As both composer and critic, Peggy Glanville-Hicks contributed to the astonishing cultural ferment of the mid-twentieth century. Her forceful voice as a writer and commentator helped shape professional and public opinion on the state of American composing. The seventy musical works she composed ranged from celebrated operas like Nausicaa to intimate, jewel-like compositions created for friends. Her circle included figures like Virgil Thomson, Paul Bowles, John Cage, and Yehudi Menuhin.

Drawing on interviews, archival research, and fifty-four years of extraordinary pocket diaries, Suzanne Robinson places Glanville-Hicks within the history of American music and composers. "P.G.H." forged alliances with power brokers and artists that gained her entrance to core American cultural entities such as the League of Composers, New York Herald Tribune, and the Harkness Ballet. Yet her impeccably cultivated public image concealed a private life marked by unhappy love affairs, stubborn poverty, and the painstaking creation of her artistic works.

Evocative and intricate, Peggy Glanville-Hicks clears away decades of myth and storytelling to provide a portrait of a remarkable figure and her times.

| Cover Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction PART ONE 1. Family and Childhood (1912–29) 2. At the Albert Street Conservatorium (1930–32) 3. At the Royal College of Music (1932–36) 4. Vienna and Paris (1936–38) 5. Mrs. Stanley Bate( 1938–41) PART TWO 6. New York, New York!(1941–44) 7. Paul Bowles (1944–47) 8. At the New York Herald Tribune (1947–48) 9. Virgil Thomson (1949–50) 10. Rafael da Costa (1951–52) 11. Letters from Morocco (1952–53) 12. Hideaway in Jamaica (1953–54) 13. Guggenheim Fellow (1955–56) 14. The Transposed Heads in New York (1956–58) PART THREE 15. Greece (1958–60) 16. Nausicaa at the Athens Festival (1960–61) 17. Mykonos (1961–63) 18. Sappho (1963–66) 19. A Season in Hell (1966–70) 20. Farewell to Greece (1970–75) PART FOUR 21. Sydney (1975–81) 22. Honors (1981–90) Afterword Notes Selected Bibliography General Index Index of Glanville-Hicks's Works Back cover |"The book proves to be well worth the wait. Thoroughly documented and beautifully written, it tells the fascinating story of a woman who survived—and thrived—in the professional music world of New York City in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s." —Notes
"Peggy Glanville-Hicks: Composer and Critic is strongly recommended for all collections, academic and public. It is accessible to all." —Fontes Artis Musicae
"Engaging and exceptionally well-written . . . Recommended." —Choice
|Suzanne Robinson is on the faculty of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Australia. She is a coeditor of several books, including Grainger the Modernist.