The Oxford History of English Music, vol. 2, From c.1715 to the Present Day (review)

Abstract

The period of the second volume of John Caldwell's history of English music, ca. 1715 to the present day, has already been covered by volumes 4-6 of The Blackwell History of Music in Britain ([Oxford: Blackwell, 1988-]; vol. 5 originally published as The Athlone History of Music in Britain [London: Athlone Press, 1981]), but a study of this kind has not been attempted by a single author since Ernest Walker's A History of [End Page 600] Music in England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907; 2d ed., 1924; 3d ed., 1952) first appeared almost a century ago. Caldwell freely admits in his preface that the completion of the three Blackwell volumes "has been a particular convenience," and a general indebtedness is acknowledged (p. vii), but he has also had the benefit of a number of other studies, particularly studies of the "English Musical Renaissance," from which to develop his own perspective. Frank Howes's now somewhat dated The English Musical Renaissance (New York: Stein and Day, 1966) and Peter J. Pirie's generally poor and badly planned book by the same title (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979) are two that spring to mind, while Robert Stradling and Meirion Hughes's more controversial The English Musical Renaissance, 1860-1940: Construction and Deconstruction (London: Routledge, 1993) appeared relatively recently. Moreover, in the last twenty years there have been a considerable number of other, more detailed works of scholarship on English music of the last three centuries that Caldwell has been able to draw upon, and these he has attempted to bring together to form a larger purview of music's role in England--a thesis confirmed by the presence of the last chapter, "England and its Music" (pp. 537-53).