John S. Beckett: the man and the music ;/ Charles Gannon.
By: Gannon, Charles [author]
.
Material type: 
BookPublisher: Dublin : Lilliput Press, 2016Copyright date: ©2016Description: xx, 547 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 23 cm.Content type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9781843516651 (hardback).Subject(s): Beckett, John, 1927-2007 | Conductors (Music) -- Ireland -- Biography | Harpsichordists -- Ireland -- Biography | Musicians -- Ireland -- Biography | Composers -- Ireland -- BiographyDDC classification: 780.92 | Item type | Current library | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Lending | MTU Cork School of Music Library Lending | 780.92 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 00197281 |
Browsing MTU Cork School of Music Library shelves, Shelving location: Lending Close shelf browser (Hides shelf browser)
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Remembered in his native Ireland primarily as a harpsichordist and interpreter of Bach's music, and in the UK as a conductor of the ground-shaking early music group Musica Reservata, John Beckett also composed avant-garde incidental music, performed on several instruments and was an authoritative, if controversial, conductor. Music was not his only passion: he was interested in films, the theatre, art and pottery, and loved to travel. His varied career included devising music programmes for Radio Éireann, writing for The Bell magazine, working in Dublin's Pike Theatre, presenting and performing for the BBC Third Programme, composing music for his famous cousin Samuel Beckett, founding Musica Reservata, conducting Bach cantata concerts in Dublin over a ten-year period, and working as a producer and presenter for BBC Radio 3. Despite his reputation as a gruff, confrontational individual with a fondness for Guinness, whiskey and garlic, he made many friends and was familiar with Dublin's intellectual, musical and bohemian milieu, such as the writers Aidan Higgins, Anthony Cronin, Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan and James Plunkett, composers E.J. Moeran and Frederick May, counter-tenor Alfred Deller, musician John O'Sullivan, Desmond MacNamara, Ralph Cusack, singer and sculptor Werner Schürmann, publisher John Calder and musician David Cairns. Complex, self-deprecating and private, John's character and achievements are examined with detail garnered from information both published and in archival collections in Ireland and the UK. Recollections from those who knew him at different stages of his life enliven this fascinating biography. The book also examines the development of Musica Reservata, and contains excerpts from unpublished letters written by Samuel Beckett. Extracts from correspondence between John and James Plunkett, Aidan Higgins, Arland Ussher and music critic Charles Acton are also included.
Bibliography: (pages 527-531) and index.
Dublin, London, Paris and Dublin 1927-1953 -- London 1954-1971 -- Dublin 1971-1983 -- London 1983-2007.
Author notes provided by Syndetics
Charles Gannon was born in 1955, educated in Belvedere College, Dublin, and worked for RTÉ as a sound operator, vision mixer and technical director. An amateur musician, he studied viola da gamba with John Beckett in the mid 1970s and performed with him in concerts at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and other venues. He wrote a biography of his father, Cathal Gannon: The Life and Times of a Dublin Craftsman (Lilliput 2006).