The Royal Musical Association: Creating Scholars, Advancing Research. By Leanne Langley

When Simon Keefe, current President of the Royal Musical Association, approached Leanne Langley in his capacity as editor of its monographs series with the invitation to produce a history of the Association (and with its sesquicentenary on the horizon), he made a percipient choice. As a cultural historian whose special interests have included musical institutions, Langley was ideally qualified to undertake the task. (Perhaps not surprisingly, the result grew beyond the scope of the RMA monographs.) As she shares with us in her Preface to the book, the subject may have seemed ‘not only ... less compelling in worldwide intellectual history, but also, presumably, dull and uninviting, requiring a great trawl through dusty records’, but she declares: ‘I happen to like (proverbial) dust because layers of discovery might lie underneath’ (p. xv). Her ‘trawl’ through the contents of archives and libraries, also a house in Manchester where Jeffrey Dean, long-serving Secretary to the RMA, kept his personal collection relating to his work for the Association, has resulted in a handsomely designed book whose contents will be of lasting value. A large amount of detailed information, judiciously selected, and blended together with a measure of carefully considered opinion, is packed into its pages. The book is attractively illustrated, with images and documents commemorating significant figures and events in the Association’s history. In many respects, it forms a history of British musicology.