Daniel Beller-McKenna teaches music history at the University of New Hampshire where he has been on the faculty since 1998. Previously he served on the faculty of the University of South Carolina. He holds degrees in Journalism and Music from Temple University in Philadelphia where he studied classical guitar and music history, and from Harvard University where he wrote his dissertation on Brahms’s later settings of biblical texts. His research has continued to focus on Brahms, including the 2004 monograph Brahms and the German Spirit, which examines Brahms and nationalism. Most recently he has presented papers on the reception of Brahms’s music in France, and the use of his music in French literature and film in the mid-twentieth century. His articles on Brahms have appeared in 19th Century Music, The Journal of Musicology, Music & Letters, and other scholarly journals. Additionally he has published articles on John Lennon and the Beatles. He is co-editor of For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt (2022). Beller-McKenna serves on the Board of Directors of the American Brahms Society, of which he was President from 2001-2007, and has served as President of the New England Chapter and on various committees of the American Musicological Society. He is active as a steel guitarist in northern New England.
Courses Taught
- MUSI 401: Introduction to Music
- MUSI 403: Roots of Rock
- MUSI 406: Country Music
- MUSI 444: Music & Social Change
- MUSI 501: The Western Musical Canon
- MUSI 502: Musics in Context
- MUSI 701/801: Topics in Music History
- MUSI 705/805: Music of the Baroque
- MUSI 709W/809: Music of the Romantic Period
- MUSI 869: Musicology Seminar
- MUSI 891: Research Seminar
Research Interests
- 19th century music
- 20th century Popular music
- Johannes Brahms
Selected Publications
Beller-McKenna, D. (2022). “Philosophy in a Minor Key: Townes Van Zandt and the Minor Modes”. In A. Holbrook, & D. Beller-McKenna (Eds.), For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt (pp. 79-106). COllege Station, TX: University of North Texas Press.
Holbrook, A. N., & Beller-McKenna, D. (2022). For the Sake of the Song Essays on Townes Van Zandt.
Beller-McKenna, D. (2019). Driving Stones Country in Five Songs. In CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO THE ROLLING STONES (pp. 121-141). Retrieved from https://www.webofscience.com/
Beller-McKenna, D. (2018). Imagination and Memory: Inter-movement Thematic Recall in Beethoven and Brahms. Nineteenth Century Music Review, 15(2).
Beller-McKenna, D. (2017). Vous souvenez-vous de Brahms? Brahms and Memory in Françoise Sagan's Aimez-vous Brahms . .. American Brahms Society Newsletter, 1-4.
Beller-McKenna, D. (2009). The Price of Assimilation: Felix Mendelssohn and the Nineteenth-Century Anti-Semitic Tradition. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 62(3), 737-742. doi:10.1525/jams.2009.62.3.737
Beller-McKenna, D. (2005). Distance and disembodiment: Harps, horns, and the requiem idea in Schumann and Brahms. JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY, 22(1), 47-89. doi:10.1525/jm.2005.22.1.47
Beller-McKenna, D. (2003). The Beatles as musicians: The Quarry Men through 'Rubber Soul'. NOTES, 59(3), 614-615. doi:10.1353/not.2003.0002
Beller-McKenna, D. (1999). Beatle-John's 'alter ego' (John Lennon and his early Beatles work). MUSIC & LETTERS, 80(2), 254-268. doi:10.1093/ml/80.2.254
Beller-McKenna, D. (1998). How deutsch a requiem? Absolute music, universality, and the reception of Brahm's Ein 'Deutsches Requiem', op. 45. NINETEENTH CENTURY MUSIC, 22(1), 3-19. Retrieved from https://www.webofscience.com/
