George Colerick

Without becoming too technical, the author shows how certain composers of intrinsically funny music achieve their effects. He also gives persuasive reasons for what we too rarely enjoy today, the staging of quality musicals which create laughter.

Through his style and sense of humour, I have come to a close musical understanding of the writer, and believe this is an even better book than his previous one. It is informative and diverting for musician and layman alike. - Vilem Tausky, Foreward to From The Italian Girl to Cabaret

English writer and publisher George Colerick was born in London on 4 December 1925 and grew up in Birmingham.  For most of his adult life he lived in London, but often visited other capital cities to hear a large range of music. His interests included musicology, humour in music, north-west Europe, sociology and Ipswich Football Club.

His books include Romanticism and Melody (in two volumes), and From The Italian Girl to Cabaret, a specialised study in musical humour. From 2014 until 2020 he wrote for Classical Music Daily and its predecessor, Music & Vision Magazine.

George Colerick died in London on 10 February 2020, aged ninety-four.

 

Articles by George Colerick

A snapshot of the musical world at the turn of the twentieth century

George Colerick tells the story of Beethoven's influence on Romantic and nineteenth century music

George Colerick writes about idealised beauty alongside the grotesque in the 1951 film 'The Tales of Hoffmann'

George Colerick spotlights 1823, a critical year in the career of Franz Schubert

George Colerick tells the story of the early twentieth century ballet company

George Colerick discusses Georges Bizet, as the most vital French opera composer since Berlioz

George Colerick writes about Franz Lehár, probably the greatest twentieth century composer of operettas

George Colerick investigates the younger Franz Liszt

George Colerick explores the rise and decline of French composer Charles Gounod

On George Gershwin's birthday, George Colerick takes a critical look at the composer of 'Rhapsody in Blue'

On the birthday of Jean Sibelius, George Colerick discusses the Finnish composer and his music in the light of the politics of the time

George Colerick discusses orchestral music by Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Delibes, Lalo, d'Indy, Debussy, Ravel, Honegger, Poulenc, Milhaud and others

George Colerick explores the folk music and other connections between Antonín Dvořák and his friend Johannes Brahms

George Colerick discusses early Romanticism, with particular reference to Schubert, the piano, Schumann and the development of the symphony orchestra

George Colerick writes about the tango

George Colerick takes a light-hearted look at Ken Hill's influence on the old tale of 'The Phantom of the Opera'

George Colerick discusses the music of Sergei Prokofiev with reference to the Soviet authorities

George Colerick discusses Gustav Holst and his Richard Wagner parody

George Colerick tells the story of Louis Jullien, a French impressario, composer and conductor famous in London in the nineteenth century

George Colerick investigates the musicals of Florimond Hervé, a man of many parts

George Colerick describes how Emmanuel Chabrier was in sympathy with the new spirit of his age, opening up new directions which later composers would follow

George Colerick investigates Berlioz, Fantasy and Literature

George Colerick writes about Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov's extraordinary opera 'The Golden Cockerel'

In Leonard Bernstein's anniversary year, George Colerick tells the story of the opera 'Candide', one of the twentieth century's great musical satires

George Colerick muses on incidental music, with particular regard to Mendelssohn

George Colerick discusses comedy in Giuseppe Verdi's early opera 'Un Giorno di Regno'

George Colerick writes about the operettas of Franz Lehár

George Colerick takes a look at secular and romantic uses of the old Latin hymn

George Colerick investigates the emotional life of Johannes Brahms in his twenties

George Colerick investigates

Meyerbeer and the Development of Parisian Grand Opera

George Bernard Shaw as London Music Critic

George Colerick discusses Finnish culture and asks if Sibelius was one of the greatest melodists

George Colerick remembers Wolfgang Ostberg (1939-2011)

George Colerick claims that the Nazis approved of Bizet