Alan Walker (musicologist) explained

Alan Walker
Birth Date:6 April 1930
Birth Place:Scunthorpe, England
Occupation:Musicologist

Alan Walker, FRSC (born 6 April 1930[1]) is an English-Canadian musicologist and university professor best known as a biographer and scholar of composer Franz Liszt. Walker has also written on composers Robert Schumann and Frédéric Chopin, as well as conductor Hans von Bülow. He has held posts at a variety of institutions, including the Guildhall School of Music, the University of London, McMaster University and City, University of London.

Biography

Walker was born in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire.[1] He received an LGSM certificate in 1949,[1] ARCM in 1950,[1] a Bachelor of Music from University of Durham in 1956,[1] and a Doctor of Music in 1965.[1] Between 1957 and 1960 he studied privately with Hans Keller, an association which he has always acknowledged as formative. These lessons were resumed, albeit irregularly, once Walker joined Keller at the BBC in 1961.

From 1958 to 1961 Walker lectured at the Guildhall School of Music,[1] having studied piano there with Alfred Nieman,[1] noted for teaching improvisational techniques.[2] He also taught at the University of London from 1954 to 1960.[3] Walker worked at the BBC Radio Music Division as a producer between 1961 and 1971.[1] Seeking to return to his "first love", teaching,[4] he gave up radio production and took an appointment as Professor of Music at McMaster University[1] in Hamilton, Ontario, where he chaired the department of music from 1971 to 1980, and from 1989 to 1995.[1] In 1981, he was responsible for the establishment at McMaster of the first graduate program in music criticism in Canada.[1] Since 1995, he has been professor emeritus at McMaster.[5] From 1984 to 1987, he was a distinguished visiting professor of music at City University in London.[3]

His three-volume biography of Franz Liszt, which took him 25 years to complete, has been very influential. Common adjectives attached to the work include "monumental"[6] [7] and "magisterial",[8] and it is said to have "unearthed much new material and provided a strong stimulus for further research".[8] Walker himself says that when he found, as a BBC producer compiling notes for program announcers, that "there wasn't a decent book in English on Liszt", he eventually decided to write one himself, but was determined "not to make a major statement that couldn't be supported by documents ... and because Liszt himself was a traveller the archives were everywhere."[4]

The first volume won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in biography for 1983[9] and best book on music from the Yorkshire Post Newspapers in 1984.[1] The three-book series was given the Royal Philharmonic Society Book Award in 1998.[10]

Time magazine praised the biography as "a textured portrait of Liszt and his times without rival", saying that Walker's work was "equally strong on the music and the life", and discussed Liszt's corpus "with greater understanding and clarity than any previous biographer".[11] The New York Times, reviewing the second volume, said of Walker's passion for his subject, "Mr. Walker can see only the good, and will stand for no criticism of his hero", but still called Walker's extensive research "incredible.... Mr. Walker seems to know everything about Liszt, and anything connected with Liszt, during every single day of the long life of that genius."[12] The Washington Post music critic Tim Page, including the third volume in his best books of the year list, called it "unquestionably a landmark" and "meticulously detailed, passionately argued and sometimes wrenchingly moving".[13]

The technique of biography, and how it differs from other literary genres, has always been of interest to Walker and he has written about it. When asked about the genesis of his Liszt biography he wrote: “I had always been immensely attracted to Liszt’s magnetic personality, and in my childhood I was drawn to the legend of his piano playing as to few other topics. They say that in every biography is an autobiography trying to get out. The idea would be diverting if it were not so sobering. I have come to believe that the best biographies choose their biographers, not vice versa. The lucky biographers write their work not because they have a choice but because they have no choice at all.” [14]

Walker has also written substantially about Robert Schumann and Frédéric Chopin, and continues to lecture in Canada, the US, and UK on all three musicians. In October 2018 he brought to completion a large-scale biography of Fryderyk Chopin, a book on which he worked for ten years. It has been described as “a biographical masterpiece”,[15] and was named Classical Music Book of the Year by the Sunday Times of London.[16] James Penrose in The New Criterion wrote: “With Liszt, and now Fryderyk Chopin so well cared for, one can but hope that Walker will try for the hat trick.”[17] On the other hand, he was also criticised for downplaying or idiosyncratically interpreting private aspects of Chopin's life, such as the erotic letters to men.[18] [19] [20] [21]

Walker lives in Ancaster, Ontario.[3] He is director of "The Great Romantics", an annual festival in Hamilton, Ontario.[22]

Honours

Books

Articles

Walker has written over 100 articles for scholarly music journals,[3] and provided the biographical entry on Liszt for Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001).[3] Journal articles include:

