Item Detail
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Dressler, John Clay
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William Alwyn : a research and information guide
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Book
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Routledge music bibliographies
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New York, N.Y.
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2012
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Routledge
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xv, 317 p. ; 24 cm.
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English
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9780415886055 (hardback : alk. paper); 0415886058 (hardback : alk. paper)
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Alwyn, William, 1905-1985--Bibliography.
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ML 134 .A538 D74 2012
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Dressler, John C. William Alwyn: A Research and Information Guide. Routledge Music Bibliographies. New York: Routledge, 2012.
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This biobibliography is intended to provide students, researchers, and appreciators of William Alwyn with an introduction to the composer and a selection of basic literature about his life and works. Additionally, this volume is also intended as a companion to Adrian Wright's Alwyn biography.
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According to the author, he has included as many relevant publications to the life and works of Williamn Alwyn as possible, especially those easily accessible through usual library and research channels. With respect to chronology, the earliest items appear to have been published in the 1920s and continue to the present day. The majority of included items are in English, consisting of: books and chapters of books containing meaningful coverage of Alwyn's works; encyclopedia or dictionary entries; correspondence; articles from both scholarly and popular magazines; American and British dissertations and theses; meaningful reviews of scores, performances, and recordings; websites and other Internet resources; and compositions which were inspired by Alwyn or dedicated to him. Excluded are: textbooks and general music histories; brief news announcements; incomplete dissertations/theses; liner notes; and materials not in Western European languages. Items in the discography consist of reel-to-reel tapes, cassettes, LPs, CDs, and other vinyl formats, regardless of availability.
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The book is divided into four chapters plus an index. Chapter 1 is a biography of William Alwyn that also includes a chronology, and a catalogue of all his known works both published and unpublished. The catalogue of works first groups entries by genre, then alphabetically by title. Entries include date of composition, movement titles or tempo markings, producers and/or directors of films, texts and their authors, performance forces, duration, dedication and/or commission details, date of first performance, publication information, description of the original manuscript and its location, and notes regarding the composition in general. Compositions are numbered using the system established by Robert Threlfall and Mary Christison Huismann. Chapter 2 is the bibliography divided into eight segments, each pertaining to different types of source materials. In each segment, entries are listed alphabetically by author and generally include complete bibliographic citations along with a brief synopsis too short to be considered an annotation. For obituaries, entries are simply listed alphabetically by the title of the journal or newspaper. For the segment 'references to specific works,' entries are first grouped by title of composition, then listed alphabetically by author. Chapter 3 is a selective discography organized alphabetically by record label and then by catalogue number. Entries include the release date, title of recording, an alphabetical listing of works featured, performers, and recording format. Chapter 4 is titled 'Related Materials' and consists of a number of miscellaneous materials of interest: an alphabetical list of former first-study students taught by Alwyn at the Royal Academy of Music; a listing of works dedicated to Alwyn by other composers, listed alphabetically by composer, with entries providing at least the title, instrumentation, publication information, and date; and an index of standard periodical numbers used in the bibliography section, in which entries are listed alphabetically by title and supply the ISBN and/or OCLC number. The biobibliography concludes with two indexes. The first is an alphabetical index of works that also includes alternate titles, movement titles, song titles, and first lines. The second index alphabetically lists personal and other names appearing throughout the previous sections of the book.
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The typography lacks variation, making entries in the bibliography and discography particularly tedious to skim for information. Entries are also not typically annotated, making it difficult to assess the desirability of any given item.
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BYU Mus Ref
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1041