Leading composers, producers and writers consider the role of the composer in the community in Britain today and over the last fifty years. With his Aspen award lecture (1964), Benjamin Britten expressed a unique commitment to community and place. This book revisits this seminal lecture, but then uses it as a starting point of reflection, inviting leading composers, producers and writers to consider the role of the composer in the community in Britain in the last fifty years. Colin Matthews, Jonathan Reekie and John Barber reflect on Britten's aspirations as a composer and the impact of his legacy, and Gillian Moore surveys the ideals of composers since the 1960s. Eugene Skeef and Tommy Pearson discuss the influence of the London Sinfonietta, while Katie Tearle reviews the tradition of community opera at Glyndebourne. Nigel Osborne and Judith Webster explore the role of music as therapy, and James Redwood, Amoret Abis, Sean Gregory and Douglas Mitchell look at music in the classroom and creative workshops. John Sloboda, Detta Danford and Natasha Zielazinski discuss collaboration in music-making and ways of facilitating exchanges between the composer and the audience, while Christopher Fox and Howard Skempton examine the role of modernism and the use of 'other', radical techniques to stimulate new dialogues between composer and community. Peter Wiegold and Amoret Abis interview Sir Harrison Birtwistle, John Woolrich and Phillip Cashian, and Wiegold discusses his formative experiences in encountering music-making in other cultures. All of these approaches to the role and identity of the composer throw a different light on how we address 'the composer and the community': the varied, sometimes contradictory, motivations of composers; the role of music in 'enhancing lives'; the concept of 'outreach' and the different ways this is pursued; and, finally, the meaning of 'community'. Underpinning each are genuine questions about the relationship of arts to society. This book will appeal not only to composers, performers and practitioners of contemporary music but to anyone interested in the changes in twentieth-century music practice, music in education, and the role of music and the arts in the wider community and society.

An essay collection which examines Britten's juvenilia, influences such as Shostakovich and Verdi, his opera Owen Wingrave and a libretto written by Australian novelist Patrick White with the hope of a future collaboration. Benjamin Britten: New Perspectives on his Life and Work reveals the extent to which Britten scholarship is reaching outside the confines of Anglo-American criticism. The volume engages with juvenilia and other orchestral works from the 1920s and examines a broad range of influences on Britten, including the works of Shostakovich and Verdi, the poetry of Ovid, and the cinema. Among his operatic works the dramatic qualities of Owen Wingrave arediscussed through a close study of Piper's libretto and we witness the genesis of a libretto written by Australian novelist Patrick White and submitted to Britten with the hope of a future collaboration. The volume uncovers the generally hostile reception Britten's operas received in Paris until around the 1990s. Britten's status as 'outsider' in both the USA and in his own country when he returned in 1942 is discussed: the possibility is that Britten wasbecoming nervous of the gathering US involvement in the war and the real chance he may be called up to serve in the US forces is also discussed here.

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew's Very Short Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Britain is a sharp but subtle account of remarkable economic and social change and an even more remarkable political stability. Britain in 1789 was overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, multilingual, and almost half Celtic. By 1914, when it faced its greatest test since the defeat of Napoleon, it was largely urban and English. Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew show the forces behind Britain's rise to its imperial zenith, and the continuing tensions within the nations and classes of the 'union state'. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Score to Claude Debussy's Canope (Prelude 4), orchestrated by Colin Matthews. During his time as the Halle Orchestra's Composer in Association between 2001 and 2010, Colin Matthews spent five years making orchestral versions of all 24 of Debussy's Preludes. He has been heralded for the success with which he has taken the inspiration of the piano masterpieces and skilfully created orchestral works of great variety, beauty and drama. Indeed, following their critical reception these works are being taken up and performed by orchestras across the world.

The Nineteenth Century describes the history of Victorian Britain not only in its political, Imperial, and economic aspects, but also in its cultural features by including chapters on women and domesticity, intellect and religion, art and architecture, and literature. The book brilliantly depicts the nations of the British Isles at the height of Britain's world power for both the student of modern history and the general reader.

This book contains selected papers from the international conference Groups--St Andrews 1985. It provides a comprehensive picture of current progress and research in group theory. Five leading group theorists, Bachmuth, Baumslag, Neumann, Roseblade and Tits have presented survey articles based on short lecture courses given at the conference and the rest of the book comprises both survey and research articles contributed by other conference speakers.

The many articles with their wealth of references demonstrate the richness and vitality of modern group theory and its many connections with other areas of mathematics. The book will prove invaluable to both experienced researchers and new postgraduates whose interests involve group theory.