Sensibility and English Song: Critical Studies of the Early Twentieth Century: 001

Banfield, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 052137944X ISBN 13: 9780521379441

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1989

This highly acclaimed study of English song is the first detailed account of an unusually fruitful interrelationship between English music and English poetry. The period covered is known as the English Musical Renaissance and runs from the last years of the nineteenth century to the Second World War. Stephen Banfield traces the late flowering of Romantic impulses in solo song during these years, surveying it from critical, analytical and historical angles. He plots the growth of the English stylistic sensibility in song in the decades leading up to the First World War, discusses in detail the plateau it reached between the wars (particularly in the 1920s), and shows how and why it declined as other musical concerns took the field. Poets whose verse was set to music most frequently, including Housman, Hardy, de la Mare and Yeats, are treated at length, as are pre-eminent song composers such as Butterworth, Finzi, Gurney, Ireland, Quilter, Somervell, Stanford, Vaughan Williams and Warlock. In all, more than fifty composers are discussed, and numerous individual songs. In the final section of the book, besides providing an extensive bibliography, Dr Banfield catalogues over 5,000 songs, giving dates of composition and publication and much other detail, listed by composer. This comprehensive survey will prove an invaluable reference guide to all students of the subject.

Review:

'... a major contribution towards an intelligent understanding of a vast and fascinating subject ... abounds in subtle insights ... Sensibility and English Song is, by any standards, a major achievement - an indispensable work of reference and revelation, as important to singers, concert promoters and (let us hope) record companies as it will be to scholars and all those interested in an amazingly rich seam of British musical genius.' Music & Letters

'This remarkable work will become as invaluable to teachers as to singers, composers, students, critics and all who delight in the art of song.' Music Teacher

'... this study is unlikely to be surpassed in its ambitious comprehensiveness for a long while, and will remain a unique source of reference.' Classical Music

Book Description:

This highly acclaimed study of English song is the first detailed account of an unusually fruitful interrelationship between English music and English poetry. The period covered is known as the English Musical Renaissance and runs from the last years of the nineteenth century to the Second World War. Stephen Banfield traces the late flowering of Romantic impulses in solo song during these years, surveying it from critical, analytical and historical angles.