Michael Hall

"Hall’s consummate history is not just the story of the evolution of one of the world’s great collections… The book is also a through-the-keyhole insight into the shifting tastes, good or bad, of 1,000 years of monarchs."- The TimesThe Royal Collection is the last great collection formed by the European monarchies to have survived into the twenty-first century. Containing over a million artworks and objects, it covers all aspects of the fine and decorative arts, from paintings by Rembrandt and Michelangelo to grand sculpture, Fabergé eggs and some of the most exquisite furniture ever made. The Royal Collection also offers a revealing insight into the history of the British monarchy from William the Conqueror to Queen Elizabeth II, recording the tastes and obsessions of kings and queens over the past 500 years. With unprecedented access to the royal residences of St James' Palace, Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, Art, Passion & Power traces the history of this national institution from the Middle Ages to the present day, exploring how royalty used the arts to strengthen their position as rulers by divine right and celebrating treasures from the Crown Jewels to the "Abraham" tapestries in Hampton Court Palace. Author Michael Hall examines the monarchy's response to changing attitudes to the arts and sciences during the Enlightenment and celebrates the British monarchy's role in the democratisation of art in the modern world. Packed with glimpses of rarely seen artworks, Art, Passion & Power is a visual treat for all art enthusiasts. Accompanying the BBC television series and a major exhibition at the Royal Academy, Art, Passion & Power is the definitive statement on the British monarchy's treasures of the art world.

This title was first published in 2003. From 1821 until his death, Schubert compiled or specially composed for publication 42 song sets, yet during his own lifetime, and until now, their integrity and importance as sets have been virtually ignored. In this book, Michael Hall asserts that these songs sets are not arbitrary collections, as so often assumed, but highly integrated works in their own right. Approaching these songs as sets the book throws light on Schubert's largely undiscussed intellectual preoccupations. They reveal that he was au fait with most of the philosophical concerns of his time, especially those which touched on Romanticism. But although the sets reflect Romanticism in their topics, Hall maintains that they are the epitome of classical balance. In encouraging students and performers to approach these songs as sets, this study aims to alter perceptions of this important repertory.

This beautiful and informative picture book follows a single tree through the fall season, from the end of summer to winter's first snowfall. A great read-aloud for home and the classroom by the New York Times-bestselling creator of My Heart Is Like a Zoo and Red: A Crayon's Story. Wonderfall follows a single tree through the changing of the seasons. People, animals, and vehicles pass in front of the tree, celebrating holidays, playing in its leaves, and getting ready for winter. Fifteen combined words (thankful + fall = thankFALL, plentiful + fall = plentiFALL) underscore the themes and concepts of the season, while the main attraction-the beautiful tree-drops acorns, loses leaves, and provides food and a home for a pair of scurrying squirrels. Two full spreads at the back of the book offer additional information about the animals featured in the book, as well as the science behind squirrels, acorns, and saplings.

Ingenuity and surprise rule in this funny and colorful companion to Red: A Crayon's Story written and illustrated by Michael Hall, the New York Times-bestselling creator of My Heart Is Like a Zoo. The crayons are ready to tell the thrilling tale of Frankencrayon. The costumes are made, the roles are cast, the pages are all set-but then disaster strikes. Someone has scribbled on the page! Hideous! Horrifying! The story can't go on! Try as they might, the crayons can't erase the scribble, and this picture book must be canceled. Until the crayons playing the title role of Frankencrayon think of a solution, that is. Michael Hall breaks borders and invites readers behind the scenes with his irresistible, clever style and bold artwork. A book about seeing beauty in unexpected places and the magic of storytelling.

