Customer Reviews

The Search for Thomas F. Ward, Teacher of Frederick Delius

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Since his achievements as a music publisher are familiar, may I recall that Don Gillespie's biography is a masterpiece of historical recreation--personal and yet factual, detailed and yet thorough--about an obscure but influential music figure in American music a century ago. For those who don't already know, Ward taught Delius, assigned to manage a plantation in northern Florida, more than he learned at the Leipzig music academy a few years later. One charm of Gillespie's book is incorporating his research efforts into the narrative. Indeed, were I a professor of graduate musicology, this is the sort of book I would give to my best students as an example of how to do uniquely valuable scholarship with otherwise forgotten eminences. The awards this book did not receive upon publication are hereby discredited