Havergal Brian – författare

Best known as a prolific composer of symphonies, this volume pulls together Brian's much less known vast journalistic output and explores personal insights and reminiscence.This first volume of selections of his writings brings together many of Brian's principal writings on the composers and events of the British Musical Renaissance from polemical articles written when actively campaigning for his fellow-composers in the Midlands before World War I to more considered appraisals of the inter-War period. As well as discussing a wide range of composers, from Elgar and Delius to Britten and Billy Mayerl, he can be found here reviewing festivals, adjudicating at brass-band championships at the Crystal Palace [and watching the Palace burn down in 1936], proposing schemes for the encouragement of orchestral music, and casting a critical eye on the burgeoningpower and influence of the B.B.C.Malcolm MacDonald's substantial introduction and annotations make this book both a work of scholarship and an important historical source for an understanding of the British music of the early twentieth century.

This second volume of Brian's writings shows him to have been one of the most perceptive commentators on contemporary music in the twentieth century.In this second volume of selections from his journalism, written over four decades between 1907 and 1946, the maverick English composer Havergal Brian [1876-1972] directs his enquiring mind at the music being composed in France,Germany, Italy and elsewhere, while he and his British contemporaries were fighting to establish new music at home. Richard Strauss figures prominently among the composers discussed, beginning with reviews of Hallé and Queen's Hall concerts in 1907 and 1910. But even Strauss was not treated as lavishly as another whose music clearly fascinated Brian deeply: Arnold Schoenberg. From Gurrelieder to the Violin Concerto, Brian emerges as one of Schoenberg's most sympathetic and understanding champions among the English critical fraternity in the inter-War period. Other composers featured include Bartók, Berg, Busoni, Debussy, Dohnányi, Dukas, Glazunov, Grieg, Hindemith, Kilpinen, Lehár,Mahler, Messager, Puccini, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Respighi, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Sousa, Stravinsky, Szymanowski, Tailleferre and Varèse - as well as figures now obscure such as Alfred Bruneau, August Bungert, César Géloso and Wilhelm Kienzl.Malcolm MacDonald's introductions and annotations provide the background to each piece and cast light on Brian's more obscure references.