BOOKS | EMP B003

EMP B003

 

 

DEREK HUDSON

Norman O’Neill: A Life of Music

 

 

 

 

Paperback | Pages: ii, 176, cat.16, bib., scs, ind.16

 

 

ISBN 978-0-9572942-1-9

 

 

 

 

 

The year 1934 saw the deaths not only of Elgar, Delius and Holst but also, following a tragic road accident, of Norman O’Neill, aged only 58. This much-loved figure, a member of the ‘Frankfurt Gang’ and a close friend of Delius, was especially renowned for the music he wrote for many theatre productions, most famously J.M. Barrie’s ‘Mary Rose’ and Maurice Maeterlinck’s ‘The Blue Bird’. Katherine Hudson, granddaughter of the composer, has overseen the preparation by EM Publishing of a new edition of this definitive 1945 biography by her father Derek Hudson, with end-matter extensively revised and amplified by Stephen Lloyd and additional photographs. Percy Grainger expressed his gratitude to the author on the book’s appearance ‘for having written such a masterly & heart-warming tribute to our dear genius-friend… with your inspired insight into and sympathy with the subject’.

 

Derek Hudson (1911–2003), author and journalist. Educated at Shrewsbury and Merton College, Oxford. Married Yvonne O’Neill, 1939. On the editorial staff of ‘The Times’ 1938–48; Literary Editor of ‘The Spectator’ 1949–1953; on the editorial staff of the Oxford University Press 1955–65. His many books include: ‘A Poet in Parliament: W.M.Praed’ (Murray, 1939); ‘Norman O’Neill: A Life of Music’ (Quality Press Ltd, 1945); ‘Charles Keene’ (Pleiades Books, 1947); ‘Martin Tupper: His Rise and Fall’ (Constable, 1949); ‘James Pryde’ (Constable, 1949); ‘Lewis Carroll’ (Constable, 1954); ‘Sir Joshua Reynolds’ (Bles, 1958); ‘Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work’ (Heinemann, 1960); ‘Writing Between the Lines: An Autobiography’ (High Hill Books, 1965); and ‘Munby: Man of Two Worlds’ (Murray, 1972).

EM Publishing is the publishing arm of the internationally successful English Music Festival and sister arm to the groundbreaking and celebrated recording label EM Records. Its aim, like that of EM Records, is to make previously unavailable scores and books accessible to all; and, in particular, to facilitate the performance of, or to further research about, English music.

 

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