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A rich survey of all Beethoven's sonatas for violin and piano.The first in over half a century to be devoted to a detailed analysis of the complete Beethoven sonatas for violin and piano, this book arose from the author's desire to pass on to a younger generation more than sixty years' experience as a practising musician and teacher. Professor Rostal addresses himself to professional and amateur musicians alike, to students and to listeners, all of whom will derive pleasure and enlightenment from his words.Each of the ten Sonatas is carefully discussed, the manuscripts and first and later editions meticulously compared. Musicians will find technical and interpretative problems approached and solved and the music-lover a helpful listener's guide to these ever-popular masterpieces. As the Amadeus Quartet's Preface says of this important book, `It is a "must" for all students and performers, and is a "must" for all lovers of Beethoven.'A renowned violinist and teacher, Professor MAX ROSTAL studied music under Arnold Ros and Carl Flesch. Founder and President of the European String Teachers' Association, he has made many recordings and is the editor of numerous wirks inthe violin repertoire.

Chronological examination of Moeran's output, from his early piano and chamber music and tone-poems to the late masterpieces of the Cello Concerto and Cello Sonata.E.J. Moeran [1894-1950] is one of the outstanding British composers of his generation, his music championed by Sir Adrian Boult, Vernon Handley, Norman Del Mar and others. His work covers a considerable variety of forms, from thewidely acclaimed Symphony in G minor to exquisite songs and piano miniatures. But hi life and career were far from easy. A grievous shrapnel wound in World War I left him with a tendency towards alcoholism, exacerbated by a riotous four-year sojourn with Peter Warlock, which inhibited his ability to compose. Freed from the weight of Warlock's personality, Moeran went on to complete his Symphony, two concertos, and much else of enduring value and importance.In this first-ever full-length study of his music, Geoffrey Self examines Moeran's output chronologically, from his early piano and chamber music and tone-poems to the late masterpieces of the Cello Concerto and Cello Sonata.GEOFFREY SELF was Head of Music at Cornwall Technical College until 1981. He received a B.Mus. from the University of London and an M.Phil. from Exeter.

Dr Robert Simpson, one of Britain's finest composers and for nearly thirty years a BBC music producer, scrutinises the methods by which the BBC plans the annual Promenade Concerts. Basing his argument on long experience inside theBBC, Dr Simpson argues the only logical way to give the Proms the flair that a single imagination can provide - without those otherwise inevitable long-term imbalances - is to limit the tenure of the Controller to four or five years. Dr Simpson further examines the artistic gains and financial savings to be made from more extensive use of the BBC's own orchestra. He suggests that not only would this measure produce a saving of a staggering 62% of costs; it would also give the Controller almost total control of the repertoire. This would enable the Proms to become more adventurous than ever before, and a true realisation of Sir Henry Wood's original vision.A musician andwriter of scholarly books on Nielsen, Bruckner and Beethoven, for 30 years ROBERT SIMPSON was also a Music Producer with the BBC.

First survey of Copland's entire output for some 30 years - a period seeing some of his most important works.Aaron Copland was one of the twentieth century's most popular and distinguished composers. Copland was born in 1900 in Brooklyn, where he began his musical career, before moving to the Paris in the 1920s, where Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Les Six were the centre of attention. On his return to the United States at the end of the decade he began to produce a series of works which could leave no one in any doubt that American composers were capable of writing music equal to the best of their European contemporaries.This chronological survey of Copland's work discusses ever one of his compositions and examines his influential writings on music. Profusely illustrated with musicexamples and photographs, it includes a conversation on the piano music with Aaron Copland and Leo Smit and also features sketches of Copland in rehearsal by Milein Cosman.NEIL BUTTERWORTH was formerly Head of Music atNapier College, Edinburgh.

Brings out Dallapiccola's enduring importance as critic as well as composer.The Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola [1904-75] always characterised himself as a `man of the theatre', and Il Prigioniero [The Prisoner] has been performed more often than any other Italian opera since Puccini. Dallapiccola on Opera, the first collection of his writings to appear in English, proves that he was also an inspired essayist and critic. To the directness and psychological insight of his narrative style, Dallapiccola adds probing observation of details in the critical texts that form the core of this book. Whether writing about familiar masterpieces like Mozart's Don Giovanni and Verdi's Falstaff, Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande, or discussing such great but problematic works as Monteverdi's Il Ritorno di Ulisse in patria, Busoni's Doktor Faust and Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, Dallapiccola illuminates fundamental, previously unnoticed dramatic and musical aspects.