The User's Manual for the Brain

An inscription on a silver-gilt cup and cover presented to the Lord Mayor in 1741 records that the intention of the gift was to increase “the Honour and Grandeur” of the City of London. It is just one piece of an exceptional collection of plate kept at Mansion House – along with dozens of pieces of official regalia that represent the Mayorality – which is constantly in use today to uphold that honor and in the grandest way possible. The continued use of ceremonial plate by the City of London is a rare survival of medieval practices of display. Though the collection has very little silver from before 1800, the quality and quantity of the nineteenth-and twentieth-century pieces is extraordinary. Before Mansion House was built between 1732 and 1754, the Lord Mayor’s guild hall or his own house had been used for formal entertaining by the City, and any silver presented during the year remained with the guild or became the Lord Mayor’s personal property. Since the mid eighteenth century, however, a vast and eclectic collection has grown up, seen regularly at banquets and events at the Guildhall and Mansion House. This new book will present over 80 of the finest and most historic pieces. New photography will be accompanied by full details and a commentary. Starting with the unique medieval Crystal Sceptre of 1420, seen only at the inauguration of the Lord Mayor and at Coronations, the regalia includes several famous items, notably the sixteenth-century gold and enamel Chain of SS, the great Mace of 1735–36 and the Pearl Sword, carried before the Sovereign on visits to the City. The silver-gilt and silver, used constantly during the year, includes pieces by some of the greatest names of English silversmithing – Paul de Lamerie and Paul Storr, for example – but also by rarer more modern masters – Latino Movio and Omar Ramsden – masterpieces previously completely unknown to silver historians. Though intended to introduce the collection – as well as the history of the Lord Mayors, the City guilds and Mansion House itself, and the formation of the collection – to a broad audience, the book will be of interest to specialists in silver, who will discover many masterpieces of style and technique. This volume is the third in the series on the treasures of Mansion House, following The Harold Samuel Collection of Dutch and Flemish Paintings by Michael Hall and Clare Gifford (2012) and Magnificent Marble Statutes: A Guide to the Sculpture at the Mansion House by Julius Bryant and Clare Gifford (2013).

The author, a former BBC radio producer, conducted interviews with many leading British composers of the day, and his account provides for a unique insight into this often overlooked genre. Based on Michael Hall's many interviews with leading British composers of the genre, this book looks at the heyday of the British Music Theatre in the 1960s and 70s, a period when the author as a BBC radio producer was actively involved with the contemporary music scene. Music Theatre - a composite of music, singing, dancing and speaking distinct from traditional opera and ballet - has its roots in works by Monteverdi, Schoenberg, Satie, Stravinsky, Weill,Hindemith and Eisler, but flourished anew in the 1960s, in America, Britain and Europe. Hall's book presents an account of the context for the activity of Birtwistle, Goehr and Maxwell Davies; it uncovers details of little-known early works by other major figures such as Cardew and Tavener; and it recognises the highly distinctive contributions of composers whose works are less well known. Music Theatre in Britain also throws new light upon the reaction of British composers to the economic and social upheavals of 'the Sixties', offering a distinct and valuable contribution to our understanding of the relationship of the post-war musical avant-garde to social movementsand ideology. Music Theatre in Britain will be of interest to all those working in the field of late twentieth-century British music, to students of composition, and to composers, performers and producers of Music Theatre. MICHAEL HALL, who died in August 2012, had a long career as a conductor, founder of Royal Northern Sinfonia, BBC producer and broadcaster, university lecturer and writer on music.

A heart can be hopeful, or silly, or happy. A heart can be rugged, or snappy, or lonely. A heart holds every different feeling, and debut author-artist Michael Hall captures each one with a delicate touch. For each feeling, the bold, graphic artwork creates an animal out of heart shapes, from "eager as a beaver" to "angry as a bear" to "thoughtful as an owl." An accessible and beautiful debut, My Heart Is Like a Zoo is everything a classic picture book should be: honest, sincere, and speaking directly to even the very youngest child. Ages: 0 - 5

The New York Times bestseller My Heart Is Like a Zoo features bright colors, simple sentences, playful animals, and more than 300 hearts for children to count and enjoy. Caldecott Medalist Brian Selznick says, "Starting with one simple shape, Michael Hall shows us a nearly infinite number of ways to make a menagerie of love." This board book edition of the award-winning picture book is perfect for little hands and the very youngest readers, who will learn that a heart can be hopeful, silly, happy, rugged, snappy, or lonely. A heart holds every different feeling, and author-artist Michael Hall captures each one with his bold, graphic artwork. An ideal springboard for conversations about emotions, and for introducing concepts, math, and art projects in the classroom and at home. School Library Journal called it an "outstanding choice for one-on-one sharing."

