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Arthur Bliss (1891–1975) was one of the most important British musicians of his age. Born into a family where music played a highly significant role, his talent emerged early. He served with distinction in the Great War, in which he was both injured and gassed. After the War he set the musical world alight with ultra-modern works, earning himself the soubriquet enfant terrible and leading to his first major work, the Colour Symphony. His dual American/British birthright led to a close connection with the USA and marriage to an American girl, Trudy Hoffman, who would be a mainstay of his life. Before long he became the most performed British composer abroad and his portfolio of works included ballet, film (H.G. Wells's Things to Come remains one of the finest film scores), opera, orchestral, chamber, choral works and song. He was a diplomat, a skill that was recognized in many appointments from the Government to travel using music as soft power, notably to Russia in 1956. He served as Director of Music at the BBC from 1942–4, was knighted and soon after appointed Master of the Queen's Music. Bliss was a private figure who stated that the only way to get to know him was through his music. Paul Spicer takes this as his starting point for this pioneering biography, which underlines the timely importance of a complete reappraisal of this important composer's music.
This title was first published in 2002. This volume of essays seeks to reflect aspects of the life and work of Arthur Bliss, Master of the Queen's Music. Though each is self-contained, the editor has attempted to keep a theme running throughout. Looking beyond surface impressions is an attitude constantly expressed.
First published in 2003. 'All of my music is biographical' declared Sir Malcolm Arnold in an interview in 1991. Arnold's turbulent life has permeated his music to a greater degree than probably any other British composer as Paul Jackson reveals in this illuminating account. Interweaving biographical details with close analyses of Arnold's major works, particularly the nine symphonies, and drawing on sketch materials never previously examined, Jackson provides fascinating insights into Arnold's compositional process, and the ideas informing works such as the John Field Fantasy and the 7th Symphony. Extensive interviews with Arnold himself as well as with his family, friends and colleagues add further perspectives on his relationships with fellow composers and musicians, publishers, critics and family. A combination of joie de vivre and periods of depression and personal tragedy, Arnold's life has mirrored his music in its combination of seemingly disparate elements that make a compelling whole.
Benjamin Britten was a most reluctant public speaker. Yet his contributions were without doubt a major factor in the transformation during his lifetime of the structure of the art-music industry. This book, by bringing together all his published articles, unpublished speeches, drafts, and transcriptions of numerous radio interviews, explores the paradox of a reluctant yet influential cultural commentator, artist, and humanist. Whether talking about his own music, about the role of the artist in society, about music criticism, or wading into a debate on Soviet ideology at the height of the cold war, Britten always gave a performance which reinforced the notion of a private man who nonetheless saw the importance of public disclosure.
Crossley-Holland--the widely acclaimed translator of Old English texts--introduces the Anglo-Saxons through their chronicles, laws, letters, charters, and poetry, with many of the greatest surviving poems printed in their entirety.
Lord Berners was one of the most colourful and flamboyant personalities of his day. This title offers a new documentary approach - interviews with leading figures and contemporaries who knew him and his work, set into context and complimented with much further information.
Surveys large choral-orchestral works written between 1900 and 1972 that contain some English text. Green examines eighty-nine works by forty-nine composers, from Elgar's Dream of Gerontius to Bernstein's Mass.
In Chamber Music: An Extensive Guide for Listeners,Lucy Miller Murray transforms her decades of program notes for some of the world’s most distinguished artists and presenters into the go-to guide for the chamber music novice and enthusiast. Offering practical information on the broad array of chamber music works from the Classical, Romantic, and Modern periods—and an artful selection from the Baroque period of Johann Sebastian Bach’s works—Chamber Music: An Extensive Guide for Listeners is both the perfect reference resource and chamber music primer for listeners. Covering over 500 works, Murray surveys in clear and simple language the historical and musical impact of some 130 composers—20 of them living. Notably, Chamber Music includes the complete string quartets of Beethoven, Bartok, and Shostakovich, as well as 35 piano trios of Haydn. It also provides critical information and assessments of works by composers not nearly so well known, both past and present. Entries appear in alphabetical order by composer, and, in every instance, give a brief introduction to the composer’s life and work. Of particular interest are the brief spotlight contributions, from well-known figures in the chamber music world, who focus on the performance experience or offer special knowledge of the works. This work is an ideal introduction and reference for students and scholars, new listeners, and enthusiasts of the chamber music tradition in Western music. Special contributors include: ·Charles Abramovic ·James Bonn ·Michael Brown ·Eugene Drucker ·James Dunham ·Daniel Epstein ·Ralph Evans ·Jeremy Gill ·Jake Heggie ·Paul Katz ·Bert Lucarelli ·Stuart Malina ·Robert Martin ·Peter Orth ·Jann Pasler ·Susan Salm ·David Shifrin ·Peter Sirotin/Ya-Ting Chang ·Arnold Steinhardt ·Kenneth Woods ·David Yang Phillip Ying
One of the earliest great stories of English literature after ?Beowulf?, ?Sir Gawain? is the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse, who rudely interrupts King Arthur's Round Table festivities one Yuletide, challenging the knights to a wager. Simon Armitrage, one of Britain's leading poets, has produced an inventive and groundbreaking translation that " helps] liberate ?Gawain ?from academia" (?Sunday Telegraph?).
Covering works by popular figures like Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst as well as less familiar English composers, Eric Saylor's pioneering book examines pastoral music's critical, theoretical, and stylistic foundations alongside its creative manifestations in the contexts of Arcadia, war, landscape, and the Utopian imagination. As Saylor shows, pastoral music adapted and transformed established musical and aesthetic conventions that reflected the experiences of British composers and audiences during the early twentieth century. By approaching pastoral music as a cultural phenomenon dependent on time and place, Saylor forcefully challenges the body of critical opinion that has long dismissed it as antiquated, insular, and reactionary.