A selection of Hans Keller's writings on Benjamin Britten including previously unseen correspondence and reprints of long unavailable writings. It was hearing an early performance of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes that turned the young emigre writer and musician Hans Keller from psychology to music. Thereafter he became the composer's most fervent advocate, devoting to him a whole issue of Music Survey (the journal he edited with Donald Mitchell) and the first comprehensive book on his music (again edited with Mitchell). This volume is a selection of the best of his writings, dealing withPeter Grimesthrough to Death in Venice and the Third String Quartet. It also includes an illustrated study by A. M. Garnham of the extensive correspondence between Britten and Keller (most of it hitherto unknown), areprint of the handbooks on The Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring (long out-of-print), and items from the Hans Keller Archive in the University of Cambridge. The book is illustrated with drawings from life by Milein Cosman.

A fresh, elegant and vital enquiry into the elusive character of opera, unfolded through categories and case-studies, with an emphasis on historical background, psychology and performance. This book mounts a searching enquiry into the elusive character of opera. The author argues that any work of art can be grasped primarily through its constellation of Platonic ideas, or 'categories', several of which he explores in light of a new definition of the art-form. He elaborates each category with case-studies rooted in the time, place and circumstance of an opera's origin: most of these are adaptations of previously-published essays, though somedraw on talks for universities, opera houses and the BBC. Although he looks back to the infancy of opera, he concentrates on later, more familiar repertory - principally Wagner, Verdi, Strauss and Britten. Case-studies included under 'Psychology' reveal his long-standing involvement with psychoanalysis, and those under 'Performance' reinforce his view of opera as a branch of rhetoric. As the first of a two-volume project, What Opera Means deals with categories accessible to all: of fifty entries, only two require basic musical knowledge (the second volume will be for specialists). The book is thus suitable for the general reader, as well as for college courses. CHRISTOPHER WINTLE is Emeritus Senior Lecturer in Music at King's College London and General Editor of the series Defining Opera (Plumbago Books). He has published extensively on nineteenth- and twentieth-century music, and for twenty years was an opera critic for the Times Literary Supplement. KATE HOPKINS (Editor) is Content Producer for Opera at the Royal Opera House and Senior Assistant Editor of Plumbago Books. She has written on opera and literature for ENO, WNO and The Royal Opera.

A masterly account of a fraught relationship between Schoenberg (the teacher) and Wellesz (his pupil), set against the intellectual and musical currents of the day. Egon Wellesz studied music only briefly with Arnold Schoenberg but remained forever captivated by his personality. Yet, unlike Alban Berg or Anton Webern, he never wholly succumbed to his master but developed his own style: in the1920s he emerged as a distinctive opera composer, and after emigrating to Britain in 1938 became a prolific symphonist who also produced sensitive settings of English poetry. Schoenberg resented this lack of loyalty, and not onlyrefused to acknowledge Wellesz as a pupil but rather directed at him some intemperate outbursts. Moreover, Schoenberg's general mistrust of musicologists extended to Wellesz, who had trained at Vienna University with Guido Adlerand later helped to shape the study of music in British universities. Yet, as the first biographer, Wellesz did much to promote Schoenberg's cause, especially in France and England. Bojan Bujic weaves these strands together in a masterly and meticulously researched account of a fraught relationship that brings into focus the outstanding intellectual and musical currents of the day in both Austria and Britain.

The evolution of the mixed chamber ensemble of Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire and the growth of the Fires of London, one of the most galvanizing groups in modern music. 2012 marked the centenary of the first performance of Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21, and over the last hundred years its mixed chamber ensemble has become, in all its protean forms, a principal line-up for modern music. This book, the first of its kind, chronicles the ensemble's evolution from Pierrot's earliest performances, monitoring its influence on the Continent as well as upon Walton, Britten, Lutyens and Searle in Britain. In particular, it watches the growth of The Pierrot Players [later The Fires of London] one of the most galvanizing groups in post-war British music, and looks carefully at the social dynamics among its players and composers, notably Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle. With photos, and drawings by Milein Cosman and David Hockney. CHRISTOPHER DROMEY took his PhD at King's College London and is now Senior Lecturer in Music at Middlesex University.

The story of influentiual music critic, Hans Keller's months in British internment camps in 1940 and its effect on his intellectual development. After World War II, the musical life of Britain was transformed by the Hitler emigres. None was more influential than the writer and broadcaster Hans Keller who arrived in London from Vienna in 1938. Although his thought was grounded in the work of Kant and Freud, he devoted himself to music after hearing Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. His remarkable development was accelerated during the nine months he spent in British internment camps, where from 1940 onwards the deracinated flower of European culture was confined . This book sets the story of Keller's internment in the context of what is still a too-little remembered part of British wartime history and traces its remarkable effects in the decade following his release as he gradually found his niche in London life. It includes several important texts, including that of his famous broadcast on the Kristallnacht, 'Vienna 1938', a selection of poignant letters from his two camps (in translation) and ends with a spirited memoir by Donald Mitchell of 'Hans Keller in the Early Years'. It is a remarkable and elegant contribution to our understanding both of Keller's development and of Britain in the 1940s.

