The county of Warwickshire has a rich and varied past that is reflected in its historic churches. In Churches of Warwickshire, author and stained-glass artist Aidan McRae Thomson explores a selection of the most interesting churches across the whole of the county. Coventry has been included as it was part of the historic county and the buildings featured range from churches in the county town of Warwick and major settlements such as Nuneaton, Rugby and Leamington Spa to market towns, not l...

Stained glass has been one of the chief glories of Britain’s churches – and, later, grand houses and public buildings – since Norman times. Surviving medieval windows constitute the greatest collection of pre-Tudor art to have survived the iconoclasm of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and together with the work of later glass artists, our inheritance of stained glass is one of the key features of our national heritage. In this new introduction to stained glass in Britain scholar a...

An icon of British national identity and one of the most widely performed twentieth-century composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams has been as much misunderstood as revered; his international impact and enduring influence on areas as diverse as church music, film scores and popular music has been insufficiently appreciated. This volume brings together a team of leading scholars, examining all areas of the composer's output from new perspectives, and re-evaluating the cultural politics of his li...

For centuries, the sea and those who sail upon it have inspired the imaginations of British musicians. Generations of British artists have viewed the ocean as a metaphor for the mutable human condition - by turns calm and reflective, tempestuous and destructive - and have been influenced as much by its physical presence as by its musical potential. But just as geographical perspectives and attitudes on seascapes have evolved over time, so too have culturalassumptions about their meaning an...

Ian Bostridge is one of the outstanding singers of our time, celebrated for the quality of his voice but also for the exceptional intelligence he brings to bear on the interpretation of the repertoire of the past and present alike. Yet his early career was that of a professional historian, and A Singer's Notebook takes a look at the multifaceted world of classical music through the eyes of someone whose career as a singer has followed a unique trajectory. Consisting of short essay...

Listen. What do you hear?We are surrounded by sounds all the time, but we tend not to hear them; our brains are very good at editing what our ears pick up. If we stop for a moment to listen, there they are: the ticking clock, traffic noise, fragments of conversation, a passing plane. These are examples of what the American composer John Cage called “illegal harmony”.In response to the noisiest century in history, modern composers have consistently flown in ...

From Gregorian chant to Bach's Brandenburg Concerti, the music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods is both beautiful and intriguing, expanding our horizons as it nourishes our souls. In this Very Short Introduction, Thomas Forrest Kelly provides not only a compact overview of the music itself, but also a lively look at the many attempts over the last two centuries to revive it. Kelly shows that the early-music revival has long been grounded in the idea of spontaneity...

'Sounds in the silent air' takes it title from a song by Ivor Gurney (1890 –1937). He was one of a number of English composers who fought in the First World War, alongside Arthur Bliss and Ralph Vaughan Williams. How did their experience affect the music they wrote and what impact did it have on their creative soul? This eBook reflects on these issues.Selected works by Gurney, Bliss and Vaughan Williams will be contrasted with music from composers of an earlier generation including...

Britten's Children confronts the edgy subject of the composer's obsessional yet strangely innocent relationships with adolescent boys. One of the hallmarks of Benjamin Britten's music is his use of boys' voices, and John Bridcut uses this to create a fresh prism through which to view the composer's life. Interweaving discussion of the music he wrote for and about children with interviews with the boys whom Britten befriended, Bridcut explores the influence of these unique ...

John Bridcut, author of the acclaimed 'Britten's Children', has included significant fresh material which will make the book indispensable for Britten aficionados as well as for those who are discovering the composer's music for the first time. This guide is all about finding a way into Britten's music.An outline of planned chapters:- The Top Ten Britten pieces- Critics' First Impressions- Britten's Life- Britten and Pears- The things they said

This is a compact, composite and authoritative survey of the history and development of the cello and its repertory since the origins of the instrument. The volume comprises thirteen essays, written by a team of nine distinguished scholars and performers, and is intended to develop the cello's historical perspective in breadth and from every relevant angle, offering as comprehensive a coverage as possible. It focuses in particular on four principal areas: the instrument's structure, develo...

This series of biographies presents the great composers against the background of their times. Each draws on personal letters and recollections, engravings, paintings and, when they exist, photographs, to present a complete picture of the composer's life.