Portrait of Elgar

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John Allison

Edward Elgar was for many years the most popular composer in Britain; his music was, and remains, inextricably linked with the final, glorious years of the Empire. Yet Elgar himself was almost entirely untypical of the British Establishment. Born a shop-keeper's son, part of an active Catholic family and community, Elgar struggled for many years against the prejudices his background raised in music circles. Ironically, composition for the Anglican Church was an important early platform for Elgar, and it is through the sacred music that this pioneering study approaches his life and work. It traces the development of a composer whose work was criticised for its Catholic overtones, yet who was knighted and the recipient of numerous professorships. John Allison weaves biography, composition and religion as never before to produce a necessary and illuminating new work. In addition to surveying the sacred music, much of it for the first time, he gives an invaluable listing of the works, their scoring and first production.

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Donald Burrows

George Frideric Handel was a defining figure of the late Baroque era, shaping its music for the theatre in much the same way J. S. Bach dominated the writing of music for use in church. Perhaps best known for bringing the oratorio form to an English-speaking audience with masterworks such as Messiah, Handel also had a distinguished career as a composer of Italian operas, and furthermore found time to influence the development of orchestral music by writing such works as the Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks. Donald Burrows's new biography relates Handel's life and his music, devoting particular attention to two crucial junctures in Handel's development: his transition from a church-trained musician in Germany to a successful opera composer in London, and the gradual transformation of his theatre career from opera to oratorio, some thirty years later. In the oratorio form, as Burrows demonstrates, Handel was able to combine the techniques of large-scale construction and of aria writing that he had developed in his operas with an experience of choral music that went back to his earliest training as a church organist. The result was music that succeeds to this day in capturing the imagination of a vast audience. . The last half-century has seen Handel take a major place in modern musical scholarship. This book takes into account not only recent knowledge of historical sources and significant studies of Handel's major works, but also research on Handel's "borrowing" practices, his habit of using the existing musical ideas of other composers as well as his own. Yet Handel remains unsurpassed as one of the greatest compositional architects in the history of Western music, with a sure instinct for both balance and originality in the final result. In this insightful study, Donald Burrows brings to life not only the glory of Handel's artistry, but also his sometimes elusive personality, and the flavor of the times and places in which he lived.

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Michael I. Wilson

There have been few more fascinating careers than that of Nicholas Lanier (1588-1666), Master of the Music to King Charles I, and the first to hold that office. Lanier was not only a notable composer, singer and virtuoso instrumentalist, he was also a practising painter, a friend of Rubens, Van Dyck and many other artists of his time, and one of the very first great art collectors and connoisseurs. He is especially remembered for the part he played in acquiring, on behalf of Charles I, the famous collection of paintings belonging to the Gonzaga family of Mantua. Many of these paintings still form an important part of the Royal Collection today. . In this book the different strands of Lanier's colourful life are for the first time drawn together and presented in a single compelling narrative.

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Imogen Holst

Britten's last years are described in this completely revised third edition of the Great Composers book about him, which continues the story until his death in 1976. The author worked with Britten for some 24 years and is therefore able to write about his life and works with special sympathy and insight. The short music examples have been chosen so that readers of varied experience can sing or play them with the book propped up in front of them.