Page 31 - NEW TITLES OCT- DEC 2024

AN ENGAGEMENT WITH TIME

WINTON DEAN

ISBN 978-1-83804-181-6

9 7 8 1 8 3 8 0 4 1 8 1 6

Publication: 13 AUGUST 2024
th

ISBN: 9781838041816
Price: £29.99

Binding: Hardback
Format: 240 x 170 mm

Extent: 645 pp
Illustrated: 64 images /plates

Thema: DNBF1 Arts Memoir
Winton Dean (1916-2013), the renowned musical scholar and critic,
gives a sparkling account of his early life – and of his disparate set of
forbears. He writes of his controversial father, Basil Dean, the theatrical
and film producer and founder of ENSA, his great uncle Rufus Isaacs
(supplying new information about his first marriage) and Daisy,
Countess of Warwick, mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. A deeply
divided personality, Winton hoped to pursue a career as a creative artist
rather than as a scholar and critic. To this extent he considered his life
at least in part a failure. But he was a brilliant and witty writer, as these
memoirs repeatedly demonstrate.
He records his grim years at Elstree and Harrow Schools,
where however he was outstandingly successful academically, and the
titanic family rows that followed. King’s, Cambridge, where he read
Winton Dean (1916-2013), renowned as a musical scholar and a Classics, then English, brought an immense release of emotions and
trenchant and witty critic, had the temperament of a creative artist, which inhibitions. There are sharp pen portraits of the dons, including Edward
Dent. Alan Turing was his tennis partner. A trip to Greece in 1936 is
in youth he hoped he might become. If in the end his critical-intellectual described in luminous detail. Though not a performer, he became
side won the day, it was not a bloodless victory. He felt that the better half increasingly interested in music, encouraged by a young don, Philip
had lost. Instead, he became the leading Handel scholar of his era - fired Radcliffe, who became a life-long friend. On two visits to the Salzburg
by a stage production of Saul at Cambridge before the war. The finest Festival he was bowled over by the conducting of Arturo Toscanini,
especially in opera. He gives highly entertaining accounts of the chaotic
scholars and critics, he believed, harbour a failed or potential artist within; rehearsals of The Frogs of Aristophanes (in Greek) and the stage
it is the understanding derived from this that exalts them above the production of Handel’s Saul (in both of which he played minor roles).
common run. The overwhelming dramatic power of Handel’s music impelled him, after
Winton began his Memoirs at the age of 72 but never finished the war, to devote ten years of his life to the study of Handel’s oratorios.
them, breaking off at the beginning of 1946, when his career as scholar Among his many interests, which encompassed trams, steam trains,
stamp collecting, old churches and naval history, Winton had a passion
and critic had barely begun. His early life and young manhood were what for cricket (though he was an indifferent performer with the bat) and later
mattered to him. In the later chapters his son Stephen takes up the story. for shooting pheasants and grouse.
His first book, Bizet, was published in 1948; his second, the
classic Handel’s Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (1959), established
Sales: Star Book Sales LLP him as a musicologist of world renown. Winton worked independently
T: 01404 515050 and held no university appointments, apart from a visiting professorship
E: enquiries@starbooksales.com at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1965-6, which gave rise to
twitter.com/starbooksales his third book, Handel and the Opera Seria. The last of the gentleman
scholars, he played a leading role in astonishing revival of Handel’s
Orders: Combined Book Services Ltd. operas and dramatic oratorios in recent years.
Email: orders@combook.co.uk Winton began his memoirs at the age of 72 but never finished
Phone: 01892 837171 them, breaking off at the beginning of 1946, when his career as scholar
and critic had barely begun. His early life and young manhood were
Prices and specifications are provisional and are subject to change what mattered to him. The later chapters, provided by his son Stephen,
without notice. 0706/2024 follow his career as scholar and sportsman up to 1966.