Symphonic music in Great Britain

Monday, November 30, 2015

A new book crossed our desks recently:

Jürgen Schaarwächter. Two Centuries of British Symphonism from the Beginnings to 1945: A Preliminary Survey. Hildesheim: Georg-Olms-Verlag, 2015. 2 volumes, 1201 p. ISBN: 978-3-487-15227-1

This book is a comprehensive survey of symphonic music in Great Britain and serves to dispel any remaining myths that there is no symphonic tradition in Britain. In two volumes and over 1,000 pages, Jürgen Schaarwächter details well-known symphonic music as well as overshadowed works that remain unpublished or unperformed. The development of this music includes composers born in Great Britain as well as foreign composers who spent significant portions of their careers there or experienced significant musical evolution while there. We therefore read about Arnold Bax, Edward Elgar, and Ralph Vaughn Williams alongside Johann Christian Bach and Muzio Clementi.

Perhaps most valuable for RISM and our users is Appendix I, the “Alphabetic catalogue of British symphonies up to 1945” in volume 2 of the work (p. 801-1018). This hefty section provides detailed information about the works discussed in the main body of the text. Each entry names the composer and the work and gives detailed scoring, movements, the location of autograph manuscripts, publication details, the location of performing material, information about first or other performances, recordings available, duration, dedications, and the text to works with voices.

The RISM online catalog now cites this book in the records for the manuscripts named in the appendix (short title: SchaarwächterS 2015). Most of the manuscripts in RISM are today held by institutions in, logically, the UK, but a fair number have found their way to Germany and Switzerland.

You can also read a review on info-netz-musik.

Category: New publications