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The British Piano Sonata, 1870-1945
Title Details

276 Pages

23.4 x 15.6 cm

90 line illus.

Imprint: Boydell Press

The British Piano Sonata, 1870-1945

by Lisa Hardy

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An updated edition of the first book on this subject, covering influences, key works and reception history.

From the start of the English musical renaissance, British composers were preoccupied with Germanic principles of sonata writing, despite their subsequent exposure to influences outside this tradition, among them late romantic music, French impressionism, Russian nationalism, Scriabin, British folk music, African-American music and neo-classicism. Regardless of education - or the climate, fully explored here, at the Royal College and the Royal Academy - the Austro-German tradition proved inescapable. This first study of the subject offers detailed commentary on key works, with plentiful musical examples, revealing influences and techniques and demonstrating composers' attitudes towards the genre. The reception history of the piano sonata is also discussed, to build up a picture of public musical taste. The appendix contains transcripts of interviews, including one with Sir Michael Tippett; these are particularly significant, as most of the subjects are now dead. Also included is a useful reference section, cataloguing the sonatas, as well as a full discography chronicling the recording history of each sonata, updated in 2012.

Lisa Hardy studied music, mathematics and education at the University of Keele and researched her PhD at Goldsmiths' College, London, under the supervision of Professor Peter Dickinson. She works as a freelance piano and flute teacher and piano accompanist in the North East of England and teaches music at Durham High School for Girls.
"Rewarding ... Enlightening ... An exciting new addition to the musical and historical literature." BRITISH MUSIC SOCIETY NEWSLETTER
"Lisa Hardy's book is a remarkable and readable piece of academic research ... Her style combines illuminating snippets of biography, glimpses and sketches of composer-characters, all woven around a strong, analytical central core of musical ideas, theory, and all the esoteric elements upon which the pianist and musicologist thrive. The cover, too, is worth mentioning ... an eye-catching and well-designed beginning to a precise and scintillating performance." SPIRITED MAGAZINE, December 2013
"Lisa Hardy's book, full of a huge amount of meticulous research, is an enormous achievement .This book will be of great interest to both professional musicians and the general music loving public. Whilst it deals in depth with many of the works featured, it is also immensely readable." THE CLASSICAL REVIEWER

Paperback

9781843837985

December 2012

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Title Details

276 Pages

2.34 x 1.56 cm

90 line illus.

Imprint: Boydell Press