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The music of Gerald Finzi, whose popularity has recently enjoyed a
great resurgence, is rooted in the tradition of Elgar, Parry,
Vaughan Williams and those composers of the early part of this
century for whom song writing was a principal means of expression.
While retaining a general picture of the modest, quintessentially
English composer, Stephen Banfield's stylish, witty and acute
biography reveals Finzi as a more complex and engaged figure than
he is often given credit for. Finzi's ambiguous relationship with
his craft, his affluent and intellectually stimulating family
background and his Jewishness lend a mysterious and troubled
quality to his life and work, and ultimately invite us to question
the notions of Englishness he represents. 'In this outstanding
study, Stephen Banfield remarks that although Finzi's output and
influence were those of a minor composer, "something about his
profile, the way he went about his job, the breadth of his thought,
the depths of his personality and its impact on others, in short
his individuality, always suggested something greater." Thus it is
that Finzi, with a relatively small output, now receives a 571-page
biography in which the author brings to bear the full weight and
authority of analytical scholarship. Is he worth it? Banfield
compels one to answer yes.' Michael Kennedy, BBC Music Magazine
'Stephen Banfield's long-needed and doubly welcome book does all
that a good life-and-works study should do ... he earns the most
heartfelt gratitude. So, it should be added, do his publishers.'
Musical Times
The first regional history of music in England. Music in the West
Country is the first regional history of music in England. Ranging
over seven hundred years, from the minstrels, waits, and cathedral
choristers of the fourteenth century to the Bristol Sound of the
late twentieth, the book explores the region's soundscape, from its
gateway cities of Bristol and Salisbury in the east to the Isles of
Scilly in the west, and examines music-making in tiny villages as
well as conditions in important centres such as Bath, Exeter,
Plymouth, and Bournemouth. What emerges is both a study of the
typical - musical practices which would apply to any English region
- and a portrait of the unique - features born of the region's
physicalisolation and charm, among them the growth of festival
culture, the mythologising of folk music, the late survival of
parish psalmody and nonconformist carolling, and the unique
continuance, today, of a professional resort orchestra, the
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Banfield's vividly written and
extremely readable history of music in the west country considers
an array of subjects, firmly centred on people's stories: musical
inventions and theidea of tradition, music as cultural capital, the
economics of musical employment and the demographics of
musicianship, musical networks, the relationship of the hinterlands
to the metropolis, the influence of topography, the importance of
institutions and events, and the question of how to measure value.
A study in prosopography, it shows how people went about their
lives with music and explores how things changed for them - or did
not. STEPHENBANFIELD is Emeritus Professor of Music at the
University of Bristol.
The Sounds of Stonehenge originated as a workshop of the Centre for
the History of Music in Britain, the Empire and the Commonwealth
(CHOMBEC), held at the Victoria Rooms, University of Bristol, UK in
November 2008. The 8 papers contain material pertaining to acoustic
physics, anthropology, archaeology, architecture, cognitive
psychology, English literature, film studies, history, history of
art, media and popular studies, musicology, sociology, and creative
composition.
A founding father of the modern American musical, Jerome Kern
(1885-1945) was the composer of legions of popular songs, including
such standards as "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "Ol' Man River."
His 1927 Show Boat with Oscar Hammerstein II helped to set a new
standard for musical theater. This book is the first to provide a
critical overview of Kern's musical accomplishments throughout his
career. Stephen Banfield ranges from Broadway, to Hollywood, and to
London's West End, drawing on unpublished manuscripts and scores to
assess the composer's extraordinary oeuvre. Kern's life,
personality, and working methods are given due attention, as is the
development of his work from the early musical comedies through the
collaborations with Hammerstein and P. G. Wodehouse up to the later
film scores. Banfield focuses especially on the musical and lyrical
structures of Kern's compositions, illuminating beloved works and
shedding light on compositions often overlooked.
Most books on the American musical are little more than exercises
in nostalgia. The specially commissioned essays that make up
Approaches to the American Musical take a different view of the
form. Going beyond the common assertion that musicals are simply
escapist; these examinations of American stage and film musicals
argue that Porgy and Bess, Top Hat, Kiss Me Kate and All That Jazz
were popular precisely because they engaged with such important
American issues as ethnicity, commerce and international relations.
A discussion of more than 50 composers focuses on poets whose verse was set to music frequently, Housman, Hardy, De la Mare, Yeats, etc.. and song composers, Butterworth, Finzi, Gurney, Ireland, Quilter, Somervell and Vaughan Williams.
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