Everett Hafner, a founding dean of Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., died on
Sunday when the plane he was piloting crashed near Worthington, Mass. He was 78
and lived in Williamsburg, Mass.
The cause of the crash was under investigation, the authorities said.
Hampshire College, an experimental college created in 1965, gives its students major
responsibility for planning their courses of study. Dr. Hafner, was the college's
first dean of natural science and mathematics, retired in 1976 and pursued other
interests, including composing.
Dr. Hafner is survived by two daughters, Sarah Hafner of Conway, Mass., and Katie
Hafner of Sonoma, Calif.; three sisters, Marylin Hafner of Cambridge, Mass., Sylvia
Sloan of Carlsbad, Calif., and Katherine Gottsegen of Bedford Hills, N.Y., and a
granddaughter.
EVERETT HAFNER (1920-1998)
Word has been received from IDRS member David Nielsen that fellow IDRS member, oboist
Everett Hafner of Village Road, Mass., died tragically in the crash of his Cessna
150 airplane on August 2, 1998 near Chesterfield, Mass. Everett was a faculty member
of the physics department of the University of Rochester, New York, and became Dean
of Natural Sciences at Hampshire College in 1968 until his retirement. After his
retirement he received a second doctorate from the University of Massachusetts in
music theory, and remained active as a composer and oboist. He was particularly
interested in electronic music, and maintained a studio in his home. The IDRS mourns
the tragic loss of this valued member.
Music, Books
- Well Tempered
-
In a 1974 article (Hafner, Everett, "The Forty-Eight Revisited in Thirty-One", Well
Tempered Notes, November 1974, Motorola Scalatron Inc) Everett Hafner makes the
fascinating observation that each prelude and fugue in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier,
Book I, requires only twelve notes in a chain of meantone fifths, and that the tuning
for this chain may be defined in a completely regular way. Hafner's rule is that
for each key signature, we start the chain a tone (two fifths) below the major tonic
associated to that signature. Hence, for instance, C minor or E flat major, with
key signature of three flats, starts the chain at D flat, a tone below E flat.
- Sports Riddles (Hardcover)
-
by
Everett Hafner (Author),
Marylin Hafner (Illustrator)
- Dissertation
Index
-
This study begins with a review of theoretical approaches to the study of time in
musical performance. We ask whether in fact there is, or even can be, a satisfactory
theory of performance time -- that is, a theory in the scientific sense of the word.
The concepts appropriate to the understanding of time in general are summarized.
Then, as a step forward in application to music, the problem of time as faced by
the orchestral conductor is examined. Detailed measurements are carried out on six
short symphonic compositions chosen for variety of period and style, for considerable
and frequent change of tempo, and for freedom given to -- and sometimes taken by
-- conductors in setting their own tempo for successive sections of the piece. Conductors
are also chosen for variety of style. Analysis of the data bears on a central question:
regardless of changes of tempo, which often depart sharply from a composer's intentions
and from each other, to what extent do temporal proportions of a given work exhibit
invariance as we pass from one conductor to the next?
- Cosmic Electromagnetic
Radiation
-
The sky shine covers an enormous spectrum of frequencies, revealing a cosmic picture
in some detail
-
Mozart’s Oboe Concerto in C Major, K.271k/285d/314
-
Everett Hafner works in the Department of Music &. Dance at the University of Massachusetts
at Amherst. Example 10. editor. solo. Mvt. II. Mvt. III ...
- Time Divided: Invariance of Proportion in Orchestral Performance
-
In the long literature of criticism, we inherit the view that an essential attribute
of all excellent conductors is their close attention to tempo, presumably in an
attempt to recapture the composers' original conceptions of their music. I find
in this study that it is not unusual for tempi in performances of an orchestral
work to vary by as much as forty percent, even when composers provide tempo markings
and in some cases with precise timing directions as well. Nevertheless, despite
these large differences in total times spent on performances of a given work, and
despite wide variety of styles and musical tastes, there often appears to be remarkable
consensus on the temporal proportions of a work -- the fractions of time
spent on its formal divisions. This is of course not surprising in music of constant
metronomic tempo as, say, in a Beethoven scherzo. But the question becomes lively
when we time performances of works that lend themselves to far greater temporal
freedom -- the music of Mahler, Wagner, Debussy, Ives, Bartók, Schoenberg, and so
on.
(Progress note: So far I have found no orchestral work that shows significant departure
from this principle when performed by conductors whom we regard as differing widely
in their approach to all other aspects of music. I'd appreciate comment from members
with suggestions for pieces and conductors to test, and with reference to other
work on this or related aspects of performance.)