Music and Psychology: From Vienna to London, 1939-52

The first collection of Hans Keller's psychoanalytic music criticism - looking at composers, performers, listeners and critics - much of which appears in print for the first time. For three or four decades after the Second World War, musical thinking in Britain was dominated by psychology. Among the earliest of the musical Freudians was Hans Keller (1919-85), an émigré from Vienna. For his case studies Keller drew on composers, performers, listeners and critics; and for his general topics he turned to opera, film music, creative character, genius, aesthetics and the issues of everyday musical life. The writing is impressive for itsnovelty, its insights, and the communicative clarity of its prose. The book includes a large number of aphorisms, two stories and a one-act play on British anti-Semitism. Most of the writings appear here in print for the first time and are drawn from papers held in the Hans Keller Archive at the University Library in Cambridge.