A major step in the rediscovery of one of the towering composers of the twentieth century; this brings to Schmidt's music the scholarship it so richly merits.Franz Schmidt is increasingly being recognised as a major composer. His music covers symphonies, quartets, opera and oratorio, and works and organ. In all of these genres he proves himself a master of large-scale symphonic form and one of the most substantial lyric geniuses of all time. Schmidt spent most of his life in Austria [he died in Vienna in 1939] where his importance was universally agreed.Here, Harold Truscott, the outstanding authorityon Schmidt in the English-speaking world, examines the orchestral works, taking the reader and listener through each of these mighty scores. Introduced by the `Personal Recollections' of Hans Keller, who knew Schmidt well in pre-World-War-II Vienna, the book also features the first-ever translation into English of Schmidt's Autobiographical Sketch, where the composer tells of his early childhood in Hungary, his teenage years near Vienna and his life as acellist in the Vienna Philharmonic.HAROLD TRUSCOTT is a composer and writer. He was Principal Lecturer in Music at Huddersfield Polytechnic and has performed widely as a pianist in recital, broadcast and concert work.

Here, Holmboe discusses many issues facing the composer, performer and listener, giving especial attention to the most basic questions about musical experience.Vagn Holmboe [1909-96], was one of the most important composers of his era, and arguably the most important Danish composer after Carl Nielsen. A composer for over 60 years, and a teacher for more than 30, he wrote over 300 compositions in nearly every musical genre, music criticism, many other articles and two other books. Here, in a volume intended for the general reader, he discusses the nature of music, from the point of view of the composer, the performer and the listener. Where do musical ideas come from? What are composers' working methods, and how much are they really aware of them? What is the role of performers, and what sort of freedom do they have in interpreting music?What do listeners do in listening to music? What, essentially, is the musical experience?Professor Paul Rapoport contributes a lengthy introduction to this book, although, as he points out, `this is not a book about Vagn Holmboe nor a book addressed solely to musicians ... Holmboe's prose, like his music, is addressed to his fellow human beings, whoever and wherever they may be'.

Here, Holmboe discusses many issues facing the composer, performer and listener, giving especial attention to the most basic questions about musical experience.Vagn Holmboe [1909-96], was one of the most important composers of his era, and arguably the most important Danish composer after Carl Nielsen. A composer for over 60 years, and a teacher for more than 30, he wrote over 300 compositions in nearly every musical genre, music criticism, many other articles and two other books. Here, in a volume intended for the general reader, he discusses the nature of music, from the point of view of the composer, the performer and the listener. Where do musical ideas come from? What are composers' working methods, and how much are they really aware of them? What is the role of performers, and what sort of freedom do they have in interpreting music?What do listeners do in listening to music? What, essentially, is the musical experience?Professor Paul Rapoport contributes a lengthy introduction to this book, although, as he points out, `this is not a book about Vagn Holmboe nor a book addressed solely to musicians ... Holmboe's prose, like his music, is addressed to his fellow human beings, whoever and wherever they may be'.

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.

