Winton Dean - Böcker

This book was first published in hard covers in 1976 to mark the centenary of the birth of Edward J. Dent, now best remembered as translator of Mozart's opera libretti, as author of the best-known popular introductory book, Opera (Penguin) and for his book on Mozart's Operas (Oxford). He was a scholar of great range and wrote with style and wit. For many years he was professor of Music at Cambridge. Deriving from a course of previously unpublished lectures, the book concentrates on the crucial romantic period and shows how romantic opera had its origins not in Germany, as is often thought, but in the music-dramas and operas of revolutionary France and that this music was a source of nineteenth-century German symphonic style as well as of grand opera. The book is edited by Winton Dean who supplied a brief introduction and a number of notes incorporating relevant scholarship.

Winton Dean (1916-2013), the renowned musical scholar andcritic, gives a sparkling account of his early life – and of his disparate setof forbears. He writes of his controversial father, Basil Dean, the theatricaland film producer and founder of ENSA, his great uncle Rufus Isaacs (supplyingnew information about his first marriage) and Daisy, Countess of Warwick,mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales.  Adeeply divided personality, Winton hoped to pursue a career as a creativeartist rather than as a scholar and critic. To this extent he considered hislife at least in part a failure.  But hewas a brilliant and witty writer, as these memoirs repeatedly demonstrate.He recordshis grim years at Elstree and Harrow Schools, where however he wasoutstandingly successful academically, and the titanic family rows thatfollowed. King’s, Cambridge, where he read Classics, then English, brought animmense release of emotions and inhibitions. There are sharp pen portraits ofthe dons, including Edward Dent.  AlanTuring was his tennis partner. A trip to Greece in 1936 is described inluminous detail.  Though not a performer,he became increasingly interested in music, encouraged by a young don, PhilipRadcliffe, who became a life-long friend. On two visits to the Salzburg Festival he was bowled over by theconducting of Arturo Toscanini, especially in opera. He gives highlyentertaining accounts of the chaotic rehearsals of The Frogs ofAristophanes (in Greek) and the stage production of Handel’s Saul (inboth of which he played minor roles). The overwhelming dramatic power of Handel’smusic impelled him, after the war, to devote ten years of his life to the studyof Handel’s oratorios. Among his many interests, which encompassed trams, steamtrains, stamp collecting, old churches and naval history, Winton had a passionfor cricket (though he was an indifferent performer with the bat) and later forshooting pheasants and grouse.His firstbook, Bizet, was published in 1948; his second, the classic Handel’sDramatic Oratorios and Masques (1959), established him as a musicologist ofworld renown. Winton worked independently and held no university appointments,apart from a visiting professorship at the University of California, Berkeley,in 1965-6, which gave rise to his third book, Handel and the Opera Seria.  The last of the gentleman scholars, he playeda leading role in astonishing revival of Handel’s operas and dramatic oratoriosin recent years.Winton beganhis memoirs at the age of 72 but never finished them, breaking off at thebeginning of 1946, when his career as scholar and critic had barely begun.  His early life and young manhood were whatmattered to him. The later chapters, provided by his son Stephen, follow hiscareer as scholar and sportsman up to 1966.

Detailed overview of Handel's final 22 operas - including major masterpieces such as Orlando, Ariodante and Alcina and the brilliant lighter works Partenope, Serse and Imeneo - by the world's leading authority.Handel ranks with Monteverdi, Mozart and Verdi among the supreme masters of opera, yet between 1754 (when Handel was still living) and 1920 not one of his operas was performed anywhere. Their revival in the modern theatre has beenamong the most remarkable phenomena in the history of the art. But they are still too little understood, or studied, and until recently no reliable modern editions existed.This long-awaited book is the sequel to Handel'sOperas 1704-1726, published in 1987. It is the first study in depth of Handel's last twenty-two operas, including major masterpieces such as Orlando, Ariodante and Alcina and the brilliant lighter works Partenope, Serse and Imeneo. Each chapter contains a full synopsis and study of the libretto, a detailed assessment of the opera's musical and (often misunderstood) dramatic qualities, a performance history, and comparison of the different versions. Much new material has been incorporated. In addition four general chapters throw a vivid light on the historical background. Two Epilogues touch on Handel's dramatic vision, the revival of his operas in the twentieth century, and their performance today. There are a number of valuable Appendices. Together with its predecessor, the book provides the first complete overview of these works.WINTON DEAN isthe most distinguished British authority on the life and work of Handel; he has also written extensively on opera in general.

The first volume of this monumental study of Handel's operatic works, covering the first seventeen operas.This first of the classic two-volume survey of Handel's operas was first published in 1987 and reissued in a revised paperback edition in 1995. Now it is brought back into print in a year which has seen numerous productions and recordings of the operas and which marks the 250th anniversary of Handel's death. Their revival in the modern theatre - not a single opera was staged or performed anywhere between 1754 and 1920 - has been among the most remarkable phenomena in the history of the art, and is due in no small measure to the painstaking research of Dean and Knapp in volume one, and Dean himself in volume two, published by Boydell in 2006.This first volume devotes a chapter to each of Handel's first seventeen operas, offering a full synopsis and study of the libretto, extensive discussions of the music, a performance history, and a comparison of the different versions of the opera. In addition there are several general chapters on the historical and stylistic context of Handel's operatic career to 1726, and a number of Appendices including a list of performances during Handel's life and the location of librettos, Handel's borrowings, Handel's singers, and modern stage productions up to the end of 1993. WINTON DEAN is a distinguished Handelian scholar and writer on opera. He is a former vice-president of the Georg-Friedrich-Handel Gesellschaft in Halle and a founding Council Member of the Handel Institute in London.JOHN MERRILL KNAPP died in 1993. He was Emeritus Professor of Music, Princeton University and the editor of two volumes of the German edition of Handel's complete works, and author of The Joy of Opera.