Skip to content
Skip to navigation menu

Kenneth Gloag: Nicholas Maw: Odyssey

June 2008

 

Front cover of Kenneth Gloag book on Maw's Odyssey

Following his CUP study of Tippett's A Child of Our Time, Kenneth Gloag has turned his attention to another British masterpiece, Nicholas Maw's Odyssey (1972-87). He provides a detailed discussion of Maw's musical identity and reputation as a contemporary composer in relation to romanticism, modernism and postmodernism, taking into consideration his break-through work Scenes and Arias (1962) and the subsequent progression to Odyssey. The book investigates issues of time and narrative crucial to the generation of the work's remarkable length, and considers the relationship between the sectionalization of the score and prevailing sense of unity in the music. Situating Odyssey in larger historical and critical frameworks, Gloag evaluates the initial reception of the work and reflects on Maw's music composed after Odyssey.

"The breadth of Gloag's perceptions is worthy of his huge task in every respect – a grand and mysterious work has found an ideal expositor." (Anthony Payne)