A most gifted musician of his generation, this book traces Gideon Klein's short life through his music, his diaries and documents as well as the reminiscences of his friends and family.Don't Forget about Me' chronicles the extraordinary and moving story about the young Czech pianist and composer Gideon Klein. Standing on the threshold of what was to be an auspicious career, Klein's musical activities in Prague were ruptured, as he, his family and friends were deported, interned in the Terezín (Theresienstadt) prison camp and ghetto. There his life took an even more unexpected turn, as he galvanised prisoners into an astonishing array of musical activities, and he composed his finest and most compelling music.Until recently, Klein's music has largely been performed within the context of Holocaust memorialisation. But events commemorating the Klein centenary in 2019 offered audiences and musicians the opportunity to re-assess and reposition Klein's place in the history of twentieth-century music and European modernism. David Fligg's monograph on Klein, the first in a quarter of a century, continues this process. Drawing on hitherto unpublished archival sources, interviews with Holocaust survivors who were imprisoned with him, many rare photographs and detailed musical analysis, 'Don't forget about me' recounts Klein's life from his Moravian childhood (he was born in Přerov in 1919), charting the development of his musical talent. It presents the first detailed examination of how the teenage Klein engaged with the numerous artistes who were at the centre of the vibrant cultural environment of pre-war Prague. Klein was finally transported to an isolated and bleak Auschwitz sub-camp, in the freezing closing weeks of 1944, where he was killed in a massacre by the retreating prison guards. His story, along with the compositions which remarkably survived Terezín, is one of the most fascinating of Czech Jews during the Holocaust, and documents how one young man continued to make music in the face of evil.

Investigation of unjustly neglected opera.Hans Pfitzner's `musical legend' Palestrina is considered in the German-speaking countries to be one of the supreme masterpieces of music, and yet it is all but unknown elsewhere. The opera, first performed in 1917, tells the story of the composer Palestrina, his struggle to compose following the death of his wife and in the face of anti-musical decrees from the Church, and his eventual composition of the Missa Papae Marcelli, which, it is said, wasdictated to him by angles and reconciled the Church to contrapuntal music. The story, set against the historical background of the Council of Trent, is an allegory of the individual artist in society, as well as a statement of Pfitzner's own beliefs about the musical climate of his time.Toller discusses the music and the dramatic structure, and presents a comprehensive introduction to the background material in the many diverse fields encompassed by the opera.OWEN TOLLER is Head of Mathematics at Merchant Taylor's School; he is a member of the London Symphony Chorus and sings with a number of other groups. His interest in Pfitzner began when he sang in the first British performance of Palestrina, a semi-professional production by Abbey Opera in London in 1979.

First full-length study of Schubert's career as a symphonist.Astonishingly, Schubert's symphonies have never received the detailed study that their prominence in the orchestral repertoire would suggest they deserve. In this book Professor Brian Newbould, perhaps the best-known of contemporary Schubert scholars, examines each symphony for its individuality and shows its relationship to Schubert's symphonic ouvre. He gives particular attention to the sketched works that have recently emerged in his own completions andto the two familiar masterpieces of Schubert's maturity, the `Unfinished' and the `Great C major'. He also casts new light on the role of Haydn and Mozart as models for the younger Schubert.Schubert and the Symphony is conceived as a companion to the symphonies for the listener, the professional musician and the student.BRIAN NEWBOULD is Professor of Music at the University of Hull. He has lectured extensively in Europe and North and South Ameica, and occasionally finds time to compose, conduct and perform.

Presents for the first time the complete surviving correspondence of the outstanding Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos [1887-1959], one of the most colourful figures in twentieth-century music.This complete edition of the letters of the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, collected for the first time in any language, details his stay in the Paris of the 1920s, his work in Brazil and the 1930s and `40s and his international travels as conductor of his own music. The letters also discuss commissions for ballets, concertos and other works. Lisa M. Peppercorn, who knew Villa-Lobos, is the acknowledged expert on the life and music of this colourful figure, and she gives a detailed commentary on the events giving rise to the letters. A chronology gives a detailed account of Villa-Lobos' life, which is thoroughly illustrated with photographs of the persons and places associated with Villa-Lobos, facsimiles of works and concert programmes, and so on. The letters thus form a guide to the most productive years of his life.

First full-length study of the composer George Enescu [1881-1955].The Romanian composer George Enescu (1881-1955] is one of the neglected giants of the twentieth century. Prodigiously gifted, he became best known in America as a conductor (where he was considered as a successor to Toscanini in New York) and in Europe as one of the greatest violinists of the century. But he was first and foremost a composer; and, tragically, his mature works - works of extraordinary emotional depth and intricate beauty - remain almost unknown outside Romania. This, the first full-length study of Enescu and his music to be written in the West, tells the story of his life and development as a composer. All of Enescu's published compositions, and many unpublished works, are discussed, and there is a detailed list of Enescu's compositions and a list of all his known recordings as conductor, violinist and pianist. The book is intended for the non-specialist reader as well as the musicologist.NOEL MALCOLM, the historian, philosopher and journalist, is the leading authority on Enescu.

