James Garratt explores the revival of sixteenth-century music in nineteenth-century Germany, focusing on the reception of Palestrina by critics, historians, performers and composers. He demonstrates that the Palestrina revival was just as significant for nineteenth-century culture as parallel movements in the other arts. This study is of relevance to scholars, students and devotees of nineteenth-century music, as well as those with interests in nineteenth-century culture, art, architecture, literature and aesthetics, the history of church music and the early music revival.
James Garratt was born in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, England in 1974, and studied music at Oxford University and subsequently at Cardiff University. While at Oxford, he was Organ Scholar at Brasenose College; he currently serves as University Organist at Manchester as well as Senior Lecturer in Music.
Following the completion of his PhD in 1999, James took up a lectureship at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, where he worked until moving to Manchester in August 2002.
His publications include Palestrina and the German Romantic Imagination: Interpreting Historicism in Nineteenth-Century Music (Cambridge University Press, 2002), Music, Culture and Social Reform in the Age of Wagner (Cambridge University Press, 2010), as well as contributions to The Cambridge Companion to Haydn (2005) and The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn (2004). He has written widely on music in nineteenth-century thought and culture, and has published articles and reviews in Music and Letters, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 19th-Century Music Review and The American Historical Review.
James's current work centres on two projects: Music, Value and Community: Historical and Critical Perspectives, and The Use of Music History: Music, Historiography and the Practical Past.
He lives in Hazel Grove, in the foothills of England's Peak District, with his wife Sinead and pet rabbit Basil. Other hobbies include cooking, films (in particular Westerns and Preston Sturges comedies) and travel (especially Italy).
