While the Music Lasts: A Memoir of Music, Grief and Joy (Hardback) - Emily MacGregor

£20

Enter your postcode and we'll provide you with your delivery & collection options.

  • Free Delivery on orders over £50*
  • Free Same Day Click & Collect
  • Delivery: In stock

Shop more...

Description & Specifications

An illuminating, witty and highly moving story of making and listening to music and its role and impact on grief. Written in the wake of the author's guitarist father's death.

When her father dies, music historian and trombonist Dr Emily MacGregor finds that music has become too much. Listening, let alone playing, music is suddenly too difficult. This is problematic given that she's a broadcaster, writer and academic working with classical music.

It leads her on a journey of discovery: from the arrangement of an Isaac Albeniz piece she finds on her father's guitar stand, through encounters with psychologists, orchestras, summer schools and funeral celebrants, to the lives and works of individual composers who wrote music so often in the midst of loss. What is it about our experience of music that cuts so sharply to the heart of our emotions? And why is it more than any other artform painfully, exquisitely crucial in the evoking of memories?

An erudite, lyrical, gently humorous and healing journey to rediscover the purpose of making and participating in music.

'Emily MacGregor takes two things people are often scared of - classical music, and death - and made them winningly accessible, warm, funny and real. This book is as finely tuned as the very best of orchestras. I loved it' Alice Vincent, author of Why Women Grow and Hark

About the Author

Dr Emily MacGregor is a writer, broadcaster, and music historian. She appears regularly on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and has written for the Guardian. Her academic CV includes a doctorate from Oxford University and subsequent research positions at Harvard University and King's College London, where she's currently based. She's the author of Interwar Symphonies and the Imagination: Politics, Identity, and the Sound of 1933 (Cambridge University Press) and is winner of the Jerome Roche Prize. Emily cohabits in London with an unapologetically fluffy dog.

Contributor:
Emily MacGregor
Imprint:
September Publishing
Publisher:
Duckworth Books
Release Date:
27 Mar 2025
Number of Pages:
320
Binding:
Hardback
ISBN13:
9781914613630

Delivery

Options to suit you

At Jarrolds we want to ensure you get your order in the most convenient way for you, so we offer..

  • Free standard delivery on most orders over £50*
  • Express and Nominated options from £6.95*
  • Free click and collect from our stores for many items

More about delivery

Help & Advice

Need extra help?

We're always happy to answer any questions or queries you might have, please get in touch using one of the methods below.

  • Live chat
    Monday to Friday (between 9.00am - 5.30pm)
  • Call us - 01603 660 661

View more contact details

Returns

How to return a purchase

At Jarrolds we want to ensure you're delighted with your order so if for any reason you are unhappy with your purchase, you can return most items to us in new and unused condition within 30 days of receiving them for a full refund*.  

More about returns