This is the first in a two-volume study of Jenkins and his music. It concerns itself exclusively with the superb consorts for viols which dominate the early part of the composer's career.

This first volume of a projected two volume study of the music of John Jenkins concentrates exclusively on his consorts for viols.John Jenkins (1592-1678) was both the most prolific and most esteemed of English composers between the death of Byrd and the rise of Purcell. During his long life he was employed as a resident musician in East Anglian noble households and became a court musician to Charles II in his later years.This is the first in a two-volume study of Jenkins and his music. It presents a biographical introduction to the composer then concerns itself exclusively with the superb consorts for viols which dominate the early part of the composer's career. It is profusely illustrated with music examples and discusses virtually every work in this form.ANDREW ASHBEE is an internationally renowned expert on C17th English instrumental music, has edited a number of volumes of music from the period, and is an author, broadcaster and lecturer.

The first comprehensive selection of Szymanowski's writings to be published in English, containing all the most important of the composer's essays and interviews.Karol Szymanowski [1882-1937] is now widely acknowledged to be the most important Polish composer since Chopin. He was also a considerable thinker on musical topics: the role of music in society, the goal of musical education, thepurpose of criticism, the nature of Romanticism, the hallmarks of national identity - indeed, he was passionately concerned with the emergence of the Polish voice in music, and the role of Chopin in particular.Szymanowski on Music is the first comprehensive selection of his writings to be published in English. It contains all the most important of the composer's essays and interviews, throws light on the trying conditions under which he was obliged to work in the 1920s and '30s, especially in education, and gives perceptive assessments of the work of some of the major composers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - Wagner, Strauss, Stravinsky, Ravel, Satie and others - and the trends they embodied. A number of pieces of a more biographical nature are also included. Overall it provides, in the words of the translator Alistair Wightman, `abundant evidence of the breadth and depthof Szymanowski's personal culture, and at the same time a telling demonstration of his search for an all-embracing humanistic synthesis'. Dr Wightman faces his pioneering translations from Szymanowski's Polish originals with an extensive introductory essay that places his literary activities in the context of his life and career. This book will be a vital element in the rediscovery of the music of one of the twentieth century's most appealing composers.

This collection of essays covers virtually all of Stevenson's enormous output and features contributions from leading authorities.Ronald Stevenson is one of Britain's leading composers, and almost certainly its most prolific. He is best known for his massive Passacaglia on DSCH - at 80 minutes long, the biggest single-movement work in the piano literature. But he has an enormous number of other fine works to his credit: a vast corpus of original and exciting works for the piano, the instrument of which he is an acknowledged master, a number of innovative and impressive scores for orchestra [including four concertos], many attractive pieces of chamber music, and over two hundred songs. All of them testify to Stevenson's enduring belief in the value of melody. Stevenson is also one of the last representatives of the great tradition of Romantic composer-pianists - the tradition that embraced Paderewski and Busoni, two figures with whom he feels a particularly affinity, and whose heritage he has extended, both as performer and creative personality, into the modern age.This collection of essays covers virtually all of Stevenson's enormous output. It features contributions from a number of leading authorities: Malcolm MacDonald on the orchestral music, Ates Orga on the piano works, Alistair Chisholm on the chamber music, Derek Watson on the songs, Harold Taylor on Stevenson's pianism, Jamie Reid Baxter on the choral music and on Stevenson's position in Scottish culture. It also reproduces a selection of Stevenson's exquisite piano miniatures, in facsimiles of the composer's calligraphic script.In a Foreword written shortly before his death, Lord Menuhin describes Stevenson as 'one of the most original minds in the composition of music' and predicts that 'his music will be appreciated more and more'. This book is a major step in that process of discovery. COLIN SCOTT-SUTHERLAND has contributed several articles on RonaldStevenson's work to various journals, and a chapter on his music to British Music Now.

