Vindications: Essays on Romantic Music

Although this book is a posthumous gathering of various articles and scripts that Cooke wrote over the years, it is interesting to see themes emerging. Two I would pick out are: firstly, the importance of thematic patterns. Cooke is very good and accessible on Wagner’s use of certain phrases or patterns to denote say heroism. He is very good but much more technical in an absolutely fascinating essay on thematic unity in Beethoven’s late quartets. Secondly, on setting the record straight, which he does with admirable clarity and complete authority. His essay on the Bruckner versions problems is so much clearer and far more illuminating than the one in the The Cambridge Companion to Bruckner, which I’ve recently read. Ditto on his show more essay on the sketch for Mahler’s Tenth Symphony. Cooke’s realisation of the performing version of the sketch is what he will be remembered for above all else of course and he brings that wealth of knowledge to a lucid and penetrating essay.
The other fare here is slighter but nevertheless enjoyable and there is a lovely memoir of Cooke by Bryan Magee. show less

Essays included:

The Musical Symbolism of Wagner's Music Dramas
Wagner's Operatic Apprenticeship

The Bruckner Problem Simplified [1969, rev 1975] - Cooke reviews the published editions of Bruckner's Symphonies -- all thirty-four of them -- and concludes that nearly all can be safely ignored. He stresses that in most cases there is a clear choice of editions, so that we need not attach the editor's name to every program listing

The Facts Concerning Mahler's Tenth Symphony
Mahler's Melodic Thinking
The Word and the Deed: Mahler and his Eighth Symphony

Delius: A Centenary Evaluation
Delius and Form: A Vindication

The Unity of Beethoven's Late Quartets - Cooke suggests that if you take the quartets in the order composed (Opp.127-132-130-131-135), show more they form a single compositional whole, an arch with Op.130 at the center.

Strauss, Stravinsky, and Mozart
Shakespeare into Music

Reading and Re-reading Wuthering Heights
Reactionary
The Lennon-McCartney Songs
The Futility of Music Criticism
The Future of Musical Language
The Future of The Language of Music

Also includes:
Deryck Cooke: A Memoir, by Bryan Magee show less