the coordination of each issue of MQ. Mark Swed, the distinguished critic, has become more and more busy with his own writing since his move to Los Angeles as chief critic of the Los Angeles Times. He has graciously decided to continue to help us as a member of the larger editorial advising board. This is most welcome, since we would like to remain a journal that publishes the work of professional critics. Bryan Gilliam, professor of music at Duke University and an eminent authority on Richard Strauss and the music of the 1920s, has joined MQ, beginning with this issue, as an associate editor, succeeding Swed, with primary responsibility for the section once entitled Twentieth Century. As readers will observe, we have renamed it Twentieth Century and Beyond. Bryan Gilliam is not only a scholar of distinction but also a trained instrumentalist (a cellist) who did his undergraduate work at the Cincinnati Conservatory. In this section of the journal, MQ would like to retain its traditionally close association with performance and new music. Among Mark Swed's key contributions to MQ over the years was his commitment to experimental and avant-garde music. The renaming of the Twentieth Century section was relatively straightforward. Readers will notice that the part once entitled Primary Sources has disappeared. Instead, we are introducing a new section entitled Texts and Contexts. It does not exactly replace Primary Sources. But it expresses more appropriately what MQ sought to achieve with this section. When MQ was reorganized in 1992, it seemed plausible that, as a general but unfocused journal in musicology and music history, it might no longer be needed. MQ had a distinguished past as well as a troubled recent history. Within the profession of musicology and music history in the English-speaking world, its stature and status