The Harold Samuel Collection Art Collection of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century pictures is one of the finest groups of Old Master paintings assembled in Britain over the past hundred years, but one of the least known. Sir Harold Samuel, 1st and last Lord Samuel of Wych Cross (1912–1987) bequeathed the collection to the City of London to hang at Mansion House. Now in the care of the Guildhall Museum and Art Gallery, the collection of 84 paintings can be viewed at Mansion House on organized tours or by appointment. Built between 1732 and 1754, the House is the home, office and center of entertaining for the Lord Mayor of the City of London and the Corporation. This guide will enable visitors to take a tour through Mansion House and discover the artists and their subjects – landscapes, still lifes and genre scenes – the development of styles, forms, materials and techniques, and the history of the collection. Highlights include works by Frans Hals, Aelbert Cuyp, Jan van Goyen, Jacob van Ruisdael and Pieter de Hooch. Lively and insightful entries accompany beautiful reproductions of every painting and are introduced by an essay about the creation of the collection and the history of artistic taste in relation to Dutch art. Michael Hall gained his PhD, on collecting Old Master paintings in the nineteenth century, from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2005. For the past twenty-five years he has been curator of the Rothschild family collections at Exbury in Hampshire. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angekes and was J. Clawson Mills Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He has catalogued the collection of gold boxes at the Huntington Art Gallery in San Marino, California, and writes on French decorative arts and on collecting Old Master paintings. Clare Gifford is a doctor of science and medicine. She has over recent years become greatly interested in the history and culture of 'the City that made the world'. Her husband Roger was elected Lord Mayor of London for 2012–13.

A perfect square is transformed in this adventure story that will transport you far beyond the four equal sides of this square book.

Lush color and duotone photographs of England's lavish Victorian country mansions will appeal to architecture and early photography enthusiasts, Anglophiles, and all those who have visited or would like to visit these historic structures.The great English country house tradition reached its apotheosis in the nineteenth century. Designed by all the most eminent architects of the age, houses constructed during this period were larger, more elaborate, and more lavishly furnished than ever before, and they became famous throughout Europe and America for their luxury, technological innovation, and convenience of plan.Michael Hall's survey draws on the vast archive of the great British magazine Country Life to present the fullest visual record yet published of the Victorian-era country house in England and Wales. It ranges from the High Gothic of Tyntesfield to Ferdinand Rothschild's flamboyantly French Waddesdon Manor and Philip Webb's Arts and Crafts interiors at Standen. These remarkable photographs are in many cases the only record of the great houses in their heyday; those such as Wrest Park, Thoresby Hall, and Hewell Grange were all sold in the twentieth century and their magnificent furniture and priceless artwork and collections dispersed. Houses that have survived with their interiors intact but are little known or rarely accessible to the public also feature prominently, such as Flintham Hall and the Earl of Harrowby's Sandon Hall. Highclere Castle, now famous as TV's Downton Abbey, features prominently. Spectacular color photographs provide a fascinating look at some of the most celebrated houses of the period, from A. W. N. Pugin's Scarisbrick Hall and William Burges's Cardiff Castle to J. F. Bentley's Carlton Towers and J. D. Crace's astonishing interiors at Longleat. This chronologically arranged survey of Victorian houses spans the decades from the 1830s to the 1890s and includes not only new houses, but also historic county seats that have been in families for generations and were given major renovations or additions in this era. With over 150 superb color and black-and-white photographs specially selected to highlight the century's most significant houses and their architects and an authoritative commentary by Michael Hall, this book provides a thorough overview of a major period in British architectural history.

Francis Brett Young (1884-1954) was one of the most prolific and successful authors of his era. His thirty novels and four collections of stories were published in more than two hundred editions and eleven languages, and were adapted for film and radio. At his peak Brett Young's novels sold half a million copies and he was the preferred author of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. In addition there were three volumes of poetry (one selling almost thirty thousand copies in ten weeks), three non-fiction books and three published plays, with many others also performed.Today, the name and work of Francis Brett Young are on the verge of obscurity. His novels, influenced by Scott, Dickens, Hardy and Bennett, are out of print and his poetry is seldom anthologised. In this welcome study, Michael Hall tells the story of Brett Young's life and career. A doctor and soldier who became a bestselling - and prize-winning - novelist, his rise and fall are also a commentary on literary fashion and the decline of the Empire, which brought with it changes in thought and taste.Retired Deputy Head Teacher Michael Hall is Vice Chairman of the Francis Brett Young Society and a native of Brett Young's Hales Owen.