A selection of Arnold Whittall's masterly writings on Wagner dealing with all major works in the context of 150 years' of critical reception - with copious music examples. The book celebrates Arnold Whittall's 80th birthday with a collection of his key writings on Richard Wagner. The first ten chapters deal with the three Romantic operas, the four parts of The Ring and the three remaining music dramas. Their aim is to illuminate those aspects of Wagner's style that are both personal and important for his successors. Whittall sets close readings of key passages in the context of a critical debate that has itself ragedfor over a century, and his comprehensive range of reference makes this volume essential reading for all those who want to enter the debate. The final chapter deals with Jonathan Harvey's Wagner Dream (2007), a modern operatic treatment of Wagner the man and his unrealised Buddhist project, Die Sieger. Whittall's style is focussed and discriminating, yet also relaxed and accessible, and his text is rich in music examples. ARNOLD WHITTALL is Professor Emeritus at King's College London. His previous books include Exploring Twentieth-Century Music and Serialism.

A selection of Arnold Whittall's masterly writings on Wagner dealing with all major works in the context of 150 years' of critical reception - with copious music examples. The book celebrates Arnold Whittall's 80th birthday with a collection of his key writings on Richard Wagner. The first ten chapters deal with the three Romantic operas, the four parts of The Ring and the three remaining music dramas. Their aim is to illuminate those aspects of Wagner's style that are both personal and important for his successors. Whittall sets close readings of key passages in the context of a critical debate that has itself ragedfor over a century, and his comprehensive range of reference makes this volume essential reading for all those who want to enter the debate. The final chapter deals with Jonathan Harvey's Wagner Dream (2007), a modern operatic treatment of Wagner the man and his unrealised Buddhist project, Die Sieger. Whittall's style is focussed and discriminating, yet also relaxed and accessible, and his text is rich in music examples. ARNOLD WHITTALL is Professor Emeritus at King's College London. His previous books include Exploring Twentieth-Century Music and Serialism.

Christopher Wintle's in-depth examination of Britten's Notturno includes a full set of sketches, the printed score, an introductory essay and two appendices, providing a new model for the study of Britten's work in general. Peter Pears once described Benjamin Britten as `a Greek who worships all the gods'; and in order to come to terms with Britten's music it is necessary to recognize a language deeply embedded in this Western tradition. This book is devoted to Night-piece (Notturno), written for the first Leeds International Pianoforte Competition of 1963. It addresses the work from many points of view: historical, documentary, analytical, formal, kinetic, hermeneutical, and affective. It also includes a wide range of illustrated allusions to other music, a full set of sketches, the printed score, arrays of modes and voice-leading graphs, and two appendices that take the issues of intensification and neapolitan relations further. In so doing, it provides a new model for the study of Britten's work in general.

Wintle's 'aphorisms, thoughts and maxims' probe life and art - music, song and opera, and are richly augmented with a series of illustrations by the celebrated Anglo-Brazilian artist, Ana Maria Pacheco. Among the ancients, instruction in drama and letters - poetics - mixed craft, precept and criticism quite freely; in our time, pedagogy, aesthetics and critical theory are usually kept firmly apart. This collection of 'aphorisms,thoughts and maxims' repairs something of the split by organizing the precepts that stand behind the making and reception of the arts into a unified 'metapoetics'. The book reflects on its own lapidary manner, investigates three representative theatres of life (power, love and death), and asserts our continuing need for the Gods and magic. It then moves from life into art, explores art, artists and the ethics of art, argues for the continuing relevance ofnotions of beauty, truth and genius, ponders style, and probes music, song and opera. Finally it returns to 'life' with thoughts on criticism and its practise. An appendix addresses other arts, notably film. The main text, which is both serious and witty, is illuminated throughout with examples from writings and culture of all periods. The book is richly illustrated with a set of mythic Beasts by the celebrated Anglo-Brazilian artist, Ana Maria Pacheco.

Leo Black's memoir not only recalls 'the Glock Era and After' in a series of informative, poignant, witty and judicious vignettes, but is also a key text for understanding one of the great ages of British music. From 1959 to 1972 William Glock, as Controller, Music, stamped his personality memorably on BBC Radio, gathering around him a talented staff that included emigres and experts in Continental music new and old. Among the young recruits was Leo Black, an intelligent musician with an affinity for singers and Austro-German music. In his 28 years at the BBC - years that extended well beyond 1972 - Black learnt the system, worked with leading BBC figures and musicians, produced countless programmes and discovered his own identity. This memoir not only recalls 'the Glock Era and After' in a series of informative, poignant, witty and judicious vignettes, but is also a key text for understanding one of the great ages of British music. Includes illustrations by Milein Cosman. Leo Black is the author of Franz Schubert: Music and Belief and Edmund Rubbra: Symphonist, both published by the BoydellPress.

