Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Dramatis Personae
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Introduction: Edward J. Dent – Another Kind of Genius
- 1 The Ribston Pippin 1876–1895
- 2 The Bumptious Undergraduate 1895–1899
- 3 The Accidental Scholar 1899–1901
- 4 The Travelling Fellow 1902–1906
- 5 The Wanderer 1906–1907
- 6 The New Spirit 1907–1910
- 7 The Impresario 1910–1914
- 8 The Pacifist 1914–1918
- 9 The Journalist 1919–1922
- 10 The International Musician 1922–1926
- 11 The Professor 1926–1931
- 12 The Juggler 1931–1934
- 13 The Beleaguered Diplomat 1935–1936
- 14 The Colonial Doctor 1936–1939
- 15 Titurel 1939–1945
- 16 Tityvillus 1946–1957
- Afterword
- Appendix: Dent’s Ulcer
- Select Bibliography
- Index
12 - The Juggler 1931–1934
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 June 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Dramatis Personae
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Introduction: Edward J. Dent – Another Kind of Genius
- 1 The Ribston Pippin 1876–1895
- 2 The Bumptious Undergraduate 1895–1899
- 3 The Accidental Scholar 1899–1901
- 4 The Travelling Fellow 1902–1906
- 5 The Wanderer 1906–1907
- 6 The New Spirit 1907–1910
- 7 The Impresario 1910–1914
- 8 The Pacifist 1914–1918
- 9 The Journalist 1919–1922
- 10 The International Musician 1922–1926
- 11 The Professor 1926–1931
- 12 The Juggler 1931–1934
- 13 The Beleaguered Diplomat 1935–1936
- 14 The Colonial Doctor 1936–1939
- 15 Titurel 1939–1945
- 16 Tityvillus 1946–1957
- Afterword
- Appendix: Dent’s Ulcer
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
I am already beginning to make plans for a Festival at Cambridge in 1933! Not a ‘contemporary’ one, but a Congress of the Research International, with a really first-rate festival of historical English music. Perhaps in 1934 (if not in 1932) we might have a ‘contemporary’ Festival here, but not an International one: I mean a Festival of the British Sections and branches, like the Pyrmont Festival of the German groups. It would be a great idea to have some sort of musical Festival at Cambridge every year, but each time different in character.
1931–1933
The year 1931 marked the high point of Dent's optimism and enthusiasm, with the birth of Sadler's Wells, his election as President of the ISMR – the only person to have been President of both the ISMR and the ISCM – and as Chair of the Philharmonic Society standing committee, and the first ISCM festival to be held in England. In Cambridge, beside nurturing new generations of musicians at the university, he had been co-opted onto the Cambridgeshire committee to produce an important report on the teaching of music in schools. By the end of the year the Busoni biography was nearly drafted, mostly because any relaxation he managed to seize over the past five years had been centred around his Busoni work, in the Dolomites with Carlo and in Berlin. The only committee Dent gave up was the League of Nations music (‘I am not sorry; it was a great waste of time, and on the whole, a bore’), his internationalism and teaching now focused elsewhere.
1931 was also a year of ‘intrigues’, around the ISCM Festival in London and Oxford, the conflicting but purposeful interests of the BBC and the Philharmonic Society, Sadler's Wells and other operatic ventures, and quite separately, to get JB elected Professor of Spanish at Oxford: ‘I am doing what I can about Oxford … which included letters and background talks between Sheppard and Stewart from Cambridge talking it up with Dawkins at Oxford’. Behind all the intrigues lay Dent's continuing vision for the institutions developing in his care, outward-looking and inclusive.
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- Edward J. DentA Life of Words and Music, pp. 387 - 427Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2023