Groves

As a Librarian before she married, and a long time lover of music, Mum always wanted a set of the definitive reference for music, Grove's Dictionary of Music & Musicians, but even the cost of the paperbacks were prohibitive.

However, my aunt is busy downsizing prior to a move to Oxfordshire to be closer to her Son, and offered Mum this set bought by her late husband - though he apprently never liked them because of the colour!

The dictionary was first published in four volumes (1878, 1880, 1883, 1889) edited by Sir George Grove. By this, the fifth edition edited by Eric Blon in 1954, it had grown to 9 volumes plus supplement. The latest (2001) edition seems to be 29 volumes costs £1300 in hard back.

They now sit proudly on the shelf under the piano keyboard along with small busts of Beethoven and Chopin, and seemed an appropriate blip taken while listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons with Nigel Kennedy