For centuries, the sea and those who sail upon it have inspired the imaginations of British musicians. For centuries, the sea and those who sail upon it have inspired the imaginations of British musicians. Generations of British artists have viewed the ocean as a metaphor for the mutable human condition - by turns calm and reflective, tempestuous and destructive - and have been influenced as much by its physical presence as by its musical potential. But just as geographical perspectives and attitudes on seascapes have evolved over time, so too have culturalassumptions about their meaning and significance. Changes in how Britons have used the sea to travel, communicate, work, play, and go to war have all irresistibly shaped the way that maritime imagery has been conceived, represented, and disseminated in British music. By exploring the sea's significance within the complex world of British music, this book reveals a network of largely unexamined cultural tropes unique to this island nation. The essaysare organised around three main themes: the Sea as Landscape, the Sea as Profession, and the Sea as Metaphor, covering an array of topics drawn from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first. Featuring studies of pieces by thelikes of Purcell, Arne, Sullivan, Vaughan Williams, and Davies, as well as examinations of cultural touchstones such as the BBC, the Scottish fishing industry, and the Aldeburgh Festival, The Sea in the British Musical Imagination will be of interest to musicologists as well as scholars in history, British studies, cultural studies, and English literature. ERIC SAYLOR is Associate Professor of Musicology at Drake University. CHRISTOPHER M. SCHEER is Assistant Professor of Musicology at Utah State University. CONTRIBUTORS: Byron Adams, Jenny Doctor, Amanda Eubanks Winkler, James Brooks Kuykendall, Charles Edward McGuire, Alyson McLamore, Louis Niebur, Jennifer Oates, Eric Saylor, Christopher M. Scheer, Aidan J. Thomson, Justin Vickers, Frances Wilkins

Covering works by popular figures like Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst as well as less familiar English composers, Eric Saylor's pioneering book examines pastoral music's critical, theoretical, and stylistic foundations alongside its creative manifestations in the contexts of Arcadia, war, landscape, and the Utopian imagination. As Saylor shows, pastoral music adapted and transformed established musical and aesthetic conventions that reflected the experiences of British composers and audiences during the early twentieth century. By approaching pastoral music as a cultural phenomenon dependent on time and place, Saylor forcefully challenges the body of critical opinion that has long dismissed it as antiquated, insular, and reactionary.

A new biography of which paints the most well-rounded and factually accurate portrait of the composer to date Ralph Vaughan Williams ranks among the most versatile, influential, and enduringly popular British musicians of his era. Throughout his wide-ranging career-as composer, conductor, editor, scholar, folksong collector, teacher, author, administrator, and philanthropist-Vaughan Williams worked tirelessly to improve the standards and quality of British musical life. His dedicated work ethic and fastidious attention to musical detail helped him forge a compelling and original expressive idiom grounded in a profound understanding of musical history and tradition, popularized in concert staples like the Tallis Fantasia, The Lark Ascending, A London Symphony, the Songs of Travel, and the Serenade to Music. Drawing upon both recent scholarship and newly accessible scores and correspondence, author Eric Saylor interweaves in Vaughan Williams an exploration of the composer's life - including new insights about his early career, military service in the Great War, and relationships with the women he loved and married - with chapters surveying his enormous body of music, spanning hymn tunes to operas, keyboard etudes to solo concerti, wind band music for amateurs to perhaps the finest symphonic cycle of the twentieth century. The resulting portrait reveals Vaughan Williams's complex artistry and dynamic personality, a portrayal often at odds with the avuncular persona of "Uncle Ralph" familiar to the public. This contemporary reassessment of the composer's life and works provides a concise and engaging overview of both, positioning Vaughan Williams as an artist of rare skill, sensitivity, and human insight.

Blackness in Opera critically examines the intersections of race and music in the multifaceted genre of opera. A diverse cross-section of scholars places well-known operas (Porgy and Bess, Aida, Treemonisha) alongside lesser-known works such as Frederick Delius's Koanga, William Grant Still's Blue Steel, and Clarence Cameron White's Ouanga! to reveal a new historical context for re-imagining race and blackness in opera. The volume brings a wide-ranging, theoretically informed, interdisciplinary approach to questions about how blackness has been represented in these operas, issues surrounding characterization of blacks, interpretation of racialized roles by blacks and whites, controversies over race in the theatre and the use of blackface, and extensions of blackness along the spectrum from grand opera to musical theatre and film. In addition to essays by scholars, the book also features reflections by renowned American tenor George Shirley. Contributors are Naomi Andre, Melinda Boyd, Gwynne Kuhner Brown, Karen M. Bryan, Melissa J. de Graaf, Christopher R. Gauthier, Jennifer McFarlane-Harris, Gayle Murchison, Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., Eric Saylor, Sarah Schmalenberger, Ann Sears, George Shirley, and Jonathan O. Wipplinger.

"Blackness in Opera" critically examines the intersections of race and music in the multifaceted genre of opera. A diverse cross-section of scholars places well-known operas ("Porgy and Bess, Aida, Treemonisha") alongside lesser-known works such as Frederick Delius's "Koanga, " William Grant Still's "Blue Steel, " and Clarence Cameron White's "Ouanga " to reveal a new historical context for re-imagining race and blackness in opera. The volume brings a wide-ranging, theoretically informed, interdisciplinary approach to questions about how blackness has been represented in these operas, issues surrounding characterization of blacks, interpretation of racialized roles by blacks and whites, controversies over race in the theatre and the use of blackface, and extensions of blackness along the spectrum from grand opera to musical theatre and film. In addition to essays by scholars, the book also features reflections by renowned American tenor George Shirley. Contributors are Naomi Andre, Melinda Boyd, Gwynne Kuhner Brown, Karen M. Bryan, Melissa J. de Graaf, Christopher R. Gauthier, Jennifer McFarlane-Harris, Gayle Murchison, Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., Eric Saylor, Sarah Schmalenberger, Ann Sears, George Shirley, and Jonathan O. Wipplinger.