References

  1. Encyclopedia: Walker, Alan. Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. 2006-12-07.
  2. Healing Heritage: Exploring the Tonal Language of Paul Nordoff . Stige, Brynjulf . Nordic Journal of Music Therapy . 1999 . 8 . 2 . 214–217 . 2006-12-07 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20061016092958/http://www.barcelonapublishers.com/reviews/healing_reviews.htm . 2006-10-16 . Via Barcelona Publishers website.
  3. Web site: Alan Walker: Finding Aids. The William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University. 2006-12-07. https://web.archive.org/web/20061106115259/http://library.mcmaster.ca/archives/findaids/fonds/w/walker.htm. 6 November 2006 . live.
  4. Web site: Dr. Alan Walker . . 2006-12-07 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070207180045/http://library.mcmaster.ca/develop/walker.htm . 2007-02-07 .
  5. News: Four to receive honorary doctorates at Fall Convocation November 9 . . November 5, 2001 . 2006-12-07 . https://web.archive.org/web/20060628064742/http://www.mcmaster.ca/ua/opr/nms/newsreleases/2001/fallconvocation01.html . 2006-06-28 . dead .
  6. Book Review The Death of Franz Liszt. Zimdars, Richard . American Music Teacher. 2004.
  7. Death in Bayreuth: An Unknown Document about the Death of Franz Liszt . Hamburger, Klára . Hungarian Quarterly . 2005 . 2006-12-07 . Winter . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070320225645/http://www.hungarianquarterly.com/no180/14.html . 2007-03-20 .
  8. Web site: The Cambridge Companion to Liszt. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge University Press. 2006-12-07.
  9. Web site: The Prize Winners . . 2006-12-07 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070115050855/http://www.englit.ed.ac.uk/jtbwins.htm . 15 January 2007 . dead .
  10. Web site: RPS Music Awards. Royal Philharmonis Society. https://web.archive.org/web/20131029200759/http://www.rpsmusicawards.com/index/creative-communication. dead. 2013-10-29.
  11. The Book of Liszts: Finally, a Biography that Does Justice to All Facets of Franz Liszt's Messy Life and Protean Work. https://web.archive.org/web/20070330141325/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985065,00.html. dead. 30 March 2007. Ravetz, Elliot. Time Magazine. September 2, 1996. 2006-12-07.
  12. News: Books of The Times; A Scholarly Crusader for Fran Liszt. Schonberg, Harold C.. Harold C. Schonberg. The New York Times. July 14, 1989. 2006-12-07.
  13. News: Informed Opinions: Experts Pick Their Favorites. Page, Tim. Tim Page (music critic). The Washington Post. 1996-12-08. 2006-12-07.
  14. The Hungarian Quarterly. Franz Liszt: A Biographer’s Journey, Spring 2011, vol. LII, p. 45.
  15. Web site: A Biographical Masterpiece. May. Patrick. November 11, 2018. Music and Arts. 2019-09-18.
  16. Web site: Review: Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times by Alan Walker — a virtuoso performance. Duchen. Jessica. November 4, 2018. The Times.
  17. Web site: Dying all his life. Penrose. James. January 2019. New Criterion.
  18. Book: Walker, Alan . Fryderyk Chopin: a life and times . 2018 . Farrar, Straus and Giroux . 978-0-374-15906-1 . New York . 156–158.
  19. Web site: L'AVENÇ . Va ser homosexual, Chopin? . 2023-07-16 . www.lavenc.cat . ca.
  20. News: Fonseca-Wollheim . Corinna da . 2018-11-19 . An Ingenious Frédéric Chopin . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-07-16 . 0362-4331.
  21. Weber . Moritz . 2022-01-13 . AKT I / ACTO I / ACT I Männer / Hombres / Men Chopins Männer / Los hombres de Chopin / Chopin's Men . Itamar. Revista de investigación musical: Territorios para el arte . de . 435, 445 . 2386-8260.
  22. Web site: Roots & Legacy: Alan Walker . . 2006-12-07 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070213201000/http://www.uga.edu/music/lisztfest/People/Walker.html . 2007-02-13 . A Celebration of Liszt and Matthay, presented by the American Liszt Society and the American Matthay Association.
  23. Web site: Outstanding Hungarian Award to Professor Alan Walker . www.mfa.gov.hu . 17 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120806194857/http://www.mfa.gov.hu/kulkepviselet/CA/en/en_Hirek/20120123_alan_walker_kituntetes.htm . 6 August 2012 . dead.
  24. https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=Liszt%2C+Carolyne%2C+and+the+Vatican%3A+The+Story+of+a+Thwarted+Marriage&searchCode=GKEY%5E*&searchType=0&recCount=25&sk=en_US Library of Congress catalog

External links

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Alan Walker (musicologist)".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.