Ernest Newman : a critical biography / Paul Watt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Watt, Paul, 1969- author.

Series:

Music in Britain, 1600-2000

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Newman, Ernest, 1868-1959.

Newman, Ernest.

Music critics--Great Britain--Biography.

Music critics.

Great Britain.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xvii, 253 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Woodbridge : The Boydell Press, 2017.

Summary:

Ernest Newman (1868-1959) left an indelible mark on British musical criticism in a career spanning more than seventy years. His magisterial Life of Richard Wagner, published in four volumes between 1933 and 1946, is regarded as his crowning achievement, but Newman wrote many other influential books and essays on a variety of subjects ranging from early music to Schoenberg. In this book, the geneses of Newman's major publications are examined in the context of prevailing intellectual trends in history, criticism and biography. Newman's career as a writer is traced across a wide range of subjects including English and French literature, evolutionary theory and biographical method, and French, German and Russian music. Underpinning many of these works is Newman's preoccupation with rationalism and historical method. By examining particular sets of writings such as composer-biographies and essays from leading newspapers such as the Manchester Guardian and the Sunday Times, this book illustrates the ways in which Newman's work was grounded in late nineteenth-century intellectual paradigms that made him a unique and at times controversial figure.

Contents:

1 Ernest Newman and the Challenge of Critical Biography 1

Part I The Freethought Years

2 Formation of a Critical Sensibility: The 1880s and 1890s 17

3 Social, Literary and Musical Criticism: 1893-1897 37

4 A Rationalist Manifesto: Pseudo-Philosophy at the end of the Nineteenth Century, 1897 65

5 Music History and the Comparative Method: Cluck and the Opera, 1895 79

Part II The Mainstream Years

6 From Manchester to Moscow: Essays on Music, 1900-1920 103

7 'The World of Music': Essays in the Sunday Times, 1920-1958 125

8 Biographical and Musicological Tensions: The Man Liszt, 1934 163

9 Sceptical and Transforming: Books on Wagner, 1899-1959 181

10 Conclusion: Ernest Newman Remembered 213.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1783271906

9781783271900

OCLC:

965731911