A new biography of which paints the most well-rounded and factually accurate portrait of the composer to date Ralph Vaughan Williams ranks among the most versatile, influential, and enduringly popular British musicians of his era. Throughout his wide-ranging career-as composer, conductor, editor, scholar, folksong collector, teacher, author, administrator, and philanthropist-Vaughan Williams worked tirelessly to improve the standards and quality of British musical life. Hi...

Covering works by popular figures like Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst as well as less familiar English composers, Eric Saylor's pioneering book examines pastoral music's critical, theoretical, and stylistic foundations alongside its creative manifestations in the contexts of Arcadia, war, landscape, and the Utopian imagination. As Saylor shows, pastoral music adapted and transformed established musical and aesthetic conventions that reflected the experiences of British composers a...

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...

'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...

W. H. Auden disapproved of literary biography. Or did he? The truth is far more equivocal than at first seems apparent. There is no denying he delivered himself of such unambiguous pronouncements as 'Biographies of writers are always superfluous and usually in bad taste.'; and that he asked for his friends to burn his letters at his death, but, against that, Auden himself often reviewed literary biographies and normally with enthusiasm. Moreover he argued for biographies of writers such as...

In Victorian times, England was famously dubbed the land without music - but one of the great musical discoveries of the early twentieth century was that England had a vital heritage of folk song and music which was easily good enough to stand comparison with those of other parts of Britain and overseas. Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Percy Grainger, and a number of other enthusiasts gathered a huge harvest of songs and tunes which we can study and enjoy at our leisure....

Andrew Gant's compelling account traces English church music from Anglo-Saxon origins to the present. It is a history of the music and of the people who made, sang and listened to it. It shows the role church music has played in ordinary lives and how it reflects those lives back to us. The author considers why church music remains so popular and frequently tops the classical charts and why the BBC's Choral Evensong remains the longest-running radio series ever. He shows how Engla...

In the late 1960s, a new movement emerged championing historically informed 'authentic' approaches to performance. Heard today in concert halls across the world and in a library's worth of recordings, it has completely transformed the way in which we listen to 'old' music, while revolutionizing the classical music profession in the process. Yet the rise of Early Music has been anything but uncontroversial. Historically informed performance (HIP) has provoked heated debate amongst musicolog...

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.

The Oxford Companion to English Literature has long been established as the leading reference resource for students, teachers, scholars, and general readers of English literature. It provides unrivalled coverage of all aspects of English literature - from writers, their works, and the historical and cultural context in which they wrote, to critics, literary theory, and allusions. For the seventh edition, the Companion has been thoroughly revised and updated to meet the ne...

In the chaos of the English Civil War and Puritan Commonwealth, churches were defaced and organs broken, but the tradition of fine music survived. When Charles II returned from exile in 1660, one of the first things he demanded was music, sacred and profane, anthems and motets, pavannes and gavottes. In 1659 Henry Purcell was born, and his genius would give the period and nation an unforgettable voice.Jonathan Keates traces Purcell's development against the turbulent movements of h...