King Arthur in Music

A survey of the influence of the Arthurian legends on musical works.

King Arthur in Music is the first book to be devoted to the subject. The range of musical material is too wide for a single author to tackle satisfactorily, and the nine contributors to this volume are experts in the very different fields involved. The first essay, by Robert Shay, deals with the late seventeenth century semi-opera King Arthur, while the final essay by William Everitt looks at the appearances of Arthur on stage and screen and the scores that have accompanied these. Between these two extremes, the main body of the book deals largely with opera as we now understand it, from Wagner's 'Tristan' and 'Parsifal' to Harrison Birtwistle's 'Sir Gawain and the GreenKnight'. Some works have never been performed, such as Hubert Parry's 'Guenever' and Rutland Boughton's Arthurian cycle, while others have only recently been staged or revived, such as Isaac Albeníz's 'Merlin' and Ernest Chausson's 'Le roi Artus', both striking post-Wagnerian works in very different styles: 'Merlin', for instance, begins with a passage based on Gregorian chant. The range of music is therefore wider than one might at first suspect, and other aspects of Arthurian music are brought out in the introduction, which is a general survey of the field, and in Jerome V.Reel's comprehensive listing of Arthurian musical items which is printed as an appendix. Contributors ROBERT ADLINGTON, RICHARD BARBER, WALTER A. CLARK, JEREMY DIBBLE, WILLIAM A. EVERITT, TONY HUNT, MICHAEL HURD, JEROME V. REEL, NIGEL SIMEONE, ROBERT SHAY, DEREK WATSON.

Author: Richard Barber
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Published: 12/12/2002
Pages: 204
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.74h x 6.54w x 0.87d
ISBN: 9780859917674

About the Author
Barber, Richard: - Richard Barber has published widely on medieval history. The Knight and Chivalry won the 1971 Somerset Maugham Award. His other major interest is historical biography with books on Henry Plantagenet and the Black Prince.Dibble, Jeremy: - JEREMY DIBBLE is Professor of Music at Durham University. He is the author of C. Hubert H. Parry: His Life and Music (1998), Charles Villers Stanford: Man and Musician (2002), Michele Esposito (2010). With Boydell, Dibble has published John Stainer: A Life in Music (2007), Hamilton Harty: Musical Polymath (2013), British Musical Criticism and Intellectual Thought, 1850-1950 (2018) (with Julian Horton).