Offers a unique perspective in to what it takes to perform Richard Wagner's operas.Performing Wagner studies each of the iconic Wagnerian heldentenor roles from the unique perspective of the performer. Stephen Gould studied and acted them hundreds of times in scores of productions around the world prior to his passing in 2023. In this thoughtful book, he offers insights to building a character, understanding the dramatic arc of each role, analysing each scene for cogency and dramatic structure, and finding the clues embedded in the music and the words. His intelligence and eloquence offer perspectives that only a performer can experience. The book is unique in opera literature. Neither a memoir nor a musical analysis, Performing Wagner is a practical guide to preparing for, and performing, these roles. Stephen Gould hoped to share his experiences with enthusiasts of Wagner's works, as well as opera audiences more generally who seek to learn what singing actors do in performance. It is invaluable to young artists approaching this repertoire and to scholars studying Wagner's dramaturgy. More broadly, this volume speaks to the condition of every opera fan who has ever been floored by a great performance and wondered, 'how did they do that?'A chapter is devoted to each role, and a foreword is provided by Katharina Wagner, the composer's great-granddaughter and Director of the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany.

The first study of the life and music of the composer George Butterworth [1885-1916], including some of his own writings on music.The career of the composer George Butterworth was cruelly cut short by a sniper's bullet at the Somme. His name is kept alive by the popularity of his orchestral tone-poems, such as The Banks of Green Willow and A Shropshire Lad, and his songs. In this book, the first full-length study of Butterworth, Michael Barlow traces his brief life: from preparatory school through Eton and Oxford, a teaching post at Radley, study at the Royal College ofMusic, a period as a music critic for The Times - and his enlisting in August 1914 which, two years later, led to his heroic death at the Somme. All of Butterworth's surviving compositions are discussed, and important chapters examine his Housman settings and his friendship with Vaughan Williams. Butterworth was also prominent in the folksong revival, and chronicled here for the first time are his extensive activities as a folksong and dance collector. The book also includes some of Butterworth's own writings on music.

The first extensive study of the life and music of the Swiss composer, Richard Flury (1896-1967).The late-Romantic composer Richard Flury (1896-1967) was born in Biberist, a tiny town outside the Baroque city of Solothurn in northern Switzerland. He went to school in Solothurn, later taught there, conducted its orchestra, andhad his operas and ballets performed at the local theatre by its semi-professional ensemble. But Flury was more than just another conservative composer stuck in the provinces. His teachers included Ernst Kurth and JosephMarx of Vienna, and his music was performed by conductors such as Felix Weingartner and Hermann Scherchen and star instrumentalists like Wilhelm Backhaus and Georg Kulenkampff. His first opera was conducted by a former student ofBerg and Schoenberg who became his staunch advocate, and during the Second World War Flury worked closely with several Jewish emigré writers and musicians from Germany and Czechoslovakia.In his music of the early 1930s, the influence of Berg and Hindemith became apparent as Flury dabbled in modernism and free tonality before moving back to a more traditionalist stance; but he was also a fine tunesmith who loved writing Viennese waltzes and violin miniatures after the manner of Kreisler. In both his aesthetic and his career, Flury offers a fascinating case of a man negotiating constantly between the centre and the periphery - and composing some very good music in the process.The book includes a 23 track CD of Flury's music.CHRIS WALTON teaches music history at the Basel University of Music in Switzerland. He is the author of Othmar Schoeck: Life and Works (2009) and Richard Wagner's Zurich: The Muse of Place (2007).

