Gerald E. H. Abraham

Gerald Ernest Heal Abraham, (9 March 1904 – 18 March 1988) was an English musicologist, editor, and music critic. He was particularly respected as an authority on Russian music.

Early life and education Gerald Ernest Heal Abraham was born at Newport, Isle of Wight, on 9 March 1904.

He initially trained for a naval career in nearby Portsmouth until ill-health forced a change of direction. He was largely self-taught in piano, as well as music theory and history, aside from some practical orchestration experience with military bands, and a year's study in Cologne, where he learned German and listened to much music.

Career Writing In 1927, aged 23, Abraham published his first music book, a study of Alexander Borodin, although he later disowned it. There followed contributions to music periodicals and monographs on Nietzsche (1933), Tolstoy (1935), and Dostoevsky (1936). Abraham taught himself Russian and began a series of analytical articles on Russian music, collected in Studies in Russian Music (1935) and On Russian Music (1939). In collaboration with M D Calvocoressi he also wrote Masters of Russian Music (1936). Other works on Russian music include Eight Soviet Composers (1943), Tchaikovsky (a symposium, as editor, 1945), and his completion of both Calvocoressi's Mussorgsky (Master Musicians series, 1946) and his larger study Modest Mussorgsky: His Life and Works (1956).

Abraham's interests ranged beyond the Slavonic, as first shown in his introduction to contemporary music, This Modern Stuff (1933, later re-titled This Modern Music) and in A Hundred Years of Music (1938) covering the broader history of music from the death of Beethoven.

A project that spanned three decades was the New Oxford History of Music, for which Abraham acted as secretary to the editorial board. He personally edited five of the ten volumes (see list below). His synoptic overview, the Concise Oxford History of Music, came out in 1979 during this period, and he was also involved in the 20-volume New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980).

He left the BBC for 15 years to become the inaugural James and Constance Alsop Professor of Music at Liverpool University. He returned to the BBC in 1962 to become assistant controller of music, a post he held for five years. He moved to the US in 1968 for a year as Ernest Bloch Professor of Music at the University of California at Berkeley. His lectures from this time were published as The Tradition of Western Music (1974).

Other appointments From 1958 to 1961, he served as the president of the International Society for Music Education, and later would go onto serve as the president of the Royal Musical Association (1970–74). Additionally, he served numerous other positions in both ceremonial and official statuses, including: Chairman, Music Section of The Critics' Circle, 1944–46 Editor, The Monthly Musical Record, 1945–60 Founding editor, BBC Music Guides, 1966–1974 Music critic, The Daily Telegraph, 1967–68 Editor, Music of the Masters (book series, publisher Lindsay Drummond) Chairman, Early English Church Music Committee, 1970–80 Member, Editorial Committee, Musica Britannica President, International Society for Music Education, 1958–61 Deputy chairman, Haydn Institute (Cologne), 1961–68

Honours Abraham was made a CBE in 1974.

Personal life and death In 1936 Abraham married (Isobel) Pat Robinson. They had one daughter, Frances, and lived for many years in Hampstead (at 106 Frognal, Walter Besant's old house), where they held many hospitable "open evenings" of music. Later they returned to the Isle of Wight (to the village of Brighstone), and from the early 1960s to the Old School House, Ebernoe, near Petworth in Sussex.

Publications This Modern Stuff, 1933 Nietzsche, 1933 Studies in Russian Music, 1935 Tolstoy, 1935 Masters of Russian Music (with Michel Dimitri Calvocoressi), 1936 Dostoevsky, 1936 A Hundred Years of Music, 1938 On Russian Music, 1939 Chopin's Musical Style, 1939 Beethoven's Second-Period Quartets, 1942 Eight Soviet Composers, 1943 Tchaikovsky: a symposium 1945 Rimsky-Korsakov: a symposium 1945 Sibelius: a symposium 1947 Grieg: a symposium 1948 Schubert: a symposium 1952 Design in Music, 1949 Schumann: a symposium 1952 Handel: a symposium 1954 Slavonic and Romantic Music, 1968 The Tradition of Western Music, 1974 The Master Musicians: Mussorgsky (with Michel Dimitri Calvocoressi), 1974 The Concise Oxford History of Music, 1979 Essays on Russian and East European Music, 1984 New Oxford History of Music (as editor): Vol. III (Ars Nova and the Renaissance), 1960 Vol. IV (The Age of Humanism), 1968 Vol. VI (Concert Music: 1630-1750), 1985 Vol. VIII (The Age of Beethoven), 1982 Vol, IX (Romanticism (1830–1890), 1990