Friday, August 07, 2009

David Drew

The obituary for David Drew appeared in the Guardian this week.
No job description, whether musicologist, critic, cultural historian, publisher or editor quite fits David Drew, who has died aged 78. He was successively and simultaneously all these things. But most remarkable, even unique, is the way all these activities relate to a single ambitious undertaking: he wished to diagnose and correct the received opinions and sloppy judgments about the classical music of the 20th century and its makers that came from both commercial and political pressure.
written by Alexander Goehr. I remember Radio 3 programmes based on Drew's work from the 1970's items which introduced me to the work of Kurt Weill and Hans Eisler, programmes for which I am still grateful

Here's a link to Lenya (Weill's widow) singing Surabaya Johhny (unfortunately embedding is disabled)

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