A study of the life and works of Erik Chisholm, one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century Scottish music. Erik Chisholm was the pre-eminent composer and musician in Scottish classical music in the first half of the twentieth century. As Sir Charles Mackerras put it, 'Chisholm was a musician of rare capabilities. He was a pianist and organist, a conductor, a composer, a lecturer on music, an entrepreneur and administrator, and to all these he brought a unique blend of originality, flair and energy.' As well as his life in Glasgow, Chisholm travelled to the Far East, notably Singapore, for the Entertainments and National Service Association during the Second World War, and subsequently became Professor of Music at the University of Cape Town, where he greatly developed the study and performance of music. He conducted numerous first British performances, including Berlioz's The Trojans in 1935 and Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle in 1957. Accounts of the visits to Glasgow by such composers as Bartok,Casella, Hindemith et al are being presented here. Erik Chisholm. Scottish Modernist will be of general interest to scholars and students of twentieth-century music. In particular, those interested in the development of music, opera and ballet in Scotland, Scottish literature and cultural history will find this book of much value. It will also be of interest to those studying the music of Bartok, Sorabji, Hindemith, Walton, Bax, Casella, and Shostakovich whom Chisholm knew personally and brought to Scotland.

In the words of Fiona Stafford, who introduces this new collection, 'Here are poems of dedication, exhortation and invitation. Lucky the listener to be finding such company, such sense, such clarity, such joy.... This is a man who knows, and what's more, a man who is glad to share. .. Readers are likely to feel that they are in the company not of the poet alone, but also his family and many friends.'

'Poetry was always a natural thing to me, part of letter-writing and simply another way of responding to the world'. Thus the author prefaces this substantial new collection of poems, in strict form and in free verse, including a number published previously - in 'The Counting Stick', 'A Share of the Wind', and 'Amoretti', all published by Aquila Press, or in anthologies and magazines - some of them 're-appearing' here with revisions. Informing this fresh view of his work are three of his father's 'Six Sea Poems'. The collection is introduced by Alan Riach, who describes 'the world John Purser makes for us in his poems, as in his music and his scholarship' as 'archipelagic, characterised by diversity and depths, bright sunlit perceptions and profundities of insight into the nature of the earth itself, and as far out as the music of the spheres permits us ...'.