tovey's background

Here is a bit of usseful background on Tovey, from the online version of the New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.):

http://www.grovemusic.com/index.html?authstatuscode=200

In July 1914 he was appointed to the Reid Chair of Music at Edinburgh University, which to some extent resolved the conflict that had gradually been developing between his various activities. But he never came to regard himself as a scholar, disliked the company of mere musicologists, and looked upon most of his writings as the work of a popularizer. In 1914–15 he promoted a series of historical concerts at the university and in 1917 he founded the Reid Orchestra which soon played and has continued to play a notable part in the musical life of the city. It was for the Reid concerts that the extensive series of programme notes were written which subsequently achieved a more permanent form as Essays in Musical Analysis (1935–9). The penetrating insight of many of these essays gives some idea of his qualities as a teacher, for which he was revered by his pupils. Teaching, lecturing and editorial work consumed most of his time after World War I, but he appeared as a pianist in the USA in 1925 and in 1927–8 and performed in Edinburgh with many of the finest executants of the time whom he numbered among his friends – Joachim, Casals, Suggia, the Buschs, Jelly d'Arányi, Julius Röntgen and others. However, the Edinburgh public took comparatively little notice of the opportunities he created for such artists to be heard.

MICHAEL TILMOUTH/R

[R means + editorial revision]