Leo Black, a pupil of Rubbra in the 1950s, presents a full-scale study of his symphonies (the first for twenty years). A biographical sketch throws light on legends about the BBC and Rubbra; there are full programme notes on eachsymphony, with accounts of important non-symphonic works. The music of Edmund Rubbra (1901-1986) has been unjustly neglected - arguably because its wide-ranging nature makes it difficult to categorise. He is perhaps best known as a symphonist; his eleven symphonies covered a period of musical and political upheaval [1934 - 1980], the first four reflecting the uneasy later 1930s, with a second global conflict no longer avoidable. The immediately-post-war ones document new emotional depths and his conversion, whilethe final symphonies show a man still in search of peace and reconciliation, overlooked by the world but certain he was on the right path. Leo Black, a pupil of Rubbra at Oxford in the 1950s, here presents a sympatheticfull-scale study of these works (the first for some twenty years). A succinct biographical sketch throws light on legends about the BBC and Rubbra; there are full programme notes on each symphony, with shorter accounts of important non-symphonic works, in particular a 'triptych' of concertos from the 1950s and major liturgical pieces composed around the time of the Second Vatican Council, after Rubbra's conversion to Catholicism. He also deals with the vexed question of Rubbra's mysticism. LEO BLACK is a former BBC chief producer for music and author of the highly-acclaimed Franz Schubert: Music and Belief [2003].

Edmund Rubbra’s music has given him a reputation as a ‘spiritual’ composer, who had an interest in Eastern thought, and a mid-life conversion to Roman Catholicism. This book takes a wide and detailed view of ‘spiritual’ dimensions or strands that were important in his life, positioning them both biographically and within the context of contemporaneous English culture. It proceeds to interpret through detailed analysis the ways these spiritual aspects are reflected in specific compositions. Thematical treatment of these spiritual issues, touching on Theosophy, dance, Eastern religions and thought, nature, the evolutionary theory of Teilhard de Chardin and the Christ figure, presents a multi-faceted view of Rubbra’s life and music. Its contribution to a scholarly re-evaluation of his place within twentieth-century British music and culture engages and meshes with several areas of current scholarly research in the arts and humanities, including academic interest in Theosophy, modernism and the arts, experimental dance and the Indian cultural renaissance and East–West musical interactions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also adds to a burgeoning body of writings on music and spirituality, fuelled by the popularity of later twentieth-century and contemporary composers who make more overt spiritual references in their music.

The rehabilitation of British music began with Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford. Ralph Vaughan Williams assisted in its emancipation from continental models, while Gerald Finzi, Edmund Rubbra and George Dyson flourished in its independence. Stephen Town's survey of Choral Music of the English Musical Renaissance is rooted in close examination of selected works from these composers. Town collates the substantial secondary literature on these composers, and brings to bear his own study of the autograph manuscripts. The latter form an unparalleled record of compositional process and shed new light on the compositions as they have come down to us in their published and recorded form. This close study of the sources allows Town to identify for the first time instances of similarity and imitation, continuities and connections between the works.

The music of Edmund Rubbra is the first comprehensive study of the work of this important but neglected twentieth century British composer. Written by an American musicologist, it features detailed discussions of the music in each genre: the eleven symphonies; other important orchestral music; concertos for piano, violin, and viola together with other concerto-related works; solo instrumental music; chamber music, including four string quartets, two piano trios, and music for various combinations such as recorders and harpsichord; a vast quanitity of choral music; songs; and, finally, miscellaneous works. Supporting these discussions are many detailed analysis, illustrated by 277 music examples. Together, these demonstrate the considerable contrapuntal and rhythmic complexities that are integral parts of Rubbra's musical thought, together with a distinctive and individual style. Rubbra wrote analytical articles on his music, and excerpts from these are often intertwined with the author's analyses. In addition, significant reviews of his music, gathered from leading musical journals, are included.

Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.

This book is the first full-length treatment of Walter Hussey's work as a patron between 1943 and 1978, first for the Anglican parish church of St Matthew in Northampton, and then at Chichester Cathedral. He was responsible for the most significant sequence of works of art commissioned for the British churches in the twentieth century. They included music by Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein and William Walton, visual art by Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland and Marc Chagall, and poetry by W. H. Auden. Placing Hussey in theological context and in a period of rapid cultural change, it explores the making and reception of the commissions, and the longer-term influence of his work, still felt today. As well as contributing to the religious and cultural history of Britain, and of Anglo-Catholicism and the cathedrals in particular, the book will be of interest to all those concerned with the relationship between theology and the arts, and to historians of music and the visual arts.

My book begins with a brief consideration of what we mean by “English music” and what factors are involved. I explain the reasons behind my choice of composers for consideration, and for the omissions from the survey.