Gerald Abraham

Gerald Ernest Heal Abraham

An authoritative, comprehensive volume by one of the world's most highly respected musicologists covers the whole history of music by genre, from its first recorded emergence in Sumer and Egypt to the death of Stravinsky

The Concise Oxford History of Music

Peter Calvocoressi

First published in 1936, Calvocoressi's and Abraham's study was the first complete account of its subject to appear in any language, including Russian, and was based on a large amount of original first-hand research. Over 75 years later Masters of Russian Music retains its power - as any study of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakof, Scriabin, Borodin et al really ought to, since these were composers whose extraordinary musical accomplishments still left room in their lives for all manner of other interesting (and sometimes eccentric) activities. The portraits in this volume are scholarly, authoritative, and highly lively - as befitting the eminent talents under discussion.

Masters of Russian Music

The contributions to The Music of Tchaikovsky have been selected and arranged under the editorship of Gerald Abraham, who has also contributed two of the articles. The bibliography has been brought up to date for this edition, and the book also includes a chronology, a complete list of works, and many musical examples.

The Music of Tchaikovsky

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

The Tradition of Western Music

A Short Biography

Tchaikovsky

Critical and Historical Studies of Glinka's Operas, Balakirev's Works ... and Various Aspects of Russian Music

On Russian Music

Gerald Abraham's reputation as an authority on Russian music has tended to obscure his deep interest in the music of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and of the nineteenth-century generally. From a lifetime's devoted scholarship in these fields Abrahams selected his best work to make up this volume (first published in 1968), one of exceptional breadth and fascination. The subjects range from the relationship of Slavonic music to the western world, to detailed essays on figures such as Chopin, Dvorák, Rubinstein and Mussorgsky. A study of realism in Janacek's operas contains a particularly fine analysis of From a House of the Dead and there is an account of the fantastic 'erotic diary' for piano in which Zdenek Fibich, one of the finest nineteenth-century Czech symphonists, recorded the secrets of his love affair with former student and librettist Anezka Schulzová. Gerald Abraham (1904-1988) was a distinguished musicologist, among his official posts those of Professor of Music at the University of Liverpool and Assistant Controller of Music at the BBC.

Essays and Studies

Slavonic and Romantic Music

Jack Allan Westrup

Covers forty years which saw profound changes in music, most of them dominated by Beethoven. Provides a detailed, scholarly critical survey of the music of the period with chapters on French, Italian and German opera and on opera in other countries, on Beethoven's orchestral and chamber music and of his contemporaries on the concerto, on piano music, on solo song and on choral music, as well as an introductory chapter on general musical conditions of the time.

The Age of Beethoven, 1790-1830

One Hundred Years of Music provides a full account of the history of music from the death of Beethoven to the modern era. It covers a period of exceptional interest. The last hundred years coincide roughly with the rise and decline of Romanticism, include the various nationalist movements, and extend to the advent of "neo-classicism," the twelve-tone system, and still more modern techniques. Abraham devotes ample space to modernist and avant garde music, in which he explains the difficulties we experience in listening to the work of such composers as Schnberg, Bart k, and Berg. He also throws new light on many more familiar topics.In its earlier editions, One Hundred Years of Music became a standard work on this subject; it has since been brought updated to include coverage of later developments. Abraham approaches his subject as an historian of style rather than an esthetic critic. Rather than pass judgment on particular works or composers, he shows how music has developed, and thus provides a clear and connected history that is more substantial than most books of musical appreciation. An extensive chronology and a full bibliography and index add to the usefulness of the book for students, professionals and musical laymen alike.This third edition incorporates some corrections of fact, further enlarges the bibliography and chronology, and adds commentary on developments in music techniques. In order to correct the historical perspective, the author has included a "prelude" and three "interludes," giving rough sketches of general conditions in the musical world at intervals of thirty years. As the reader's sense of chronology is very apt to get confused when a number of simultaneous streams of development have to be described, the author has inserted the date of composition or performance (both if they are widely separated) of each work at the first mention of it.

After Beethoven and Wagner

One Hundred Years of Music

The Age of Humanism, 1540-1630

First published in 1939, On Russian Music was conceived by Gerald Abraham as a sequel to his earlier Studies in Russian Music (1935, also in Faber Finds), and complements the previous work in many useful respects. Glinka moves to the forefront via close study of both of his operas. A historical account of the composition of Borodin's Prince Igor enriches the critical study made in the first book. And chapters on Mlada and Tsar Saltan round out Abraham's appreciations of the major operas of Rimsky-Korsakov. There are also critical and historical essays on works by Mussorgsky, Dargomzhsky, Tchaikovsky and other composers, and analyses that, in their time, threw new light on the programmatic meaning of such well-known compositions as Scheherazade and the Pathtique symphony. The book is superbly illustrated with music examples throughout.

Gerald Abraham

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