Harold Truscott - Writings

Writings

After the change in BBC music policy initiated by Sir William Glock in the mid-1950s, Truscott’s music ceased to receive attention, but he remained active as a copious giver of broadcast talks and contributor to journals on a wide range of subjects. He had an encyclopedic range of knowledge and enthusiasms, ranging from the central composers of the Classical tradition to marginalized figures of the 19th and 20th centuries who were then deeply unfashionable. His advocacy of Granville Bantock, Havergal Brian, Dussek, Medtner, Hans Pfitzner, Max Reger, Franz Schmidt, Robert Volkmann and others was as sincere, and informed by an acquaintance with the music as close, as his discussions of Schubert’s piano sonatas or Haydn's string quartets. His principal writings include books on Beethoven's Late String Quartets (Dobson, 1968) and Franz Schmidt’s Orchestral Music (Toccata Press, 1984), as well as important contributions to The Symphony edited by Robert Simpson (Penguin Books, 1966). Unfinished at his death were a volume on Schmidt’s chamber music, a study of the music of Korngold, another of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and a near-complete book on Schubert and the piano. He also left an unfinished autobiography entitled Laughter in the Dark.