John C. Dressler – författare

Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) was a British composer, editor, author, and outdoorsman/agrarian. Many of his works (a body of fewer than 50) are choral or solo vocal in nature. At the heart of his musical contributions is a unique blend of the metaphysical and mystical with a true love for everything English. Typical of many of the volumes in the Greenwood Press series, this work serves as an awareness tool, introducing an important 20th-century composer labeled variously as a miniaturist, a pastoral composer, and a minor Edwardian musician—but with a singular style that differed from his contemporaries' yet reflected in part the English tradition of Elgar, Parry, and Vaughan Williams in particular.Growing up with the music of these composers as models, Finzi quickly succeeded in the art of writing songs. His work is just now beginning to receive wider publicity through recordings and public performance. A set of 15 anecdotes contributed by major artists is assembled in this work, containing the artists' reactions to Finzi and his compositions.

Alan Rawsthorne was a British composer, film scorer, music editor, author, and radio talk show presenter. At the heart of his musical contribution was a unique blend of European and English 20th-century techniques which concentrated on instrumental rather than vocal music. While most of this volume is dedicated to Rawsthorne's original musical works, the reader's attention is also drawn to his articles, radio talks, and arrangements of works of other composers. His disposition placed his career in the background of others who were more public; his preference was to write music for its own sake rather than for notoriety and monetary gain. Through the guiding direction of other composers and radio leadership personnel, Rawsthorne created music for the next age as much as for his current time.This bibliography is comprised of a listing of all known works (completed and uncompleted), premieres and selected other performances (highlighting venues, dates, and performers' names), a discography of both commercially available discs and archival tapes and discs, a 1500-item annotated set of citations of reviews, sections of books, articles and the like regarding the works, Rawsthorne's life and recordings, five appendices (song cycle and multi-section works components, alphabetical works list, Manchester manuscript collection details, chronological works list, works of other composers dedicated to Rawsthorne) and a 25-page index to the book.

William Alwyn: A Research and Information Guide is a catalogue, discography and annotated bibliography of the nearly 500 works of this twentieth-century British composer. It will be invaluable to twentieth-century British composer researchers and aficionados, music history courses, and film music courses.