Basil Stephen Maine (4 March 1894 - 13 October 1972) was an English writer and critic on music. Maine was born in Sheringham, Norfolk and educated at the City of Norwich School.[1] At Cambridge he studied music with Edward Dent, Cyril Rootham and Charles Wood.[2] During the war he taught for a while at Durnford School in Dorset, where his pupils included Ian Fleming and Peter Fleming.[3] In the autumn of 1918 he was appointed assistant organist at Durham Cathedral, staying there until May 1919.[4] Maine was a life member of the Royal College of Organists.[5]
After that he shifted his career towards journalism, becoming music critic for newspapers such as The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph (from 1922), the Morning Post (1930) and the Sunday Times (1935–40).[2] He was also an actor, public speaker and (from 1926) a broadcaster.[6][7] In 1930 he was the orator in the first performance of Morning Heroes by Arthur Bliss at the Norwich Festival,[8] and he also narrated in performances of Honegger's Le roi David and Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale. He wrote some choral works for the Norwich Festival, including O Lord our Governor and Praise to God in 1936.[9] Maine was ordained as a priest in 1939.[2]
Maine wrote biography as well as music criticism. His early volume Behold these Daniels consists of 12 character sketches of critics (including the author) that originally appeared in Musical Times columns in 1926–7. The sketches include Ernest Newman, Edwin Evans, Robin Legge and H.C.Colles.[10] The two-volume Elgar: his Life and Works, published a year before the subject's death, is his best-known work.[11]Our Ambassador King is now a curiosity - a biography of King Edward VIII written before the abdication, with no mention of Mrs Simpson.[12]The Best of Me, completed in 1937, is autobiographical and Twang with our Music (from 1957) is a collection of essays marking "the completion of 30 years' practice in the uncertain science of music criticism".[13]
In the 1930s Maine lived at Stone Roof, Drax Avenue in Wimbledon. By 1950 his address was Warham Rectory, Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk.
^Annals of the City of Norwich School
^ abcH.C.Colles (rev. Peter Platt. Basil Maine, Grove Music Online, 2001
^Nicholas Shakespeare. Ian Fleming: The Complete Man (2023), p.48
^The succession of organists at Durham Cathedral
^Landon Ronald. Who's Who in Music (1935), p. 184
^Dagger Speech from Macbeth, read by Basil Maine, Parlophone E967, 1930
^Maine, Basil.The Critic and the Actor, in The Sackbut; London Vol 7, April 1927, p 268-270
^Burn, Andrew. Morning Heroes, Notes to Chandos CH5159 (2015)
^Who's Who in Music, first post-war edition (1949-50), p. 137
^Musical Times No 1026, 1 August 1928, p 714
^Reviewed in The Musical Times No 1085, July 1933, p 608
^Our Ambassador King
^Reviewed by "S.B." in Music & Letters Vol 38 No 3, 1957, p 284–285
Basil Stephen Maine (4 March 1894 - 13 October 1972) was an English writer and critic on music. Maine was born in Sheringham, Norfolk and educated at...
Tabley's poem "The March of Glory", which (as quoted by Elgar's biographer BasilMaine) begins Like a proud music that draws men on to die Madly upon the spears...
its first performance at the Norwich Festival on 22 October 1930, with BasilMaine as the speaker/orator. Written in the aftermath of World War I, in which...
June 1931, pp. 542–43; Veritas, "Mr. Maine and Elgar", The Musical Times, March 1932, p. 259; Maine, Basil, "Mr. Maine and Elgar", The Musical Times, April...
Abraham, Eric Blom, Dmitri Calvocoressi, Eaglefield Hull, Alfred Kalmus, BasilMaine and Percy Scholes. In 1921 Musical Opinion launched a sister magazine...
Mackenzie) and chess, and was an active member of the Savile Club. In 1926 BasilMaine produced a character sketch of Legge in his Musical Times column, in...
by Arne, J.C. Bach, J.S. Bach, Berlioz, Elgar Glinka, Gluck, Handel, (Basil) Maine, Spontini and Wagner. The first commercial recording of Havergal Brian's...
The qualifications for this list of Maine lakes is that the lake is located partially or entirely in Maine, named, and has a surface area of more than...
grandioso, nobilmente, and sonoramente." But in her view an earlier writer, BasilMaine, correctly distinguishes between the tone of The Spirit of England and...
where it meets the Huisne. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman...
Cooke, Christian Darnton, Armstrong Gibbs, Patrick Hadley, Walter Leigh, BasilMaine, Robin Orr, Bernard Stevens and Percy Young. As much as he promoted the...
brother Louis the German, with Rastislav of Moravia. Gauzbert, count of Maine, is killed during an ambush by citizens of Nantes, in revenge for the death...
1988 51302 PHILIPPINES: PEOPLE OF FILIPINO 1973 1988 51302 RUSSIA: ST. BASIL'S CATHEDRAL 1973 1988 51302 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: SARAJEVO 1973 1988 51302...
carrying passengers on overnight cruises in the Caribbean, the U.S. state of Maine and elsewhere. The word "windjammer" has a variety of associations, both...
a go-go dancer on several musical variety shows, along with friend Toni Basil, such as Shindig! and Hullabaloo. In 1966, Garr made one appearance on Batman...
Basil Heal Francis (February 21, 1915 – March 23, 1974) was an American swimmer. He competed in the men's 200 metre breaststroke at the 1932 Summer Olympics...
grandparents were Maureen Constance Guinness, an Anglo-Irish socialite, and Basil Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, an English...
American businesswoman and politician who was a United States Senator from Maine from 1995 to 2013. Snowe, a member of the Republican Party, became known...
festivities by offering the loved one a manjerico (a flower-pot with a sweet basil plant) and a love poem. In Porto and Braga St. John's is celebrated in the...
Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Julian Huxley and Juliette Huxley, Lugné-Pöe, Basil de Sélincourt, and S. S. Koteliansky. Sarton had affairs with both of the...
Love 2000 The Contender Kermit Newman 2002 We Were Soldiers Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley 2003 Hulk General Thaddeus Ross 2003 Off the Map Charley Groden...
southern states to expand it. It admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state and declared a policy of prohibiting slavery in the remaining...
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