AustLit

'As both composer and critic, Peggy Glanville-Hicks contributed to the astonishing cultural ferment of the mid-twentieth century. Her forceful voice as a writer and commentator helped shape professional and public opinion on the state of American composing. The seventy musical works she composed ranged from celebrated operas like Nausicaa to intimate, jewel-like compositions created for friends. Her circle included figures like Virgil Thomson, Paul Bowles, John Cage, and Yehudi Menuhin. Drawing on interviews, archival research, and fifty-four years of extraordinary pocket diaries, Suzanne Robinson places Glanville-Hicks within the history of American music and composers. "P.G.H."--affectionately described as "Australian and pushy"--forged alliances with power brokers and artists that gained her entrance to core American cultural entities such as the League of Composers, New York Herald Tribune, and the Harkness Ballet. Yet her impeccably cultivated public image concealed a private life marked by unhappy love affairs, stubborn poverty, and the painstaking creation of her artistic works. Evocative and intricate, Peggy Glanville-Hicks clears away decades of myth and storytelling to provide a portrait of a remarkable figure and her times.' (Publication summary)

'Spanning two decades of the cultural life of Melbourne, from 1891 until the start of World War I, this collection of the letters of the composer, conductor and critic G.W.L. Marshall-Hall samples the scandal, disappointments, achievements and camaraderie of those years, when he established a renowned orchestra, was controversially sacked and later reappointed as professor at the university and when his opera Stella was butchered at its London premiere. Correspondents include the artists Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts, the composers Alfred Hill and Fritz Hart, and an array of musicians, colleagues, friends and supporters. Sometimes caustic and often opinionated, the letters expose their author’s infectious enthusiasm for Art as well as his tendency to rile his enemies. His tragic death in 1915 led a few years later to a campaign to collect what memorabilia remained. Gathered here from public and private archives in Australia and Britain are 249 of the extant letters, each of which offers a vivid portrait of a man many described as a musical genius.' (Publication summary)