The Main Stream of Music and Other Essays

Donald Francis Tovey was born in Eton, England, on August 17, 1875. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and in 1914 became Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University, a post he held for the rest of his life. Sir Donald (he was knighted in 1935) was an accomplished pianist and a conductor of the first rank, as well as a composer of operas and orchestral and chamber music. But his lasting fame rests on his numerous articles and books on music, among them the six-volume ESSAYS IN MUSICAL ANALYSIS; his collected contributions to the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, THE FORMS OF MUSIC; and the present volume. Tovey died in Edinburgh on August 10, 1940.