Ernest Newman (1868-1959) left an indelible mark on British musical criticism in a career spanning more than seventy years. His magisterial Life of Richard Wagner, published in four volumes between 1933 and 1946, is regarded as his crowning achievement, but Newman wrote many other influential books and essays on a variety of subjects ranging from early music to Schoenberg. In this book, the geneses of Newman's major publications are examined in thecontext of prevailing intellectual trends in history, criticism and biography. Newman's career as a writer is traced across a wide range of subjects including English and French literature, evolutionary theory and biographical method, and French, German and Russian music. Underpinning many of these works is Newman's preoccupation with rationalism and historical method. By examining particular sets of writings such as composer-biographies and essays from leading newspapers such as the Manchester Guardian and the Sunday Times, this book illustrates the ways in which Newman's work was grounded in late nineteenth-century intellectual paradigms that made him a unique and at times controversial figure. PAUL WATT is Senior Lecturer in Musicology in the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music at Monash University.

Ernest Newman and the Challenge of Critical BiographyFormation of a Critical Sensibility: The 1880s and 1890sSocial, Literary and Musical Criticism: 1893-1897A Rationalist Manifesto: Pseudo-Philosophy at the end of the Nineteenth Century, 1897Music History and the Comparative Method: Gluck and the Opera, 1895From Manchester to Moscow: Essays on Music, 1900-1920'The World of Music': Essays in The Sunday Times, 1920-1958Biographical and Musicological Tensions: The Man Liszt, 1934Sceptical and Transforming: Books on Wagner, 1899-1959Conclusion: Ernest Newman RememberedAppendix: Newman's Freethought Lectures, 1894-1896