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without notice. 0706/2024 follow his career as scholar and sportsman up to 1966.Sales: Star Book Sales LLP T: 01404 515050E: enquiries@starbooksales.comtwitter.com/starbooksalesOrders: Combined Book Services Ltd. Email: orders@combook.co.ukPhone: 01892 837171Prices and specifications are provisional and are subject to changeWinton Dean (1916-2013), renowned as a musical scholar and a trenchant and witty critic, had the temperament of a creative artist, which in youth he hoped he might become. If in the end his critical-intellectual side won the day, it was not a bloodless victory. He felt that the better half had lost. Instead, he became the leading Handel scholar of his era - fired by a stage production of Saul at Cambridge before the war. The finest scholars and critics, he believed, harbour a failed or potential artist within; it is the understanding derived from this that exalts them above the common run.Winton began his Memoirs at the age of 72 but never finished 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 what mattered to him. In the later chapters his son Stephen takes up the story.Publication: 13th AUGUST 2024ISBN: 9781838041816Price: %u00a329.99Binding: HardbackFormat: 240 x 170 mmExtent: 645 pp Illustrated: 64 images /platesThema: DNBF1 Arts MemoirWinton Dean (1916-2013), the renowned musical scholar and critic, gives a sparkling account of his early life %u2013 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%u2019s, Cambridge, where he read Classics, then English, brought an immense release of emotions and 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 described in luminous detail. Though not a performer, he became increasingly interested in music, encouraged by a young don, Philip Radcliffe, who became a life-long friend. On two visits to the Salzburg Festival he was bowled over by the conducting of Arturo Toscanini, especially in opera. He gives highly entertaining accounts of the chaotic rehearsals of The Frogs of Aristophanes (in Greek) and the stage production of Handel%u2019s Saul (in both of which he played minor roles). The overwhelming dramatic power of Handel%u2019s music impelled him, after the war, to devote ten years of his life to the study of Handel%u2019s oratorios. Among his many interests, which encompassed trams, steam trains, stamp collecting, old churches and naval history, Winton had a passion for cricket (though he was an indifferent performer with the bat) and later for shooting pheasants and grouse.His first book, Bizet, was published in 1948; his second, the classic Handel%u2019s Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (1959), established him as a musicologist of world renown. Winton worked independently and held no university appointments, apart from a visiting professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1965-6, which gave rise to his third book, Handel and the Opera Seria. The last of the gentleman scholars, he played a leading role in astonishing revival of Handel%u2019s operas and dramatic oratorios in recent years.Winton began his memoirs at the age of 72 but never finished 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 what mattered to him. The later chapters, provided by his son Stephen,ISBN 978-1-83804-181-69 7 8 1 8 3 8 0 4 1 8 1 6AN ENGAGEMENT WITH TIMEWINTON DEAN