Welcome to Early Music World, the personal website of music historian, lecturer, broadcaster
and early music critic Brian Robins. On the site you will find a range of articles, interviews and a selection of reviews.
Also included are viewpoints on topics relating to the world of
early music, in addition to details and extracts from reviews concerning two published books, The John Marsh Journals: The Life and Times of a Gentleman Composer (1752-1828) (1998, second edition July 2011), and Catch
and Glee Culture in Eighteenth-Century England (2006). A second volume of the Marsh Journals was published in July 2013.
Brian Robins was born in Cheltenham, England, but spent his early life in Bournemouth, where
he pursued an academic life notable for its singular lack of distinction. This he subsequently rectified by
obtaining an Honours pass in the History of Music Diploma (University of London). After more than thirty years in the retail
record business, increasing interest in research and adult education led him to become a free-lance writer and lecturer. His
academic work has been acknowledged by prestigious awards from the Hinrichsen Foundation (1992 & 2012), the Leverhulme
Trust, the British Academy and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In August 2013 he was granted the status of Visiting Fellow
at the University of Southampton.
From 1994 until mid-2007 Brian Robins was a regular contributor
of reviews and interviews to the US publication Fanfare. In 1997 he was involved with the launch of Goldberg Early Music Magazine (Spain), remaining a contributor, consultant and member of the Advisory Board
for every issue until the cessation
of publication in November 2008. Brian Robins has also broadcast for BBC Radio 3 and BBC1 TV and contributed
to such scholarly publications as Early Music, the RMA Research Chronicle and the Huntington Library Quarterly. He has also
contributed essays to Concert Life
in Eighteenth-Century Britain (ed. S. Wollenberg & S. McVeigh)
(2004), Marsh of Chichester:
Gentleman, Composer, Musician, Writer 1752-1828(2004), the revised New Grove Dictionary
of Music & Musicians (2001), and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). In 2007 he was invited to become
a member of the panel for the Stanley Sadie International Handel Recording Prize. He has also written for the BBC
Music Magazine, Early Music Today and Gramophone. Brian Robins is currently a regular contributor to
Early Music Review and Opera.
Early Music World is a free information site that includes very little advertising on its
pages. It is funded entirely by sales obtained through our associates. I hope you will visit their sites and support
us by giving them your patronage.
Please enjoy your visit to the site, which I hope you will find informative. Your feedback
is welcome, so please do let me know what you like (or dislike) about the site. You can contact me at: brianrobins@earlymusicworld.com
