The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams

The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams
Author: Alain Frogley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2013-11-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0521197686

A comprehensive reassessment of this towering figure of twentieth-century music, examining works, cultural context and reception in Britain and beyond.

The Cambridge Companion to the Symphony

The Cambridge Companion to the Symphony
Author: Julian Horton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 469
Release: 2013-05-02
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1107469708

Few genres of the last 250 years have proved so crucial to the course of music history, or so vital to public musical experience, as the symphony. This Companion offers an accessible guide to the historical, analytical and interpretative issues surrounding this major genre of Western music, discussing an extensive variety of works from the eighteenth century to the present day. The book complements a detailed review of the symphony's history with focused analytical essays from leading scholars on the symphonic music of both mainstream composers, including Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and lesser-known figures, including Carter, Berio and Maxwell Davies. With chapters on a comprehensive range of topics, from the symphony's origins to the politics of its reception in the twentieth century, this is an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in the history, analysis and performance of the symphonic repertoire.

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Author: Ryan Ross
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2016-03-17
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1317646150

Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Research and Information Guide presents the most extensive annotated bibliography of its subject yet produced. It offers comprehensive coverage of the English composer's prose works and accounts for over 1,000 secondary sources from all critical and scholarly eras. A single-numbering format and substantial indexes facilitate efficient searches of what is the most complete bibliography of Ralph Vaughan Williams since Neil Butterworth's guide to research was published by Garland in 1990.

Vaughan Williams and His World

Vaughan Williams and His World
Author: Byron Adams
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2023-08-05
Genre:
ISBN: 0226830454

A biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams, published in collaboration with the Bard Music Festival. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was one of the most innovative and creative figures in twentieth-century music, whose symphonies stand alongside those of Sibelius, Nielsen, Shostakovich, and Roussel. After his death, shifting priorities in the music world led to a period of critical neglect. What could not have been foreseen is that by the second decade of the twenty-first century, a handful of Vaughan Williams's scores would attain immense popularity worldwide. Yet the present renown of these pieces has led to misapprehension about the nature of Vaughan Williams's cultural nationalism and a distorted view of his international cultural and musical significance. Vaughan Williams and His World traces the composer's stylistic and aesthetic development in a broadly chronological fashion, reappraising Vaughan Williams's music composed during and after the Second World War and affirming his status as an artist whose leftist political convictions pervaded his life and music. This volume reclaims Vaughan Williams's deeply held progressive ethical and democratic convictions while celebrating his achievements as a composer.

The Choral-Orchestral Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams

The Choral-Orchestral Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams
Author: Stephen Town
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2019-12-06
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1793606013

The Choral-Orchestral Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams: Autographs, Context, Discourse combines contextual knowledge, a musical commentary, an inventory of the holograph manuscripts, and a critical assessment of the opus to create substantial and meticulous examinations of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s choral-orchestral works. The contents include an equitable choice of pieces from the various stages in the life of the composer and an analysis of pieces from the various stages of Williams’s life. The earliest are taken from the pre-World War I years, when Vaughan Williams was constructing his identity as an academic and musician—Vexilla Regis (1894), Mass (1899), and A Sea Symphony (1910). The middle group are chosen from the interwar period—Sancta Civitas (1925), Benedicite (1929), Magnificat (1932), Five Tudor Portraits (1935), Dona nobis pacem (1936)—written after Vaughan Williams had found his mature voice. The last cluster—Thanksgiving for Victory (1944), Fantasia (Quasi Variazione) on the ‘Old 104’ Psalm Tune(1949), Sons of Light (1950), Hodie (1954), The Bridal Day/Epithalamion (1938/1957)—typify the works finished or revisited during the final years of the composer’s life, near the end of the Second World War and immediately before or after his second marriage (1953).

Vaughan Williams

Vaughan Williams
Author: Keith Alldritt
Publisher: Robert Hale Ltd
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2017-05-31
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0719824419

The ground-breaking biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams reveals more than any other the man behind the music. The author examines the considerable range of Vaughan Williams's work, from the English pastoral tradition to Modernism, and shows how Vaughan Williams was influenced by the Boer War, the economic depression after the First World War, the deprivations of the Blitz, and the austerity of the Cold War. He also reveals how the greatest influence on Vaughan Williams's music and creative development was his personal life, involving his seemingly secure marriage and an equally enduring love affair. The author shows how these reflected both the stability and cutting-edge aspects of his music. Like a great symphony, this book ranges from doubt to inspiration. It is the most complete biography of one of Britain's greatest composers and will be of interest to historians, students of music and Vaughan Williams enthusiasts.

Historical Dictionary of Choral Music

Historical Dictionary of Choral Music
Author: Melvin P. Unger
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 699
Release: 2023-08-14
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1538124343

A Library Journal Starred Review (March 2024) praises the book as a "remarkable resource that will please both musical professionals and amateurs, along with teachers and their students, and conductors and singers.” Throughout the ages, people have wanted to sing in a communal context. This desire apparently stems from a deeply rooted human instinct. Consequently, choral performance historically has often been related to human rituals and ceremonies, especially rites of a religious nature. Historical Dictionary of Choral Music, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 1,300 cross-referenced entries on composers, conductors, choral ensembles, choral genres, and choral repertoire. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about choral music.

Vaughan Williams Studies

Vaughan Williams Studies
Author: Alain Frogley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1996-12-12
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780521480314

A collection of essays on Vaughan Williams explores his musical language, cultural context and biography.

Albion’s Glory

Albion’s Glory
Author: Stephen H. Smith
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2022-01-12
Genre: Music
ISBN: 180046696X

My book begins with a brief consideration of what we mean by “English music” and what factors are involved. I explain the reasons behind my choice of composers for consideration, and for the omissions from the survey.