An Engagement With Time

Winton Dean (1916-2013), the renowned musical scholar and critic, gives a sparkling account of his early life and of his disparate set of forbears. He writes of his controversial father, Basil Dean, the theatrical and film producer and founder of ENSA, his great uncle Rufus Isaacs (supplying new information about his first marriage) and Daisy, Countess of Warwick, mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales.  A deeply divided personality, Winton hoped to pursue a career as a creative artist rather than as a scholar and critic. To this extent he considered his life at least in part a failure.  But he was a brilliant and witty writer, as these memoirs repeatedly demonstrate.

          He records his grim years at Elstree and Harrow Schools, where however he was outstandingly successful academically, and the titanic family rows that followed. Kings, Cambridge, where he read Classics, then English, brought an immense release of emotions and inhibitions. There are sharp pen portraits of the dons, including Edward Dent.  Alan Turing was his tennis partner. A trip to Greece in 1936 is described in luminous detail.  Though not a performer, he became increasingly interested in music, encouraged by a young don, Philip Radcliffe, who became a life-long friend.  On two visits to the Salzburg Festival he was bowled over by the conducting of Arturo Toscanini, especially in opera. He gives highly entertaining accounts of the chaotic rehearsals of The Frogs of Aristophanes (in Greek) and the stage production of Handels Saul (in both of which he played minor roles). The overwhelming dramatic power of Handels music impelled him, after the war, to devote ten years of his life to the study of Handels oratorios. Among his many interests, which encompassed trams, steam trains, stamp collecting, old churches and naval history, Winton had a passion for cricket (though he was an indifferent performer with the bat) and later for shooting pheasants and grouse.

          His first book, Bizet, was published in 1948; his second, the classic Handels Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (1959), established him as a musicologist of world renown. Winton worked independently and held no university appointments, apart from a visiting professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1965-6, which gave rise to his third book, Handel and the Opera Seria.  The last of the gentleman scholars, he played a leading role in astonishing revival of Handels operas and dramatic oratorios in recent years.

          Winton began his memoirs at the age of 72 but never finished them, breaking off at the beginning of 1946, when his career as scholar and critic had barely begun.  His early life and young manhood were what mattered to him. The later chapters, provided by his son Stephen, follow his career as scholar and sportsman up to 1966.