Donald Francis Tovey (1875–1940)
Author of The forms of music
About the Author
Series
Works by Donald Francis Tovey
Essays in Musical Analysis, Volume 2: Symphonies (2), Variations, and Orchestral Polyphony (2) (1935) 36 copies
Symphonies and Other Orchestral Works: Essays in Musical Analysis (Oxford Paperback Reference) (1937) 32 copies
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Tovey, Donald Francis
- Legal name
- Tovey, Donald Francis
- Birthdate
- 1875-07-17
- Date of death
- 1940-07-10
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- England
UK - Birthplace
- Eton, Berkshire, England, UK
- Place of death
- Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
- Education
- University of Oxford (Balliol College)
- Occupations
- composer
pianist
conductor
musicologist - Organizations
- University of Edinburgh
Members
Reviews
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 43
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 692
- Popularity
- #36,565
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 3
- ISBNs
- 52
- Languages
- 1
- Favorited
- 1
Tovey was most widely known as a writer and lecturer on music, his analytical essays being models of their kind. In his essays, Tovey developed a theory of tonal structure and its relation to classical forms that he applied in his descriptions of pieces in his famous program notes for the Reid Orchestra. His aesthetic regards works of music as organic wholes, and he stresses the importance of understanding how musical principles manifest in different ways within the context of a given piece. He was fond of using metaphors to illustrate his ideas. A quotation from the Essays (on J. Brahms' Handel Variations, Tovey 1922):"The relation between Beethoven's freest variations and his theme is of the same order of microscopical accuracy and profundity as the relation of a bat's wing to a human hand." Tovey's belief that classical music has an aesthetics that can be deduced from the internal evidence of the music itself has influenced subsequent writers on music.
Best-known for his Essays in Musical Analysis which he based on his famous program notes written mainly for his concerts with the Reid Orchestra in Edinburgh, Sir Donald Tovey achieved world-wide recognition as a pianist, composer, conductor, and writer on music. Originally published as six volumes from 1935-39, Essays in Musical Analysis reappeared in 1981 as two paperback volumes, Symphonies and Other Orchestral Works and Concertos and Choral Works, along with a supplementary volume, Chamber Music.
Chamber Music contains some of Tovey's most important essays, including those on Bach's "Goldberg" Variations and Art of Fugue, and on key works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, and Brahms.
But Tovey regarded himself first and foremost as a musician: making music was the real business of his life; everything else was secondary. Yet he was not content to be a pianist, conductor and composer; as an editor, writer, broadcaster, scholar and teacher, his aim was to bring his knowledge and love of music to a much wider audience.… (more)