|
|
Elgar
Books
 The
Life of Elgar (Musical Lives S.)
This important biography of Elgar draws on letters and documents
which have become available in the last twenty-five years. Michael
Kennedy, a leading scholar of British music and a distinguished
musical biographer, uses this new material, which includes Elgar's
own vast correspondence, in an attempt to get to the centre
of the composer's complex personality. Elgar's letters reveal
his unpredictable swings of mood, from gaiety and a fondness
for puns to morose self-pity and a feeling that he was 'not
wanted', and although much of Elgar's music sounds confident
and coherent, it also has an underlying layer of unease, melancholy
and insecurity. His relationships with his wife and other women
friends are a continuing thread in the life of a man who remained
acutely conscious of his lower middle-class origins in spite
of his meteoric rise to fame, honours in Edward VII's reign
and friendship with the King. Elgar
Books.
 Elgar:
Child of Dreams
Jerrold Northrop Moore pursues his quest for the essential Elgar
and sets out the story of an extraordinary creative life. It
shows themes of childhood, fantasy and vision fusing into a
mature style of nobility and nostalgia. Above all, it links
the composer to the English landscape that informed all of his
work from his earliest years. This powerful short book is the
outcome of half a century's thought and reflection by a leading
Elgar biographer. Elgar Books.
 The
Cambridge Companion to Elgar (Cambridge Companions to Music)
Edward Elgar occupies a pivotal place in the British cultural
imagination. His music has been heard as emblematic of Empire
and the English landscape. The recent success of Anthony Payne's
elaboration of the sketches for Elgar's Third Symphony has prompted
a critical revaluation of his music. This Companion provides
an accessible and vivid account of Elgar's work in its historical
and cultural context. Established authorities on British music
and scholars new in the field examine Elgar's music from a range
of critical perspectives, including nationalism, post-colonialism,
decadence, reception and musical influences. There are also
chapters on interpretation, including his own, Elgar was the
first major composer to commit a representative quantity of
his own work to record, and on Elgar's relationships with the
BBC and with his publishers. The book includes much new material,
drawing on original research, as well as providing a comprehensive
introduction to Elgar's major musical achievements.
Return
To Classical Music Books
|
|
