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
16 - Tityvillus 1946–1957
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 go about like Onan, spilling my seed on the ground, and find that mostly very stony and barren, but a few seedlings occasionally come up and even flower.
I know that in my old age I become more and ‘possessed’ by the devil – I call him Tityvillus, as I suspect he is that famous musical character of the English Middle Ages … who makes me see everything in a ridiculous light.
Old age is not for the faint-hearted.
Dent's seventieth birthday on 16 July 1946 was celebrated by a garden party at the Hirsch family home in west Cambridge, with friends and colleagues who were also ‘tacitly expressing to him their gratitude for his inestimable service in helping to secure the Paul Hirsch Music Library for the nation’. Dent had written an article in The Times, ‘Need for a central music library: Value of the Hirsch collection’,
stirring up public interest in the case. One of the world's great music collections was now in the British Museum, the cornerstone of a national music library, bought with a ‘special grant’ from the Treasury and a grant from the Pilgrim Trust of 120,000 pounds. ‘At the end of the war, it was far from easy to raise such a very large sum of money, and the successful conclusion of the delicate negotiations was due in no small measure to Dent's powerful advocacy, both in public and behind the scenes.’ The Chancellor of the Exchequer was Dent's old Cambridge friend Hugh Dalton. Although offered a knighthood by the Attlee government, Dent turned it down, never mentioning it in his letters.
Cambridge finally rewarded Dent with an honorary doctorate in 1947, but far more important to him, Music was at last on the Tripos, with a solid curriculum in place. Visiting Cambridge was now unalloyed pleasure; each time Dent could see all around him just what he had been working to achieve there, with the Marlowe Society more active than ever, the Greek Play revived, and eventually the Cambridge University Opera Society thriving beside the CUMS and the CUMC. And his part was appreciated:
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- Edward J. DentA Life of Words and Music, pp. 499 - 513Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2023