Elliot Forbes known as "El", was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 conductor and musicologist noted for his Beethoven scholarship.

Life and career

Forbes came from a Boston Brahmin

Boston Brahmin

Boston Brahmins are wealthy Yankee families characterized by a highly discreet and inconspicuous life style. Based in and around Boston, they form an integral part of the historic core of the East Coast establishment...

 family; his father was the director of Harvard's Fogg Art Museum

Fogg Art Museum

The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest of Harvard University's art museums. The Fogg joins the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum as part of the Harvard Art Museums....

. He attended Harvard, receiving a BA in 1941 and an MA in 1947, both in music; he studied with Walter Piston

Walter Piston

Walter Hamor Piston Jr., , was an American composer of classical music, music theorist and professor of music at Harvard University whose students included Leroy Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, and Elliott Carter....

, and while he was a graduate student, he was assistant conductor of the Harvard Glee Club

Harvard Glee Club

The Harvard Glee Club is a 60-voice, all-male choral ensemble at Harvard University. Founded in 1858 in the tradition of English and American glee clubs, it is the oldest collegiate chorus in the US. The Glee Club is part of the Holden Choruses of Harvard University, which also include the...

. From 1947-58, he taught at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

, but in 1958 he returned to Harvard and remained there for the rest of his life as Fanny Peabody Professor of Music (and, after 1984, Professor Emeritus.)

He was the chief conductor of the Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society

Radcliffe Choral Society

The Radcliffe Choral Society is a 60-voice all-female choral ensemble at Harvard University. Founded in 1899, it is one of the country's oldest women's chorus and one of its most prominent collegiate choirs. With the all-male Harvard Glee Club and the mixed-voice Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium...

 from 1958-1970; his students included Isaiah Jackson

Isaiah Jackson

Isaiah Allen Jackson is an African American conductor of world renown. He has recently concluded a seven year term as conductor of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, of which he has been named Conductor Emeritus...

, now director of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, and William Christie

William Christie (musician)

William Lincoln Christie is an American-born French conductor and harpsichordist. He is noted as a specialist in baroque repertoire and as the founder of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants....

, founder and director of the European baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 ensemble Les Arts Florissants

Les Arts Florissants (ensemble)

Les Arts Florissants is a Baroque musical ensemble in residence at the Théâtre de Caen in Caen, France. The organization was founded by conductor William Christie in 1979. The ensemble derives its name from the 1685 opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The organization consists of a chamber orchestra...

. While conductor, he led both groups on a tour around the world in 1967.

Aside from conducting, his scholarly work focused on the life and work of Beethoven, particularly his choral music. His edition of Thayer

Alexander Wheelock Thayer

Alexander Wheelock Thayer , was a librarian and journalist who became the author of the first scholarly biography of Ludwig van Beethoven, still after many updatings regarded as a standard work of reference on the composer.-Life:Originally a librarian at Harvard law school, Thayer became aware of...

's Life of Beethoven (1964) has been called "a substantial contribution to Beethoven scholarship." He also wrote two notable volumes of the history of music at Harvard, and edited the Harvard-Radcliffe Choral Music Series. He was on the boards of the New England Conservatory, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum or Fenway Court, as the museum was known during Isabella Stewart Gardner's lifetime, is a museum in the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, located within walking distance of the Museum of Fine Arts and near the Back Bay Fens...

, whose piano is dedicated in his honor.

He received Harvard's Alumni Medal in 1991 and an honorary doctorate in 2003. Right up to his death, he remained an unflagging supporter of undergraduate performers, frequently attending events at which he was the only faculty member present.

Notable works

• A Neglected Work in Beethoven's Choral Music: the Funeral Cantata, Essays on Music in Honor of Archibald Thompson Davison (Cambridge, MA, 1957), 253–61
• Ed.: Thayer's Life of Beethoven (Princeton, NJ, 1964, 2/1967)
• The Choral Music of Beethoven, American Choral Review, xi/3 (1968–9) [whole issue]
• Beethoven as a Choral Composer, PRMA, xcvii (1970–71), 69–82
• Beethoven's Choral Music: a Reappraisal, American Choral Review, xxiv/2–3 (1982), 67–82
• A History of Music at Harvard (Cambridge, MA, 1988–93)