Essays and Diversions II, Vol. 2 Book

Preface     xi
Places
Americas     3
N.Y.C.     3
San Francisco - highlights and no lights     5
Charleston and Gershwin     7
Graceland - pelvic tingles     9
New Orleans     10
In the steps of the Master     12
St Louis     14
'From the New World'     16
The Continent     19
Zurich - safe haven for genius     19
On the waterfront - Stresa     20
Madrid     22
Holland - pain and glory with Wagner     24
Antwerp I     26
Antwerp II     28
Home     30
Greater glory - St Paul's     30
Ely - beware the hissing serpent     31
Unlikely situations     33
Spirit of England     35
Composers' Houses     36
Pleasures of Presteigne     38
Manchester at sixty     40
Vale of Glamorgan     42
Aldeburgh cameos     44
Festival for all the senses (1990)     44
Genius loci (1997)     45
Oh to be in Aldeburgh (1998)     47
Aldeburgh delights (1999)     48
Aldeburgh pickings (2000)     50
Tingles of enjoyment (2001)     52
Festival spirit (2002)     54
Cambridge cameos     57
Brahms and the sardines     57
Conduct becoming - exams and alumni     58
Cambridge talent     60
Kettle's Yard     62
Nine lessons and a Carol     64
Levity and levitation     66
Wild flows the Don     68
Composers in Brief
J. S. Bach - heaven and earth     73
Master of all he surveys - Young Mozart     75
Schubert - keeping the faith     77
Weber's Euryanthe     79
Two on Schumann
A dubious book     83
Doubtful symphonies     84
Tribute to Glinka     85
Berlioz - on-the-edge genius     87
The delights of Bizet     89
Chausson's Le roi Arthus     91
Mood swings - Hugo Wolf     93
Max Reger - black treacle and golden syrup     95
Intermezzo: Entartete Musik
Korngold and Krenek     101
Schulhoff and Schreker     105
Von Schillings, Schoeck, Goldschmidt     113
Der ferne Klang     119
Rozsa and Korngold (again)      120
Composers in Brief (continued)
Weinberger's Schvanda     125
Gerhard's Duenna     126
Puzzled by Prkfv     128
Grainger     130
Birtwistle's Panic     131
Berio     134
Punk transformed - Mein Herz brennt     137
Music of felicity - Julian Anderson     138
Composers at Length
Gerontius-bound: Elgar's choral works up to 1900     143
A question of Kitsch: Strauss and Lehar     167
An introduction to Debussy's etudes     176
Messiaen     192
Ligeti's half-century     201
Alexander Goehr
Sandy at seventy     212
Sing, Ariel     217
David Del Tredici before Alice     220
Charting the Twentieth Century
Thumbnail sketches     229
The first 50 years     229
The 1930s     231
The 1950s     233
The 1960s     235
The overlong 20th century     236
An overview: twentieth-century (lite) blues     239
Odds 'n' Sods
'The twenty best'     257
Monotony: blushing bores     261
Intimation of mortality     262
Finishing touches      264
Whose work is it anyway?     266
The business of growing up     268
Gems of compression     270
Box of delights     272
Painful listening     274
'Dream again'     276
Index     278