Background
Kennedy was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, and attended Berkhamsted School.
(This is the authoritative account of Vaughan Williams's m...)
This is the authoritative account of Vaughan Williams's musical life-- the story of a great composer's career, and at the same time the story of music in England for over half a century. Kennedy considers the principal works in chronological order, outlining the main features of each and discussing details of the music's structure, often illuminating his point with a musical quotation. He also provides a good deal of biographical data, and so builds up a picture of the composer, as well as providing thumbnail sketches of many of Vaughan Williams's friends and colleagues. Kennedy's extensive knowledge of Vaughan Williams's output also enables him to refer back and forth across the works to pick out lines of development and influence. Along with Michael Kennedy's new preface, the second edition includes a full classified list of Vaughan Williams's works.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198163304/?tag=2022091-20
(The public image of Elgar as patriotic country squire was...)
The public image of Elgar as patriotic country squire was established in his lifetime, but, in reality, it concealed a highly complex, sometimes baffling, private individual. Although acquaintances found him a man of endless curiosity and good humour, his family and close friends knew him to be rather different: a prey to despair, neurotically mistrustful both of himself and of those who loved him and so damaged by the condescension and neglect of his early years that emotionally he never recovered. This is a reissue of the third edition of Michael Kenedy's portrait of this complexman - not an analytical survey of the music but a faithful likeness of the composer, recognizable, but at the same time a thoroughly individual interpretation of the subject.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198163657/?tag=2022091-20
(This new biography of Elgar draws on letters and document...)
This new biography of Elgar draws on letters and documents which have become available over the last twenty-five years. Michael Kennedy, a leading scholar of British music as well as a distinguished musical biographer, uses the new material (including Elgar's vast personal correspondence) to analyze the composer's complex personality. Elgar's letters reveal his unpredictable swings of mood, from gaiety and a fondness for puns to morose self-pity and a feeling that he was "not wanted."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521009073/?tag=2022091-20
(In this biography by one of England's foremost writers on...)
In this biography by one of England's foremost writers on music, William Walton's personality emerges in all its complexity and self-contradiction. Michael Kennedy portrays a creative artist completely committed to his art yet plagued by misgiving and doubts, prey to insecurity and frustration, vulnerable to criticism, and jealous of the achievement of others. At the same time he was witty and generous, bore no grudges, and enjoyed the loyalty of a host of friends. Appointed his biographer by the composer himself, Kennedy has had access to correspondence with many of the friends and colleagues who were important in Walton's life, among them Siegfried Sassoon, Benjamin Britten, Malcolm Arnold, and André Previn.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198167059/?tag=2022091-20
biographer historian journalist music critic
Kennedy was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, and attended Berkhamsted School.
On 17 November 1941, he joined the Manchester office of Daily Telegraph at age 15, as a tea boy. Following service in the Royal Navy, he returned to the Telegraph as an assistant to the night editors He began writing music criticism for the paper in 1948, and became staff music critic in 1950.
He served as chief sub-editor, and later Northern Editor of the Telegraph from 1960 to 1986, joint chief music critic from 1986 to 2005, and chief music critic of The Sunday Telegraph from 1989 to 2005.
He was on the Board of Governors of the Royal Northern College of Music from 1971 to 2006. As a writer, Kennedy had particular interests in late Romantic music and the history of music-making in Manchester since the 19th century.
Kennedy wrote biographies of Vaughan Williams, William Walton, and of John Barbirolli, with authorisation from the composers themselves and the Barbirolli family, respectively. He is also noted for writing The Oxford Dictionary of Music, which he did whilst serving as Northern Editor of the Telegraph.
Its second edition was published in 1994.
Kennedy was appointed an Officer (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) of the Order of the British Empire in 1981 and a Commander (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1997. He received an honorary doctorate degree in music from Manchester University in 2003. Kennedy was married twice.
Their marriage lasted from 1947 until her death in 1999.
Their own marriage lasted until Kennedy"s death. She survives him.
(This is the authoritative account of Vaughan Williams's m...)
(The public image of Elgar as patriotic country squire was...)
(In this biography by one of England's foremost writers on...)
(This new biography of Elgar draws on letters and document...)
(Barbirolli Hardcover Michael Kennedy Michael Kennedy (Aut...)
(BBC Music Guides)
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In 2005, he was elected an honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic Society.