O'Loughlin, Niall

Niall O’Loughlin (Oxford, 30 September, 1941), English musicologist, MA (Edinburgh, 1963), PhD (Leicester, 1979), was Director of the Arts Centre of Loughborough University in England from 1998 until his retirement in 2005 and Senior Lecturer in the School of Art and Design. Following his doctorate at the University of Leicester and articles for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Dr. O’Loughlin established himself as the leading British expert on Slovene music and has given papers on this music in Slovenia, England and Poland. In the UK he has published articles in The Musical Times and Tempo, in Italy in the periodical Musica-Realtà and in Slovenia in Muzikološki zbornik. He was elected Corresponding Member of the Section of Historical and Social Sciences of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in June 2007. This award was given in recognition of over thirty years’ research work on the music of the Republic of Slovenia.

In the year 2000 his book on Slovenian music from the First World War to the end of the century was published in Ljubljana. Alongside books by leading Slovene scholars, Andrej Rijavec and Ivan Klemenčič, this has since become a standard text in Slovenia on this music:

Novejši glasba v Sloveniji, Ljubljana: Slovenska matica, 2000

He has also given fourteen symposium and conference papers on Slovene music, at Radenci and Ljubljana, all of which have been published:

‘Posleratno slovenačko kamerno muzičko stvaralaštvo’, Zvuk 1, 1982, 5-12
‘Slovenian Cross Currents with Folk Music’, Ljudska in umetna glasba v 20. Stoletju v Evropi, Ljubljana, 1990, 80-86
‘Parallel Musical Developments between Britain and Slovenia since World War Two’, in Slovenska glasba v preteklosti in sedanjosti, Ljubljana, 1992, 144-157
‘The European Context of Marij Kogoj’s Črne maske’, Opera kot socialni ali politični angažma?, Ljubljana, 1993, 26-35
‘Vinko Globokar, agent provocateur: shock tactics in the concert hall’, Provokacija v glasbi, Ljubljana, 1994, 177-88
‘The Chalk Circle Operas of Osterc and Zelinsky: a comparative analysis’, Glasba med obema vojnama in Slavko Osterc, Ljubljana, 1996, 64-76
‘Motivic Workings in the Symphonic Poems of Blaž Arnič’, Ob 300. Obletnici ustanovitve Academiae philharmonicorum Labacensium in 100. Obletnici rojstva skaldatelja Blaža Arniča, Ljubljana, 2002, 190-197
‘The Dramatic Integration of Conflicting Musical Techniques in the opera »Ekvinokcij« by Marjan Kozina’, Ljubljana, 2003, 96-108
‘Slovenian Music in its European Context: the 20th-Century Experience’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.40/1-2, 2004, 267-276
‘The Reconciliation of Old and New Musical Techniques in the cantatas of Jakob Jež’, Zborovska glasba in pevska društva ter njihov pomen v razvoju nacionalnih glasbenih kultur, Ljubljana, 2004, 240-255
‘An Enterprising Line of Development: The New Slovenian Avant-Garde’, Kontinuete in avantgarda – med tradicijo in novimi izzivi, Ljubljana, 2005, 48-58
‘Music and Words in the Works of Lojze Lebič’, Stoletja glasba na Slovenskem, Ljubljana, 2006, 365-380
‘The Birth of Slovene Musical Modernism: Kogoj and Osterc in the 1920s’, Glasba v dvasetih letih 20. stoletja, Ljubljana, 2009, 18-31
‘Slovene Music in the later 20th and early 21st Centuries: an External Perspective’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.45/1, 2009, 5-16

Other important articles on Slovene music include:

‘The Music of Lojze Lebič’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.19, 1983, 71-81
‘Alojz Srebotnjak’s Use of Twelve-Note Techniques’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.26, 1990, 45-57
‘Melodic Workings in the Music of Ivo Petrić’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol 29, 1993, 107-119
‘Process as Musical Form in the Music of Milan Stibilj’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol 30, 1994, 71-82
‘Omaggio a Slavko Osterc nel centenario della sua nascita’, Musica/Realtà 48, 1995, 129-143
‘Concertante Techniques in Trois images by Ivo Petrić’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.37, 2001, 103-112
‘Expressive Emotion and Symphonic Economy: A Note on Recent Works by Uroš Krek’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.38, 2002, 83-95
‘Music in Slovenia before and after Independence: a Remarkable Continuity’, Duchowość (ed Droby, Malecka and Szwajgier), Kraków, 2004, 109-117
‘The Music of Uroš Krek: towards a Definition of its Style’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.44/2, 2008, 17-28

In addition he has contributed six further articles to Muzikološki zbornik, of whose Editorial Board he is a member:

‘The Rondo in Mahler’s Middle Period Symphonies: Valid Model or Useful Abstraction’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.35, 131-146
‘The Hidden Programme of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.36, 73-82
‘Interconnecting Musicologies: Decoding Mahler’s Sixth Symphony’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.39/1-2, 2003, 31-49
‘What is English Music? The Twentieth Century Experience’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.43/1, 2007, 147-166
‘Intellectual magic: Tradition Infiltrated by Passion in the String Quartets of the English Composer Hugh Wood’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.43/2, 2007, 139-156
‘The Movement Order of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony: Musical Considerations’, Muzikološki zbornik, vol.44/2, 2008, 39-51

In 1977, he was awarded the Tovey Memorial Prize from the Faculty of Music of the University of Oxford.

(June 2011)