Edward Elgar and His World (The Bard Music Festival) (Paperback)

~ Byron Adams (Editor)
Key Phrases: private musical world, variety palaces, rehearsal number, Edward Elgar, Violin Concerto, Crown of India (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Why isn't more Elgar performed more often?" -- Barrymore Laurence Scherer, The Wall Street Journal

Review

Byron Adams clearly loves Elgar and his music...[His] chapter on Elgar's self-education...is a fascinating exploration of how books read by the budding composer had an enduring influence on his music.
(Daniel Jaffe BBC Music Magazine )

This fine and fascinating book includes welcome pieces by younger scholars working in the U.S. and England--recent PhDs who bring new perspectives, ideas, and methodologies to this tricky and provocative branch of socio/historical musicology. In addition to providing a clear, helpful introduction and a striking essay on the persistence of memory, Adams proves himself an inspired editor. The 13 essays--not a dud among them--look at societal, cultural, historical, and psychological aspects of Elgar's life and world.
(W. Metcalfe Choice )

[A] handsome volume of essays by a dozen scholars, who strive to assess Elgar¹s place in music history.
(George B. Stauffer Weekly Standard )

It is greatly to the credit of Byron Adams that, amid the plethora of Elgar material published in the last few years, Edward Elgar and His World is a vital contribution. . . . Here Adams challenges us with a rich contextual study not of Elgar's world, but of many conflicting and contradictory worlds in which the composer lived, battled, triumphed, failed, and died.
(James Brooks Kuykendall Notes )

The essays in Edward Elgar and His World ambitiously and successfully delineate the complexity of Elgar's world and the composer's place in it. . . . All of the essays in . . . offer richly detailed, extensively documented, and fascinating explorations of different aspects of Elgar's world.
(Dan Kline Victorian Studies )

This collection contains almost nothing that is unworthy, and several chapters that significantly advance the important recent realignments in Elgar scholarship (and, I hope, more widely). The old guard may grow their ulcers, but humanities scholarship should be grateful to Adams. Elgar's world has never been more illuminatingly painted.
(J. P. E. Harper-Scott Music and Letters )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (July 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691134464
• ISBN-13: 978-0691134468
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,160,693 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating book, August 27, 2008

By	G. Bucciarelli (Venice, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This volume is as distinguished a piece of cultural history as it is the exploration of one composer's career. "Edward Elgar and His World" elucidates the social landscape of Victorian England: it's thought, it's music, and the terrible price that was paid by creative artists dealing with the emotional repression that pervaded this era. The editor has arranged the essays so that they form a progression from the composer's earliest years to the twilight of his career. The essays themselves are varied, but always fascinating. Although serious, the prose in this volume dispenses with jargon and welcomes readers who are not musicians. Foucault, of course, was correct about how language can be used to police desire; that truism pervades - almost as a ground bass - many of the articles in this accomplished collection. Enjoy!