Peter Warlock: a study of the composer through the letters to Colin Taylor between 1911 and 1929
- Authors: Smith, Barry, 1939-
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Warlock, Peter, 1894-1930 -- Correspondence Taylor, Colin, 1881-1973 -- Correspondence Composers -- Great Britain -- Correspondence
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2657 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002323
- Description: This thesis involves a comprehensive study of the letters written by Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock) to Colin Taylor from 1911 to 1929. Warlock first came into contact with Taylor at Eton in 1908 when he studied the piano with him as a schoolboy. Through Taylor's imaginative teaching during the next four years Warlock's interest in and understanding of music, particularly modern music, grew and matured. At the same time a strong bond of friendship developed between the two men and continued until Warlock's early death in 1930. This is clearly illustrated in the surviving 87 letters. Warlock was a great letter writer and over a thousand of them have been preserved, mostly in the British Library. His letters to Taylor have a special significance in that they were written during the entire period of his adult life, most of them during the early formative and creative years. They cover a wide range of topics including the influential friendships with the composers Frederick Delius and Bernard van Dieren, contemporary British and foreign music and his own work as a composer, writer, and scholar. They also give us many important insights into his life and personality, written as they are with rare candour and humour. In this thesis each letter has been carefully and systematically studied and the resulting information used to augment and expand the existing knowledge of Warlock's life and personality, his friendship with Taylor, his music and writings. Because of the wide field which the life and works of Peter Warlock cover, this study has been limited to subjects arising out of the correspondence with Taylor. Where necessary, additional information has been interpolated from other sources, mainly to give a sense of continuity and to explain references which might otherwise seem obscure. For a detailed study of Warlock's music readers are referred to Ian Copley's book, The Music of Peter Warlock, (Dennis Dobson, London, 1979). A definitive biography has yet to be written.
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- Date Issued: 1991
The ballads of Carl Loewe : examined within their cultural, human and aesthetic context
- Authors: Mierowska, Jean Elaine Nora
- Date: 1989
- Subjects: Loewe, Carl, 1796-1869. Songs. Selections Loewe, Carl, 1796-1869. Songs
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2649 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002314
- Description: This thesis has been written in order to provide, especially for the non-German-reading musician, a fuller picture of Loewe and his ballads than has been available up to now. This picture is developed within the literary background history of the ballad poems, and the literary, mental, and musical climate at the beginning of the Romantic era; further, Loewe's life, as revealed in his many letters, his diaries, and his autobiography, provides the human context from which the ballads emerge as a logical extension of his personality. These earlier parts of the thesis have considerable bearing on the appreciation of Loewe's timely position in musical history, treating as they do with the popularity of the ballad poems, the rapid expansion of the means of musical/emotional expression, and the complete acceptance of that most romantic and versatile of soloinstruments, the piano. Loewe's temperamental affinity with the poetry of the ballads is shown to have affected his choice of subject, and in many cases the ultimate quality of the music is obviously dependent upon the strength or otherwise of his attraction. After observations on Loewe's vocal and piano writing, the thesis treats the ballads primarily with regard to their feeling and emotional content, and investigates the musical means by which this is conveyed. Categories are suggested, and ballads of similar dramatic, pictorial, or emotional type are discussed and compared. Certain formal characteristics are examined, in particular Loewe's use of highly organised motivic work in certain ballads, which foreshadows its later use by Liszt, Wagner and others. Over one hundred of Loewe's 120 ballads are dealt with, some in extensive detail~ and copious musical examples are given. The few comparatively well-known ballads receive due attention, but it was regarded as important to bring to light some of the more neglected or unknown ballads, many of which possess great beauty and originality, amply repaying study and, still more, performance. As a corollary, the approach of the performer is considered, and the Conclusion argues for an informed :esthetic appreciation of Loewe's ballads and their place in teday's vocal repertoire.
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- Date Issued: 1989