Peggy Glanville-Hicks : composer and critic /

In this engaging and exceptionally well-written account, Robinson (Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Australia) brings to life Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912--90) and the new music scene of the 1930s--80s as Glanville-Hicks experienced it. Robinson presents an extraordinarily full picture of the composer, music critic, and person, revealing her eccentricities, foibles, loves, and successes. The author draws from a wealth of material--archives, interviews, Glanville-Hicks's extensive diaries--to reveal the composer's relationships with foes as well as friends (the latter including Paul Bowles, Anaïs Nin, and Yehudi Menuhin). Glanville-Hicks suffered from constant financial worries, and she was dependent on powerful people such as Virgil Thomson, who controlled assignments for music articles and reviews, including her work at the influential New York Herald Tribune. Her circle of colleagues and friends was primarily men, which confirms that men, not women, held positions of power. Many of these men, including her husband Stanley Bate and her lover Paul Bowles, were sexually fluid. Robinson writes that "at forty-three, [Granvillle-Hicks] despaired of ever succeeding in a relationship with a heterosexual man" (p. 150). But Glanville-Hicks was a tireless promoter of new music, and her operas and ballets may be her most successful works. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. --J. Michele Edwards, emerita, Macalester College