Part one consists mainly of reviews of those golden times when the gods had names like Callas, Flagstad, Heifetz, Horowitz, Beecham, Bruno Walter and Klemperer. These reviews, mostly written on the night, tell their own story of the times. Amis covered the premieres (absolute or British) of such works as: Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Let’s Make an Opera, Chinese Songs, Winter Words and Noye’s Fludde; Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage, first and second symphonies and Piano Concerto; Walton’s Troilus and Cressida, Cello Concerto and second symphony; Constant Lambert’s Tiresias, Janacek’s Kat’a Kabanova, Messiaen’s Turangalila and Schönberg’s Moses und Aron.
Part two deals with the last decades of the twentieth century and the author’s time spent lecturing, travelling, writing and listening to music; and a few other topics. Events provide pegs for slices of life and profiles of, for instance, Messiaen, Tippett, Britten, Milhaud, Poulenc, Copland, Enescu, Tcherepnin, Ireland, and many others.
“You’ll remember how much I enjoyed Amiscellany, and again your wonderful gift of bringing people to life bubbles up through the whole book. I endorse everything that Michael Kennedy says, not least the question of your voice emerging from every sentence, I must admit that I had grave doubts about having a patchwork structure, but it took me only a few minutes to dispatch them, when each item sends you so rapidly on to another, until you have to discipline yourself so as to put the book down. Not just the anecdotes but the offbeat bits of information have you gripped. In other words it’s the perfect bedside book.” Edward Greenfield