Donald Mitchell

Donald Mitchell is chairman of Faber Music and the author of books on Britten and Mahler. Together with Hans Keller, he edited Music Survey from 1949 to 1952.

Donald Mitchell remembers Hans Keller

Donald Mitchell, 3 September 1987

I only need to hear a few bars from Mozart’s G minor Symphony (K. 550) and in a flash Hans is as vivid a presence as he was when he was alive. Not any old bars, mind you: to be precise, bars 125 to 136 of the finale, where in a remarkable unison passage which propels us into the development Mozart exploits (almost) the total resources of the chromatic scale.

The Biggest Rockets: Gustav Mahler

Alex Ross, 24 August 2000

‘In thirty or forty years,’ Gustav Mahler is said to have said, ‘Beethoven’s symphonies will no longer be played in concerts. My symphonies will take their place.’...

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Britten when young

Frank Kermode, 29 August 1991

We may nowadays he chary about using the word ‘genius’, but we still have a good idea what is meant by it. For example, there are great numbers of very gifted musicians who are...

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Biographical Materials

Alan Hollinghurst, 15 October 1981

Donald Mitchell recalls that Benjamin Britten had a low opinion of music critics in newspapers. Alan Blyth’s compilation Remembering Britten would have done little to make him change his...

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