The long-awaited sequel to Andrew Ashbee's pioneering study of the life and music of John Jenkins (1592-1678). The primary focus of this second volume is Jenkins' huge output of fantasia-suites, but his vocal music also comes under examination, and a complete source-list of Jenkins' music is provided.John Jenkins (1592-1678) was both the most prolific and the most esteemed of English composers in the fifty years or so between the death of William Byrd and the rise of Henry Purcell. After his apprenticeship Jenkins became renowned as a skilled performer on lute and viol, once playing to Charles I 'as one that performed somewhat extraordinary'. Throughout his long life he was employed as a resident musician in East Anglia in households of the nobility, where, as well as playing, teaching and directing the music-making, his duties would include the composing and copying of music. At the restoration of Charles II Jenkins became a court musician, although, in view of his advanced age, he spent little time there. He died on 27 October 1678 at Kimberley, Norfolk, where he is buried.As a composer, Jenkins' preferred medium was instrumental music, and he wrote little else. He came to maturity in the 1620s,when the consort fantasia for viols was in its prime. In later years he turned to the newer music then in vogue, such as the fantasia-suite and suites of dances, contributing significantly to their development.This book is the second in a two-volume study of Jenkins and his music. Volume I contains a full biographical introduction before concerning itself exclusively with the superb consorts for viols which dominate the early part of the composer's career. This second volume surveys the rest of his output, setting each group of pieces in context, beginning with his innovative series of fantasia-suites. Although often unpretentious and geared to amateur performance, his 'horsloads' of airs maintain a lively and varied character. More than fifty works for bass viol(s) are among the best of their kind, as are the pieces featuring the lyra viol in both solo and consort works. The book ends by examining Jenkins' vocal music. Whatever medium he chose, Jenkins was able to add important pieces to the repertory. An growing list of recordings endorses Christopher Simpson's view that he was 'the ever Famous and most Excellent Composer,in all sorts of Modern Musick'.

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.

An edited collection that assesses the music of 34 Dutch composers who were persecuted by the Nazis during World War Two. German occupation during the Second World War destroyed the careers of many Dutch composers. Some of them fled or went into hiding; many were murdered. In the Netherlands alone, at least 35 composers were persecuted, and most were then forgotten. Among them were Jewish composers like Daniël Belinfante, Dick Kattenburg, Leo Smit and Rosy Wertheim, but there were also figures from abroad who had sought refuge in the Netherlands, like Hans Lachmann and Ferenc Weisz, as well as those who had to go into hiding or were incarcerated because of their resistance activities, like Jan van Gilse and Marius Flothuis. What music had these men and women composed in the Netherlands during the interbellum? What did the survivors write with the return of peace? And what damage to the fabric of Dutch musical history was done by the Nazi tyranny?

The writings of David Cairns have played a major part in the relatively recent acceptance of Berlioz as a central figure in western classical music. Discovering Berlioz collects articles, lectures and other texts from several decades of advocacy, throwing new light on this outsize personality - the Romantic composer par excellence.For the past half-century and more David Cairns has been one of the world's pre-eminent Berlioz scholars, translating Berlioz's freewheeling memoirs and writing a monumental biography of the composer that earned a procession of awards. But many of Cairns' writings on Berlioz were intended for particular audiences - the Berlioz Society Bulletin, articles in books and journals, contributions to newspapers (he was a critic for The Sunday Times for 25 years) and lectures - and have never been collected between a single set of covers. Discovering Berlioz presents nearly 40 essays from the past five decades that even now throw unexpected light on this most quixotic and profound of composers - firebrand and philosopher almost in the same breath. These articles follow the chronology of Berlioz's life, examining the influences of his provincial childhood on his music, the revelations of Virgil, Gluck, Shakespeare and Beethoven, the tribulations of his professional life in Paris, when the pressure to earn a living as a reviewer and writer robbed him of the time he should have spent on composition, and finally focusing on the masterpiece that crowned Berlioz's difficult life, the operatic epic Les Troyens. Discovering Berlioz also charts the history of Berlioz reception: the composer who in the mid-twentieth century was regarded as aneccentric outsider is now seen as one of the most vital figures in the history of western music - a re-assessment for which David Cairns himself deserves much of the credit.

The music of the Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock (1862-1921) is one of the glories of European late-Romantic culture, although is hardly known outside his native Netherlands. This translation makes Leo Samama's masterly study of Diepenbrock available to non-Dutch readers for the first time.The music of Alphons Diepenbrock (1862-1921) is one of the glories of European late-Romantic culture. But it is hardly known outside his native Netherlands - a situation this book hopes to change. Diepenbrock's life and his music are deeply intertwined: self-taught as a composer, he was a classics tutor by profession, a Catholic with a fondness for religious mysticism and one of the leading Dutch intellectuals of his day, with Mahler, Schoenberg and Richard Strauss among his circle of friends. In his 'Overture' to this book Robin Holloway describes Diepenbrock's music - most of which involves the voice - as a 'wondrous fusion of Palestrina and Wagner (with Debussy thrown in, and a dash of Mahler)' and praises its 'visionary serenity'. It is that balance between classical clarity and Romantic passion that gives Diepenbrock's compositions their unique character - and their emotional power. Leo Samama's richly illustrated study of Diepenbrock sets him and his music in the context of their times, this translation opening up an important chapter of European history to non-Dutch-speaking readers for the first time.