Our specialist times, with everyone confined to their own discipline, have left little room for the age-old view that, however transmuted, the issues of art and life belong together, or that, for all their differences, the arts have shared concerns: yet realism demands just such an outlook. This book offers an informal attempt to re-open closed borders by the established writer on music, Christopher Wintle. Through a host of aphorisms and thoughts it first probes people, politics, learning and the Gods. It then sketches out a Poetics in terms of style and idea, artists, critics, theory, performers, ethics, opera, sculpture, cinema and sport, before ending with a pair of Urban Fables. The volume includes a collection of Works with Music by the well-known Brazilian artist Ana Maria Pacheco.

Selection from the musical writing of Bayan Northcott, one of the foremost musical critics of our time. Published in association with the Cosman Keller Art and Music Trust. Over the last forty years Bayan Northcott has established himself as one of London's leading music critics, a figure much admired by Hans Keller [1919-85] whose ideas he frequently invokes. Moving easily between the classics and the moderns, and writing with exceptional acuity, he brings a vast knowledge to bear on every issue great or small. In these years, though, he has alsodeveloped as a composer; and it is the meeting point of critic and artist that this, his first selection of essays, celebrates. The first part deals mainly with musical questions, the second with music for words, the third with agallery of composers, and the fourth with the various states of music. It is a book that will appeal to ordinary music lovers and connoisseurs alike.

Hans Keller (1919-1985) was one of the most brilliant and stimulating writers on music of his day, and this is the first large selection of his essays. His work draws on his rich and diverse experience as a string-player, composer, teacher, analyst and critic, and also reflects a deep interest in psychoanalysis. The first part of the book addresses psychological issues relating to critics, listeners, players and composers; the second analyses music by a wide range of composers from Haydn to the present day; and the third propounds his new theory of music, with essays on unity and contrast, motifs, themes, keys, timbre and rhythm. There is also a 'wordless functional analysis' of a Mozart piano sonata published here for the first time. The volume concludes with a magisterial account of what Keller deemed to be 'the principles of composition'.

A masterly account of a fraught relationship between Schoenberg (the teacher) and Wellesz (his pupil), set against the intellectual and musical currents of the day. Egon Wellesz studied music only briefly with Arnold Schoenberg but remained forever captivated by his personality. Yet, unlike Alban Berg or Anton Webern, he never wholly succumbed to his master but developed his own style: in the1920s he emerged as a distinctive opera composer, and after emigrating to Britain in 1938 became a prolific symphonist who also produced sensitive settings of English poetry. Schoenberg resented this lack of loyalty, and not onlyrefused to acknowledge Wellesz as a pupil but rather directed at him some intemperate outbursts. Moreover, Schoenberg's general mistrust of musicologists extended to Wellesz, who had trained at Vienna University with Guido Adlerand later helped to shape the study of music in British universities. Yet, as the first biographer, Wellesz did much to promote Schoenberg's cause, especially in France and England. Bojan Bujic weaves these strands together in a masterly and meticulously researched account of a fraught relationship that brings into focus the outstanding intellectual and musical currents of the day in both Austria and Britain.

Christopher Wintle's in-depth examination of Britten's Notturno includes a full set of sketches, the printed score, an introductory essay and two appendices, providing a new model for the study of Britten's work in general. Peter Pears once described Benjamin Britten as 'a Greek who worships all the gods'; and in order to come to terms with Britten's music it is necessary to recognize a language deeply embedded in this Western tradition. This book is devoted to Night-piece (Notturno), written for the first Leeds International Pianoforte Competition of 1963. It addresses the work from many points of view: historical, documentary, analytical, formal, kinetic, hermeneutical, and affective. It also includes a wide range of illustrated allusions to other music, a full set of sketches, the printed score, arrays of modes and voice-leading graphs, and two appendices that take the issues of intensification and neapolitan relations further. In so doing, it provides a new model for the study of Britten's work in general. Winner of the Sue Thomson Foundation Publishing Award for 2006.

Wintle's 'aphorisms, thoughts and maxims' probe life and art - music, song and opera, and are richly augmented with a series of illustrations by the celebrated Anglo-Brazilian artist, Ana Maria Pacheco. Among the ancients, instruction in drama and letters - poetics - mixed craft, precept and criticism quite freely; in our time, pedagogy, aesthetics and critical theory are usually kept firmly apart. This collection of 'aphorisms,thoughts and maxims' repairs something of the split by organizing the precepts that stand behind the making and reception of the arts into a unified 'metapoetics'. The book reflects on its own lapidary manner, investigates three representative theatres of life (power, love and death), and asserts our continuing need for the Gods and magic. It then moves from life into art, explores art, artists and the ethics of art, argues for the continuing relevance ofnotions of beauty, truth and genius, ponders style, and probes music, song and opera. Finally it returns to 'life' with thoughts on criticism and its practise. An appendix addresses other arts, notably film. The main text, which is both serious and witty, is illuminated throughout with examples from writings and culture of all periods. The book is richly illustrated with a set of mythic Beasts by the celebrated Anglo-Brazilian artist, Ana Maria Pacheco.

