Julian Gordon Rushton

Emeritus Professor

j.g.rushton@leeds.ac.uk

01484 649108

MA, MusB (Cantab), DPhil (Oxon)

Julian Rushton studied at Cambridge and for his doctorate at Oxford, supervised by J.A. Westrup. He taught at the University of East Anglia and subsequently at Cambridge, holding a fellowship at King’s (1974–81), before being appointed to the West Riding Chair of Music at the University of Leeds. He retired in 2005 and now lives in the Pennines near Huddersfield. Besides published work listed here, he contributed the Mozart entries for The New Grove Dictionary of Opera and he has written various articles to The New Grove and other works of reference. An active member of the musicological community, he served as President of the Royal Musical Association (1994–9), and is chairman of the Editorial Committee of Musica Britannica (since 1993). He was appointed corresponding (honorary) member of the American Musicological Society in 2000, and elected to the Direktorium of the International Musicological Society (2007).

• The music of Berlioz
• Mozart
• The music of Elgar
• Opera of the 18th-19th centuries
• A number of lesser-known composers beginning with P.

• Formerly Head of Department, Director of Research, Tutor for Postgraduate Students. Now retired.

Books (single authored)

• Coffee with Mozart. London: Duncan Baird, 2007
• Mozart (The Master Musicians). New York: Oxford University Press, 2006
• Mozart, an Extraordinary Life. London: ABRSM, 2005
• The Music of Berlioz. Oxford University Press, 2001
• Elgar: ‘Enigma’ Variations. Cambridge University Press, 1999
• Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette. Cambridge University Press, 1994
• Classical Music: A Concise History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1986
• The Musical Language of Berlioz. Cambridge University Press, 1983

Books (edited)

• Elgar Studies (ed. J.P.E. Harper-Scott and Julian Rushton). Cambridge University Press, forthcoming November 2007
• The New Grove Guide to Mozart’s Operas. Oxford University Press, 2007
• Europe, Empire, and Spectacle (ed. Rachel Cowgill and Julian Rushton). Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006
• The Cambridge Companion to Elgar (ed. Daniel M. Grimley and Julian Rushton). Cambridge University Press, 2004
• W.A. Mozart: Idomeneo. Cambridge University Press, 1993
• W.A. Mozart: Don Giovanni. Cambridge University Press, 1981

Contributions to books and conference proceedings

• ‘Schubert, the Tarantella, and the Quartetsatz D. 703’, in Robert Curry, David Gable, and Robert L. Marshall (eds.), Variations on the Canon: Essays on Music from Bach to Boulez. In Honor of Charles Rosen on his Eightieth Birthday (Chicago University Press: forthcoming)
• ‘The Genesis of L’Enfance du Christ, “Oratorium eines Zukunftsmusiker”’, in Kerry Murphy and Barbara Kelly (eds.), Essays in Honour of François Lesure (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007)
• ‘Lost Love and Unwritten Songs. Elgar’s Parker Cycle, Op. 59’, in J.P.E. Harper-Scott and Rushton (eds.), Elgar Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2007), 270–283
• ‘Berlioz and the Mezzo–Soprano’, in Peter Bloom (ed.), Berlioz. Perspectives on the Life and Work (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2007), 64­–85
• ‘Henry Hugo Pierson and Shakespearian Tragedy’, in Rachel Cowgill and Rushton (eds.), Europe, Empire, and Spectacle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 77–95
• ‘Play or Compulsion? Variation in Recapitulations in Music for Wind Instruments’, in Simon P. Keefe (ed.), Mozart Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2006), 47–73
• ‘Berlioz Nationalist, Berlioz Internationalist’, introduction to Fulvia Morabito & Michela Niccolai (eds.), Hector Berlioz. Miscellaneous Studies. Ad Parnassum Studies 1 (Bologna: Ut Orpheus, 2005), xvii–xxvi
• ‘Introduction’ (with Daniel M. Grimley), and Chapter 10, ‘In Search of the Symphony: orchestral music to 1908’, in Grimley and Rushton (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Elgar (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1–14 and 139–153
• ‘Speech, Song, and Deceiving your Neighbour: Aspects of Dramaturgy in Wagner and Verdi’, in Brian Richardson (ed.), Theatre, Opera, and Performance in Italy from the Fifteenth Century to the Present. Essays in Honour of Richard Andrews (Society for Italian Studies, 2004), 107–122
• ‘Tonality and Dramatic Signification in Piccinni’s Atys’, in Alessandro Di Profio e Mariagrazia Melucci, Niccolò Piccinni, Musicista Europeo (Bari: Mario Adda, 2004), 137–44.
• ‘Learning in London, Learning from London’, in Peter Horton and Bennett Zon (eds.) Nineteenth-Century British Music Studies vol. 3 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), xv–xxiii
• ‘The art of orchestration’, in Colin Lawson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Orchestra (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 92–111
• ‘Mozart and opera seria’, in Simon Keefe (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Mozart (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 147–55
• 'Le salut de Faust', in Christian Wasselin and Pierre-René Serna (eds.), Hector Berlioz (Paris: Editions de l'Herne, 2003), 176–186
• ‘Music and the poetic’, in Jim Samson (ed.), The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music (Cambridge University Press, 2001), 157–177
• ‘Berlioz and Genre’, in Peter Bloom (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Berlioz (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 41–52
• ‘Buffo roles in Mozart’s Vienna: tessitura and tonality as signs of characterization’, in James Webster and Mary Hunter (eds.), Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Vienna (Cambridge University Press, 1997), 406–425
• ‘Hier wird es besser seyn... ein blosses Recitativ zu machen: observations on recitatives in Idomeneo’, in Stanley Sadie (ed.), Wolfgang Amadè Mozart (Oxford University Press, 1996), 436–48
• ‘Viennese Amateur or London Professional? A Reconsideration of Haydn’s tragic cantata Arianna a Naxos’, in David Wyn Jones (ed.), Music in Eighteenth-Century Austria (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 232–45
• ‘Les nuits d’été: Cycle or collection?’ in Peter Bloom (ed.), Berlioz Studies (Cambridge University Press, 1992)
• ‘Royal Agamemnon: the two versions of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide’, in Malcolm Boyd (ed.), Music and the French Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1992), 15–36
• ‘Gluck and eighteenth-century opera’, ‘Mozart’, and ‘Berlioz’ in Alan Kendall, (ed.), The Heritage of Music. (Oxford University Press, 1989), I, 237–47 and 253–83; II, 143–65
• ‘The Music’ and ‘Dido’s Monologue and Aria’ in Ian Kemp (ed.), Hector Berlioz: Les Troyens. (Cambridge University Press, 1988), 119–49 and 161–80
• ‘The orchestral music’, in Bayan Northcott (ed.), The Music of Alexander Goehr. (London: Schott, 1980), 59–82