The first systematic assessment of the symphonic style of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu [1890-1959], tracing the evolution of his musical language and including detailed analyses of all six symphonies.Over the past few decades the music of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) has enjoyed a slow but steady rise in popularity, and his six symphonies, written between 1942 and 1953, have now been recorded many times; concert performances are on the increase, too. But Martinu and the Symphony is not only the first book in English intended to help the music-lover to a deeper understanding of these glorious works - it is by far the most comprehensive work on the subject in any language. Each Symphony is examined in turn, the analyses revealing what makes each creation so individual yet also so clearly part of a close-knit family of works and identifying the elements of his melodic, harmonic and instrumental style which produce Martinu's very personal vibrant and organic symphonic manner.Martinu and the Symphony is illustrated with almost 200 musical examples, taken not only fromthe Symphonies but also from his other works for large orchestra. His path to symphonic mastery is examined in unprecedented detail: attention is at last paid to the early orchestral works which, although largely unperformed andunpublished even now, afford fascinating glimpses of the composer to come. A study of the late triptychs The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca and The Parables rounds out this appraisal of Martinus enthralling symphonic and orchestral legacy.

The correspondence of the composer-pianists Percy Grainger [1882-1961] and Ronald Stevenson [b. 1928], together with Stevenson's writings on Grainger and two interviews with Stevenson.In 1957 the Australian-American composer Percy Grainger, then 75 and in failing health, received a letter from another pianist-composer, the young Ronald Stevenson, writing from his home in West Linton, below Edinburgh. That firstcontact - requesting Grainger's reminiscences of Ferruccio Busoni, with whom he had studied - led to an exchange of 32 letters over the four years before Grainger's death in February 1961. The two men soon found that, despite their 46-year age-difference, they had many affinities. Both were pianists of staggering abilities and composers who combined a love for folk-music and working-class art with an aesthetic that proposed a `world music' to include the farthest reaches of humanity. Both made an art of piano transcription of a wide variety of works and were champions of little-known music and composers. And both revered the work of Walt Whitman, that great poet of inclusivity,the pioneering spirit and the open road.This book presents both the complete Grainger-Stevenson correspondence and Ronald Stevenson's many articles and lectures on Grainger and his music, edited by Teresa Balough, whosetwo interviews with Stevenson open and close the volume - which includes a CD of a lecture-recital on Grainger that Stevenson presented in Grainger's home in White Plains, New York, in 1976.

Hans Keller's text and Milein Cosman's vibrant illustrations combine to produce a unique and enlightening book on Stravinsky.Stravinsky the Music-Maker is the third incarnation of a book that has been greeted with superlatives on each previous appearance. Hans Keller and Milein Cosman collaborated down the decades of their married life, Keller'spen analysing music, Cosman's catching its makers at work. Stravinsky was a source of fascination for them both, and their Stravinsky at Rehearsal appeared in 1962, to be expanded, two decades later, as Stravinsky Seen and Heard. Stravinsky the Music-Maker offers the most generous compilation of their work yet: it includes Keller's complete articles on Stravinsky, written between 1954 and 1980, and augments Cosman's celebrated prints and drawings with a number not previously published. The introduction, by the composer Hugh Wood, sites the Keller-Cosman partnership in the framework of the British musical life they enriched.HANS KELLER (1919-85) fled Austria in1938 and became a commanding critical voice in British music journalism and on the BBC from the end of the war until his death. He is the author of numerous books, many illustrated by his wife Milein Cosman, including Criticism (Faber), The Great Haydn String Quartets (Dent), Essays on Music (CUP), Jerusalem Diary, Film Music and Beyond and Music and Psychology (all Plumbago). A critic of insight and integrity throughout his life, he remains a powerful influence to this day.