This well-documented life of Samuel Wesley gives a vivid picture of the life of a professional musician in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century London. Wesley was born in 1766, the son of the Methodist hymn-writer Charles Wesley and nephew of the preacher John Wesley. He was the finest composer and organist of his generation, but his unconventional behaviour makes him of more than ordinary interest. He lived through a crucial stage of English music from the immediately post-Handel generation to the early Romantic period, and his large output includes piano and organ music, orchestral music, church music, glees, and songs. He also taught and lectured on music, and was involved in journalism, publishing, and promoting the music of J. S. Bach. This book draws on letters, family papers, and other contemporary documents to offer a full study of Wesley, his music, and his life and times.
PHILIP OLLESON is Professor of Historical Musicology at the University of Nottingham. He has edited The Letters of Samuel Wesley: Professional and Social Correspondence, 1797-1837, is the joint author (with Michael Kassler) of Samuel Wesley (1766-1837): A Source Book, and has written extensively about other aspects of music in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.