Cuthbert Morton Girdlestone (17 September 1895 – 10 December 1975) was a British

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some m ...

and literary scholar. Born in

Bovey Tracey Bovey Tracey () is a small town and civil parish in Devon, England, on the edge of Dartmoor, its proximity to which gives rise to the "slogan" used on the town's boundary signs, "The Gateway to the Moor". It is often known locally as "Bovey". It ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, he was educated at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

and the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

, and thereafter took up the chair in French in Armstrong College, later to be King's College in

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

in 1926, a position he held until 1960. His most famous publications are his much-reprinted study of the

Mozart Piano Concertos Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's concertos for piano and orchestra are numbered from 1 to 27. The first four numbered concertos and three unnumbered concertos are early works that are arrangements of keyboard sonatas by various contemporary composers. ...

(1939, published originally in French) and his biography of

Jean-Philippe Rameau Jean-Philippe Rameau (; – ) was a French composer and music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera ...

(1957).

Books

*Girdlestone, Cuthbert. ''Mozart et ses concertos pour piano.'' Paris, Fischbacher. 1939. **Girdlestone, Cuthbert. ''Mozart and His Piano Concertos''. New York: Dover Publications, 1964. "An unabridged and corrected republication of the second (1958) edition of the work first published in 1948 by Cassell & Company, Ltd., London, under the title Mozart’s Piano Concertos." A translation of ''Mozart et ses concertos pour piano.'' (pbk.) (3rd edition published London: Cassell, 1978. .) *Girdlestone, Cuthbert. ''Jean-Philippe Rameau, His Life and Work''. London: Cassell. 1957. (2nd Edition: Paris: Lettres modernes, 1968, and in English: New York:

Dover Publications Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books ...

, 1969. .) **Girdlestone, Cuthbert. ''Jean-Philippe Rameau: sa vie, son œuvre.'' Desclée de Brouwer, 1983, ©1962. . *Girdlestone, Cuthbert. ''La tragédie en musique, considéré comme genre littéraire.'' Droz, Geneva. 1972. OCoLC 772775.

Notes

References

*Obituary notice (1976). ''The Musical Times'', 117, 249. 1895 births 1975 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge College of Sorbonne alumni English writers about music Mozart scholars Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur 20th-century Austrian composers 20th-century Austrian male musicians 20th-century British musicologists {{UK-music-bio-stub