There's Bernard van Dieren: An Introduction, by Alastair Chisholm (Thames Publishing, London; 1984) - although it's probably now as out of print as it is likely out of date (not that, in the latter category, I am in any sense accusing my estimable colleague and almost namesake of anything beyond the fact that his book dates from almost a quarter century ago). See if you can find a copy!

Best,

Alistair

I purchased two cassettes (!!) of his piano music recently, and haven't really gotten in to them (this is somewhat due to the low quality of my transferring of them onto computer).  One thing that I was interested in tracking down though, given his reputation for being a smart guy, was his book "down among the dead men".  Oh wait, found it on amazon.com.

I love Bernard van Dieren's music,or rather the little I have heard.I heard the 1973 broadcast of the 'Chinese Symphony', a wonderful experience. I was entraptured by  this beautiful music. Later I had a tape of a work called something like 'Sonata for cello and orchestra', again very beautiful.

I can't think why he hasn't been revived along with Bridge,  Bantock, Stanford, Scott and others. I hoped Hyperion would bring out a CD of the Symphony and one or two other pieces.

I have a copy of "Down among the Dead Men" (bought in 1964). It's very interesting - he's similar to Sorabji in the coruscating put-downs and elitism, but when he agrees with my prejudices I like him ( and when he doesn't, I don't!) He ridicules Schumann, which i find unforgiveable. The book has no index, which makes finding anything very tedious. There are basically five essays in the book: "Down among the Dead men", "Busoni", "Music and Wit", "Meyerbeer", and "Sine Nomine". There is also a one-page preface in which he refers to the essays as "aesthetico-philosophical rambles" The only music I have heard of his was the Chinese Symphony (performed on the BBC in 1973, as someone here has said), and I recorded it on reel-to-reel, but since the demise of my machine I cannot play it. in truth I think I only listened to it about twice in all that time. But I would welcome the opportunity to hear some of his other works, especially the String Quartet.

I feel like the entire population of Britain had their recording devices primed and ready for this single performance of the Chinese Symphony except for me.  Grrr.  (But I have an excuse).

The book's on order; was delayed, but can't wait, especially if his register is as close to Sorabji's as you say!  I think I'd really relish the opportunity to witness some quality Schumann-bashing   I've also heard that Medtner wrote quite a charming/nasty book; might give that a go whenever.  (I have to say that my favourite example of ridicule in what little musical literature I've read is Busoni's quip (in his letters) when he heard of Granados' (very tragic) death on his second trip over to America for a series of concerts, that it was probably fortuitous, that he probably wouldn't have been able to fake it over there twice).

From http://www.musicweb.uk.net/bax/Fredman.htm :

"RB: How did you come to conduct the first performance in modern times of Bernard Van Dieren s Chinese Symphony?

MF: As a boy I had many times read Constant Lambert's "Music Ho" which whetted my appetite for this unknown composer who had been of considerable influence on a generation of English musicians. I had also read Van Dieren's book "Down among the Dead Men". Then John Woolf of the Park Lane Group asked me to conduct the first professional performance of Delius' Fennimore & Gerda at the Camden Festival which curiously enough, Beecham had never conducted out of pique at Delius and Warlock's criticism of Beecham's British Opera Company and the producer (whose name I just cannot recall now) turned out to be someone who had been very much part of that circle. I asked him about van Dieren and he mentioned that his son lived in Tunbridge Wells (!!!!), in fact about three or four roads from where I lived so need-less to say I contacted him and he lent me various scores including some of Beecham's Delius scores with his inimitable blue pencil markings. Amongst his father's works was an unfinished Dance Symphony which apparently various composers, including Walton, had been asked to finish but turned down as being too difficult to complete. The scores were beautifully hand-written but in an incredible amount of parts rather like the Tudor Madrigalists, only for orchestra and then I came across the Chinese Symphony. It is a setting of the same poems that Mahler set for Das Lied von der Erde. Thanks to David Ellis at the BBC in Manchester we scheduled it for broadcast coupled with another forgotten work, Elgar's Lux Christi. I cannot remember the date of the recording but it was in the old Milton Hall studios and the soloists were Vivian Townley, Enid Hartle, William Elvin, John Mitchinson and John Tomlinson (the present world-renowned Wotan). For this BBC performance of the Chinese Symphony I used the manuscript score that Warlock had copied and from which Constant Lambert conducted the premiere. The Chinese Symphony has some beautiful sections but also some rather turgid passages with, again, like HB, difficult to achieve a clear texture. Fine for broadcasting purposes using orchestral microphones but very difficult to balance with the singers in a concert hall. Van Dieren has a certain affinity with Delius but without his passion! I remember Spike Hughes telling me about a projected TV opera but then the 2nd world war broke out. The Elgar is a splendid work but, try as I might at that time, no one was interested in releasing it commercially. It does seem to be my fate to pioneer rare works and composers (e.g. Bax) and then other conductors come along to consolidate my spade work!"

It so happens our music library carries a lot of van Dieren. I have had a look at 17 of his songs, and they are certainly an interesting collection of rare fruit. I recommend them to anyone who wants to see one possible (historically discarded) logical evolution of Wagnerian harmony -- it seems to have run parallel to Scriabin without quite abandoning the syntactical trappings of 'harmonic progression.' I imagine composers like Debussy or Schoenberg looking at this van Dieren stuff and saying to themselves, "It can't go on this way. Time to try something very different."

Yes, that's a little anachronistic, but that's the impression I'm left with. But even ...discarded...fruit.... can be sweet and delicious. It's not bad music!!