From the Winter 2024 Musical Times, available now

Articles
David Wright: ‘Musicology and its discontents’
Peter Phillips: ‘Perceiving Palestrina’
Richard Langham Smith: ‘Calibrating Carmen: “The true Carmen’, HIP and HOP, and the one without the Habanera’
Brian Newbould: ‘Dissonance in tonal music 4: beginnings and endings’
Eric L. Altschuler, Mehmet Oǧuz Namal & Edward D. Latham: ‘Bach’s doubling rules for pieces with five or more voices’
Stephen Arthur Allen: ‘Country and town: John Ireland, Helen Perkin and the ‘significance’ of A Downland Suite and Comedy Overture for brass band’

and reviews by Arnold Whittall and Andrew Thomson of

Dmitri Tymoczko: Tonality: an owner’s manual: geometry, schema, statistics
David Trippett, ed.: Wagner in context
JPE Harper-Scott & Oliver Chandler: Return to Riemann: tonal function and chromatic music
Robert Sholl: Olivier Messiaen: a critical biography

From the Autumn 2024 Musical Times, available now

Articles
Michael Talbot: ‘Benjamin Skinner (1728–57) and his Six solos’
Brian Newbould: ‘Dissonance in tonal music 3: the dissonant chain and the “dissonant consonance” ’
Andrew Thomson: ‘Anglophone artistic contributions to the complex genesis of Debussy’s Nocturnes’
Stephen Arthur Allen: ‘From birth to rebirth: Edmund Rubbra’s Variations on ‘The shining river’, op.101 (1958) – the Sixth Symphony not excluded – and the “eight ages” of man’
Michael Kassler: ‘Charles Flaxman’s contribution to musicology’
Lionel Pike: ‘Reflections on a Tallis cadence’

and reviews by Arnold Whittall and Andrew Thomson of

Byron Adams & Daniel Grimley, edd.: Vaughan Williams and his world
Julian Onderdonk & Ceri Owen, edd.: Vaughan Williams in context
Jack van Zandt: Alexander Goehr: composing a life: teachers, mentors & models
Caroline Potter: Pierre Boulez: organised delirium
Brian Newbould: Schubert’s workshop

From the Summer 2024 Musical Times, available now

Articles
Peter Phillips: ‘The China tour’
Andrew Thomson: ‘Redemption by the spiritual purity of nakedness: d’Indy’s Istar and an ancient Assyrian legend’
Brian Newbould: ‘Dissonance in tonal music 2: more complex, personal, or referential dissonances; hyper dissonance’
James Porter: ‘Maiden, poet, composer, princess: agents in the making of Louis Berger’s Colma: scène ossianique (1810)’
Lionel Pike: ‘An eye for colour: John Ward and the madrigal’
Arnold Whittall: ‘What music tells us’

and a review by Andrew Thomson of

Julian Rushton: Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique

Arnold Whittall: Schoenberg: ‘Night music’ – Verklärte Nacht and Erwartung

From the Spring 2024 Musical Times, available now

Articles

Ronald Broude & Mary Cyr: ‘The musical work before the work concept, or the 18th-century acceptance of musical compositions as works’

Brian Newbould: ‘Dissonance in tonal music 1: purpose and principles’

Arnold Whittall: ‘2024 and all what? Forward to basics’

Stephen Arthur Allen: ‘Fanfares, flourishes & tattoos: narratives in Herbert Howells’s Pageantry (1937) and Three figures (1960) for brass band’

Lionel Pike: ‘Cambridge puzzles? Howells at Evensong’

and reviews by Richard Langham Smith and Andrew Thomson of

Étienne Jardin: Exposer la musique: Le festival du Trocadéro (Paris 1878)
Clair Rowden: Opera and parody in Paris, 1860–1900
Fiona Maddocks: Goodbye Russia: Rachmaninoff in exile

From the Winter 2023 Musical Times, available now

Articles

Michael Talbot: ‘FE Fisher revisited: more on the life and music of Friedrich Ernst Fischer (c.1711/12–1760)’

Andrew Thomson: ‘Dissolution and resolution: superimposed fourth formations in Mahler 7 and Schoenberg’s op.9’

Barbara Barry: ‘Perspectives on Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasy: conceptual models and compositional strategy “quasi una fantaisa”’

Judith Chernaik: ‘Brahms in conversation with Bach: the violin Chaconne arranged for piano, left hand’

Donald Burrows: ‘ “Lost” movements from the early performances of Handel’s Messiah’

Kerry McCarthy & John Harley: ‘William Byrd’s library revisited’

The Blue French

    

Peter Phillips’s debut novel, The Blue French, is now available here and via amazon.

Have you ever wanted to take part in a performance of Tallis's colossal Spem in alium? Or experience Allegri's sublime Miserere up close? Now is your chance to live it all, as Peter Phillips describes the world of London’s singers – professional, amateur and chaotic – as they sing, argue and fall in love. Join them in The Blue French, a friendly North London restaurant where musicians of every kind gather between sessions. Gossip, eat and drink with them as they attend rehearsals. Above all, meet Ahmed, the Palestinian proprietor, and his mysterious helper Eugene, with their own stories to tell. Here is a whole society of creative people in action, revealed in minute detail, unlikely to be exposed to such a unblinking inspection again.

The author, Peter Phillips, is Director of The Tallis Scholars, which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary.

From the Autumn 2023 Musical Times, available now

Articles 

Peter Phillips: ‘Fifty years on’
Brian Newbould: ‘Double passing notes and the “sesta sfiorata” ’
Allan W. Atlas: ‘Madelon Coates’s guide to London: Vaughan Williams’s A London Symphony in the United States, 1920–1925

Reviews

by Andrew Thomson, David Wright, Arnold Whittall and Richard Langham Smith of 

Eric Saylor: Vaughan Williams
Nigel Simeone: Ralph Vaughan Williams and Adrian Boult
Caroline Davison: The Captain’s Apprentice: Ralph Vaughan Williams and the story of a folk song
Robert O. Gjerdingen: Child composers in the old conservatories: how orphans became elite musicians
Karen Arrandale: Edward J. Dent: a life of words and music
Tom Perchard, Stephen Graham, Tim Rutherford-Johnson & Holly Rogers: Twentieth century music in the West: an introduction
Denis Herlin: Claude Debussy: Portraits et Études