Non Fiction
ISBN: 9781854111180
Publication date: March 1, 1994
Price: £6.95
Out of stock
Edward Elgar was for many years the most popular composer in Britain; his music was, and remains, inextricably linked with the final, glorious years of the Empire. Yet Elgar himself was almost entirely untypical of the British Establishment. Born a shopkeeper’s son, part of an active Catholic family and community, Elgar struggled for many years against the prejudices his background raised in music circles.
Ironically, composition for the Anglican Church was an important early platform for Elgar, and it is through the sacred music that this pioneering study approaches his life and work. It traces the development of a composer whose work was criticised for its Catholic overtones, yet who was knighted and the recipient of numerous professorships. John Allison weaves biography, composition and religion as never before to produce a necessary and illuminating new work. In addition to surveying the sacred music, much of it for the first time, he gives an invaluable listing of the works, their scoring and first production.
John Allison
John Allison is Editor of Opera and Music Critic on The Daily Telegraph. From 1994-2005 he was a Music Critic on The Times, and from 2005-14 on The Sunday Telegraph. He has written for leading newspapers around the world, including the New York Times, and is a regular contributor to BBC Music Magazine. He is the author of two books (Edward Elgar: Sacred Music and The Pocket Companion to Opera), and has contributed articles to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and New Penguin Opera Guide, as well as several chapters to other books. He edited the Glyndebourne Festival programmes from 2000 to 2012 and now acts in a similar capacity for Wexford Festival Opera. A jury member at many international music competitions, he also co-founded the International Opera Awards in 2013. Born in 1965 in Cape Town, South Africa, he studied there in performance, musicology and composition for his BMus and PhD degrees, and while at university was assistant organist at Cape Town Cathedral.