Periodical articles

• ‘The voice he loved: Mezzo-soprano roles in Les Troyens’. Berlioz Society Bulletin 173 (April 2007), 26–35
• ‘Elgar, Kingdom, and Empire’ (the A.T. Shaw Lecture, 2006), Elgar Society Journal 14/6 (November 2006), 15–26
• ‘Berlioz, Irlande, and English’, Musicorum 2005, 143–56
• ‘An Uncollected Moment musical: Thoughts on D915’. The Schubertian, 50 (January 2006), 25–31
• ‘Where did they go? Berlioz’s Rivals in the Competition for the Prix de Rome’. Berlioz Society Bulletin 169 (Winter 2004), 4–13
• 'Beyond Tovey: Schubert's Viola, D.736'. The Schubertian, 38 (January 2003), 6–15
• ‘The Devil of a Fugue. Berlioz, Elgar, and Introduction and Allegro’. Elgar Society Journal 11/5 (July 2000), 276–87
• ‘Ecstasy of emulation: Berlioz’s Messe solennelle and his debt to Lesueur’. The Musical Times vol. 140 no. 1868 (Autumn 1999), 11–18.
• ‘Mozart’s art of rhetoric: understanding an opera seria aria’, in Contemporary Music Review, vol. 17 part 3 (1998), 15–29
• ‘Berlioz and Irlande: from Romance to Mélodie’, in Patrick F. Devine & Harry White (eds) The Maynooth International Musicological Conference 1995, Selected Proceedings Part Two. Irish Musical Studies 5 (1996), 224–240
• ‘Così fan tutte: Mozart’s Serious Comic Opera’. Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario 14 (1993), 49–78
• ‘Tonality in Act Three of Idomeneo’. Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario 14 (1993), 17-48
• ‘Misreading Shakespeare: Two Operatic Scenes of Berlioz’. Shakespeare Yearbook 4 (Edward Mellen Press, 1994), 213-228
• ‘“La vittima è Idamante”: did Mozart have a Motive?’, Cambridge Opera Journal 3 (1991), 1 21
• ‘The Overture to Les Troyens’. Music Analysis 4 (1985), 119-144
• ‘Berlioz’s Swan-Song: Towards a Criticism of Béatrice et Bénédict’. Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 109 (1982-3), 105-118
• ‘In Defence of the French Alceste’. The Musical Times, 122 (1981), 738-40
• ‘Berlioz Through the Looking-Glass’. Soundings, 6 (1977), 51-66
• ‘Philidor and the tragédie lyrique’. The Musical Times, 117 (1976), 734-7
• ‘Salieri’s Les Horaces: a study of an operatic failure’. The Music Review, 37 (1976), 266-82
• ‘From Vienna to Paris: Gluck and the French Opera’. Chigiana XXX (nuova serie 10) (Firenze: L. Olschki, 1975), 283-98
• ‘The Genesis of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust’. Music and Letters, 66 (1975), 129-46
• ‘Berlioz’s Huit scènes de Faust: New Source Material’. The Musical Times, 115 (1974), 471-3
• ‘Iphigénie en Tauride: the Operas of Gluck and Piccinni’. Music and Letters, 53 (1972), 411-30
• ‘The Theory and Practice of Piccinnisme’. Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 98 (1971-2), 31-46
• ‘An Early Essay in Leitmotiv: J.B. Lemoyne’s Electre’. Music and Letters, 52 (1971), 387-401

