Retirement of Professor John Deathridge

Professor John Deathridge's recent retirement party at King's was an intimate but joyous affair, involving his immediate colleagues in the Music Department and other close friends. Given John's interests, two items were essential parts of the menu. One was musical performance: before the inevitable speeches, several members of the department gave a brief recital of music particularly close to his interests. The other was the presentation of a carefully constructed gin martini: alas, unlikely to be up to his own exacting standards, but at least an attempt to imitate the work of the master.

John Deathridge was King Edward Professor of Music at King's from 1996 until 2013. He joined the Department after being Reader in Music and Fellow of "the other" King's College, at Cambridge. He has been a visiting Professor at Princeton, Chicago and Vienna, and continues to be active as a performer (he is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists) and regular broadcaster.

He is a past President of the Royal Musical Association and in 2002 was elected a corresponding member of the American Musicological Society. John's main research interests are in German music, particularly Richard Wagner, on which he is a world authority. His latest book is Wagner Beyond Good and Evil (University of California Press); he is now working on a new translation of Wagner's Ring (Penguin Classics), a revisionist reappraisal of the life and work of Beethoven (Faber) and an extended essay on German Music and its consequences (Music on Trial).

Picture credits: Frederick Moehn