A provocative collection of writings on film music by the celebrated critic, Hans Keller [1919-85]. Between 1946 and 1959, the most outspoken voice in British film music was that of the celebrated Austrian emigre critic, Hans Keller [1919-85]. He argued passionately for 'the need for competent film music criticism', laid out themain topics of the day, and studied the contribution of all the main British composers and many others besides. In particular he championed William Alwyn, Arthur Benjamin and Alan Rawsthorne as well as the more established namesof Auric, Bernstein, Britten, Thomson, Vaughan Williams and Walton. In 1959 he also devoted a column to 'television music'. This important collection of writings will form a vital complement to the contemporary Composing for the Film by Hanns Eisler and Theodor Adorno, and will provide an invaluable and unparalleled account of a great age for film music. Includes line drawings by Milein Cosman.

A selection of Hans Keller's writings on Benjamin Britten including previously unseen correspondence and reprints of long unavailable writings. It was hearing an early performance of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes that turned the young emigre writer and musician Hans Keller from psychology to music. Thereafter he became the composer's most fervent advocate, devoting to him a whole issue of Music Survey (the journal he edited with Donald Mitchell) and the first comprehensive book on his music (again edited with Mitchell). This volume is a selection of the best of his writings, dealing withPeter Grimesthrough to Death in Venice and the Third String Quartet. It also includes an illustrated study by A. M. Garnham of the extensive correspondence between Britten and Keller (most of it hitherto unknown), areprint of the handbooks on The Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring (long out-of-print), and items from the Hans Keller Archive in the University of Cambridge. The book is illustrated with drawings from life by Milein Cosman.

A provocative collection of writings on film music by the celebrated critic, Hans Keller [1919-85]. Between 1946 and 1959, the most outspoken voice in British film music was that of the celebrated Austrian emigre critic, Hans Keller [1919-85]. He argued passionately for 'the need for competent film music criticism', laid out themain topics of the day, and studied the contribution of all the main British composers and many others besides. In particular he championed William Alwyn, Arthur Benjamin and Alan Rawsthorne as well as the more established namesof Auric, Bernstein, Britten, Thomson, Vaughan Williams and Walton. In 1959 he also devoted a column to 'television music'. This important collection of writings will form a vital complement to the contemporary Composing for the Film by Hanns Eisler and Theodor Adorno, and will provide an invaluable and unparalleled account of a great age for film music. Includes line drawings by Milein Cosman.

A selection of the writings of Hugh Wood - composer, teacher and writer - with eight illustrations by William Scott. Ever since his early days, Hugh Wood has pursued a triple career as composer, teacher and writer: he has added to the repertory of orchestral, chamber and vocal music, he has lectured at the Universities of Glasgow, Liverpool andCambridge, and he has been involved in an endless round of articles, reviews and broadcasts. What these activities have in common is a keen interest in the highways and byways of European culture, a fastidious style, and a determination to scotch pretence wherever it appears. But behind all this lies another concern, an insatiable quest for knowledge of the territory composers stake out for themselves. This selection of writings is in three parts andshows three aspects to the quest. The first addresses his own experience; the second maps out the historical and cultural context for a number of orchestral and chamber works in a set of concert essays; and the third draws together several composer-vignettes from his recent reviews for the Times Literary Supplement. The book marks his seventy-fifth birthday and includes eight works by the British artist, William Scott.

Leo Black's memoir not only recalls 'the Glock Era and After' in a series of informative, poignant, witty and judicious vignettes, but is also a key text for understanding one of the great ages of British music. From 1959 to 1972 William Glock, as Controller, Music, stamped his personality memorably on BBC Radio, gathering around him a talented staff that included emigres and experts in Continental music new and old. Among the young recruits was Leo Black, an intelligent musician with an affinity for singers and Austro-German music. In his 28 years at the BBC - years that extended well beyond 1972 - Black learnt the system, worked with leading BBC figures and musicians, produced countless programmes and discovered his own identity. This memoir not only recalls 'the Glock Era and After' in a series of informative, poignant, witty and judicious vignettes, but is also a key text for understanding one of the great ages of British music. Includes illustrations by Milein Cosman. Leo Black is the author of Franz Schubert: Music and Belief and Edmund Rubbra: Symphonist, both published by the Boydell Press.