Contributions to encyclopaedias

Entries in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980) and The Revised New Grove (2001); The New Grove Dictionary of Opera: ‘Philidor’, ‘Mozart’, etc. (1992); International Dictionary of Opera (St James Press, 1993); The Penguin Opera Guide (1993); The Oxford Companion to Music (3rd edition, 2002); New DNB; Dictionnaire Berlioz (2003); Oxford Dictionary of Opera (revised edition, 2008)

Reviews

Too numerous to enumerate, but they have appeared (book reviews) in Music & Letters, The Music Review, The Musical Times, Music and Musicians, Current Musicology, Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books; (LPs, CDs, DVDs) in The Musical Times, BBC Music Magazine, Early Music, 19th-Century Music Review, Eighteenth-Century Music; (Performances) in The Independent, The Musical Times, The Schubertian, Music and Musicians

Editions (critical & other)

• Cipriani Potter, Symphony in G minor (London: Stainer and Bell. Musica Britannica vol. 77, 2001)
• F.A.D. Philidor, Ernelinde. Preface to facsimile edition. (New York: Pendragon Press. French Opera in the 17th and 18th centuries vol. 65, 1993)
• N. Piccinni, Atys;. Preface to facsimile edition (New York: Pendragon Press. French Opera in the 17th and 18th centuries vol. 56, 1991)
• H. Berlioz: Choral works including Resurrexit, Scène héroïque, Sara la baigneuse (Kassel: Bärenreiter, New Berlioz Edition vol. 12a, 1991)
• H. Berlioz: La damnation de Faust (Kassel: Bärenreiter. New Berlioz Edition vol. 8: vol. 8a (score), 1979; vol. 8b (foreword, critical notes, appendices), 1986)
• H. Berlioz: Huit scènes de Faust (Kassel: Bärenreiter. New Berlioz Edition vol. 5, 1970)

Compositions

• Songs for the Clown (Tenor, flute, guitar), 2000, words Shakespeare (Twelfth Night)
• Passacaglia (Violin, piano), 1975
• Metopes (Clarinet, piano), 1967
• Three Rondeaux (SSB, 3 clarinets), 1965

Radio / TV broadcasts

• ‘Elgar and Academe’, BBC Radio 3, June 2007 (the most recent; various earlier broadcasts, details not retained)

Keynote & invited lectures

• Inaugural Lecture ‘Why do we call it “Classical” Music’, University of Leeds, 1983, published in the University of Leeds Review.
• A.T. Shaw Lecture 2006 (Worcester): ‘Elgar, Empire, and Kingdom’, published in the Elgar Society Journal

Conference papers (oral)

• Other than those published in some form: ‘The Gritty Lyricism of Vaughan Williams’s Fourth Symphony’ (Royal Musical Association, 19 November 1999)

• Leverhulme Study Leave award, 1998–9

BA in Music, Universities of Southampton, Sussex, Liverpool, Oxford, Reading, Newcastle, Queen’s University Belfast, Cambridge (Music Tripos Part 1b), Nottingham. MMus King’s College London; Royal Northern College of Music; Royal College of Music. MPhil., University of Cambridge (two stints); MA in Music Analysis, University of Ulster

Universities of East Anglia, Oxford, Cambridge, Exeter, Hull; Open University; King’s College London, Royal Holloway University of London, Goldsmiths’ College London, University College Dublin (some of these more than once)

• Cambridge Music Handbooks
• Elgar Society Journal

• Musica Britannica

• Royal Musical Association (1994–9)

• Cambridge, 1980 (19th-Century Music conference); Royal Musical Association North Midlands Chapter (five meetings, 1983–7)

Abstract

DPhil. (Oxon), awarded 1970. Music and Drama at the Académie Royale de Musique, Paris, 1774–1789. Operatic reform at the Paris Opéra, principally through neo-classical operas including revivals of older librettos with new music, followed at some distance the establishment of Opéra comique as a viable alternative. The thesis begins by considering the dramaturgy of Rameau, and continues by reviewing some of the new operas that preceded Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide in 1774, including re-settings of old librettos and new reformist works, notably Philidor’s Ernelinde. A review of Gluck’s achievement in his neo-classical French operas, and Armide, is followed by an analysis of the operas of Piccinni, Sacchini, Salieri, Vogel, and Cherubini’s first French opera. Their literary sources and music-dramatic methods are assessed and a conclusion is reached that their considerable debt to Gluck notwithstanding, the general trend was ‘Piccinniste’: dramatic, even melodramatic, more heavily orchestrated than Gluck, and more modern in musical language, but in some cases suffering from weak dramaturgy.