Alan Walker (musicologist)

Alan Walker, 2019

Alan Walker , FRSC (born April 6, 1930 in Scunthorpe ) is a British - Canadian musicologist and Liszt researcher.

Life

Raised in Lincolnshire , Walker attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal College of Music in London , where he graduated in 1949 and 1950 respectively. He then studied musicology and earned his bachelor's degree from Durham University in 1956 , where he also received his doctorate in 1965 . From 1957 to 1960 he conducted private studies with the musicologist Hans Keller . From 1958 to 1961 he taught at the Guildhall School, where he also took piano lessons from Alfred Nieman . He then worked as a director at the BBC until 1971, when he accepted a position as professor at McMaster University in Hamilton (Ontario) / Canada , where he headed the music faculty until 1980 and again from 1989 to 1995. In 1981 he first established music criticism as an independent course in Canada. In 1995 he retired . From 1984 to 1987 he was visiting professor at City University London .

plant

Alan Walker published an influential biography of Franz Liszt in three volumes, on which he had worked for over twenty-five years and which made him famous in English-speaking countries, especially since there was hardly any scientific literature on Liszt at the time. He also wrote about Robert Schumann and Frédéric Chopin . He regularly lectures on all three composers in Canada, the United States and Great Britain .

Walker lives in Ancaster and directs the annual festival "The Great Romantics" in Hamilton.

Awards

Walker became an Honorary Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music in 1974 , a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1986 and an honorary doctorate from McMaster University in 2002 . In 1980 he received the medal of the Hungarian Liszt Society , in 1984 that of the American Liszt Society and in 1995 the Pro Cultura Hungaria medal.

Publications

Franz Liszt

• Franz Liszt , 3 vols., London: Faber & Faber:
  • Vol. 1: The virtuoso years, 1811-1847 , 1983. New edition Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1987. ISBN 0-8014-9421-4
  • Vol. 2: The Weimar years, 1848-1861 , 1989. New edition Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1993. ISBN 0-8014-9721-3
  • Vol. 3: The final years, 1861-1886 , 1997. New edition Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1997. ISBN 0-8014-8453-7

• Franz Liszt. The Man and His Music . New York: Taplinger Publishing 1970. ISBN 0-8008-2990-5 .
• Liszt, Carolyne, and the Vatican. The Story of a Thwarted Marriage (with Gabriele Erasmi), Stuyvesant / New York: Pendragon 1991. ISBN 0-945193-09-2
• (Ed.) Living with Liszt. From the Diary of Carl Lachmund, an American Pupil of Liszt, 1882-1884 , Stuyvesant / New York: 1995. ISBN 0-945193-56-4
• (Ed.) The Death of Franz Liszt. Based on the Unpublished Diary of his Pupil Lina Schmalhausen , Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2002. ISBN 0-8014-4076-9 .
• Reflections on Liszt , Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2005. ISBN 0-8014-4363-6

Others

• A Study in Music Analysis , London: Barrie & Rockcliff 1962.
• An Anatomy of Musical Criticism , London: Barrie & Rockcliff 1966.
• Robert Schumann. The Man and His Music , London: Barrie & Jenkins 1972. ISBN 0-214-66805-3 .
• Hans von Bülow. A Life and Times , New York: Oxford University Press USA 2009 (in print). ISBN 0-19-536868-1

literature

• Michael Saffle, James Andrew Deaville (Eds.), New Light on Liszt and His Music. Essays in Honor of Alan Walker's 65th Birthday , Stuyvesant / New York: Pendragon 1995. ISBN 0945193734

Web links

• Literature by and about Alan Walker in the catalog of the German National Library
• The Alan Walker Fund
• Great Romantics Festival
• American Liszt Society