author
R. A. (Richard Alexander) Streatfeild
1866–1919
A thoughtful guide to opera and modern music, he wrote with the calm authority of someone who loved making serious subjects readable. Alongside his work as a critic and musicologist, he also played an important part in bringing Samuel Butler's writing to a wider public.
1 Audiobook
The Opera A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions of all Works in the Modern Repertory.
by R. A. (Richard Alexander) Streatfeild
About the author
Born in 1866, Richard Alexander Streatfeild was an English musicologist and critic whose books helped introduce broad audiences to opera, Handel, and newer musical trends. He spent his working life at the British Museum, even though he was not employed in its music department, and built a reputation as a clear, reliable writer on musical history and performance.
Streatfeild is especially remembered for books such as The Opera, which offered readers an accessible way into a large and often intimidating subject. His writing combined scholarship with a practical sense of what ordinary music lovers wanted to know, which helped make his work useful long after it first appeared.
He also had strong literary interests. A friend of Samuel Butler, he served as Butler's literary executor and helped arrange the posthumous publication of The Way of All Flesh. Streatfeild died in 1919, leaving behind work valued both by music readers and by those interested in English literary history.