A student at Princeton University, he then traveled to Rome to train in Gregorian chant.
[1] In 1935, in collaboration with the priest Ducaud-Bourget, he founded the vocal ensemble Les Paraphonistes de Saint-Jean des Matines.
With this ensemble he interpreted and recorded for the first time several secular and religious vocal works of the Middle Ages.
Among these works, he recorded the world premiere of Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut in 1936 of which he made one of the first complete transcriptions published by the Corpus mensurabilis musicae in 1950.
In this capacity he collaborated with the Nazi musicologists of the Sonderstab Musik [de].