The Classics of Music: Talks, Essays, and Other Writings Previously Uncollected Hardcover – Illustrated, 13 Sept. 2001

"Packaged" is the only way I can describe the way this treasure trove of a book is presented as the word "published" is simply not appropriate. 850 pages of badly photocopied pages (the photo reproductions are particularly awful) shoddily bound are presented with the lame excuse that the book has been "printed digitally and produced in a standard specification in order to ensure its continuing availability". And for this the price has been jacked up from the original £60 to over £100!!Even at Amazon's much reduced price the book is a disgrace not only to OUP but also to the memory of the remarkable man whose musical insights leap out from every page and, incidentally, to the scrupulous work of its three editors. A detailed review of the marvels contained in it would take far longer than the thousand words I am allowed by Amazon, and in that sense of course it is priceless, but in its present form it is not worth even a fraction of the price OUP are asking for it. Any musician, professional or amateur, should seek out this wonderful book wherever they can find it but under no circumstances should they elevate it to the status of a professionally published book by actually buying it.

"It may expected that no more words from Tovey's pen will ever be published". These words were uttered by Hubert Foss, the editor of Essays and Lectures on Music (1949), the last of the posthumous volumes of Tovey's writings prepared for the press. He was fortunately wrong, but it would take over 50 years to prove him wrong!Sir Donald Francis Tovey (1875-1940), the Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University from 1914 until his death is best remembered by musicians and musicologists the world over as the author of Essays in Musical Analysis. But what is forgotten is that Tovey regarded himself first and foremost as a musician. Making music was the real business of Tovey's life; everything else was secondary. He was not content to just be a pianist, conductor and composer, but as an editor, writer, broadcaster, scholar, and teacher his aim was to bring his knowledge and love of music to a much wider audience.The idea behind this present volume could be traced back to the visit to the Reid Music library at Edinburgh University in 1982 by Edward Heath, former Prime Minister and life-long Toveyan. Heath had been shown some of the items in the Library's extensive archives of Toveyana which did not appear in the various Tovey volumes the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, and the Oxford University Press had published in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. It occurred to Michael Tilmouth, Tovey Professor of Music in the University of Edinburgh that collecting some of these unpublished items into what he called a Tovey Miscellany might be appropriate. This idea grew and by 1986 Tilmouth had decided to call the result The Classics of Music. Unfortunately Tilmouth died in 1987. But fortunately for us David Kimbell, Professor of Music, and Roger Savage, Senior Lecturer in English Literature both at the University of Edinburgh set about completing Tilmouth's work.As the editors point out in the introduction, the contents vary a great deal in quality and in the polish of their presentation. Tovey relied very much on his incredible powers of memory and that this inevitably resulted in mistakes. But he was right far more often than he was wrong; and the editors consider that to present him whole, warts and all, is more histographically just than would be a selection of the writings of the man who was, after all, by far the most considerable English writer on music in the first half of the twentieth century.The book is divided into six parts:Essays in Musical AnalysisTovey as journalist, reviewer, and obituarist (1902-1911, 1926-1934)Composer-Articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1929)Two lecture series from the 1920sBroadcast talks for the BBC in the 1930sPieces on Several Occasions (1899-1939)At 864 pages long and with a price tag of £60 this book is certainly not for the occasional reader. But for all those who know and love Tovey's writing this is a long awaited and very welcome addition. It is also a useful introduction to the rest of Tovey's published writings for those who are new to him. It is very well produced and edited with plenty of musical examples and annotations. For the first time in one book the reader is able to appreciate the depth and breadth of Tovey and his livelong love of music. Hopefully the Oxford University Press will see fit to reprint Mary Grierson's biography 'Donald Francis Tovey'. It is also hoped that this book will help to stimulate a renewed interest in Tovey's own music as well as his writing.