Donald Francis Tovey was born in Eton, England, on August 17, 1875. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and in 1914 became Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University, a post he held for the rest of his life. Sir Donald (he was knighted in 1935) was an accomplished pianist and a conductor of the first rank, as well as a composer of operas and orchestral and chamber music. But his lasting fame rests on his numerous articles and books on music, among them the six-volume ESSAYS IN MUSICAL ANALYSIS; his collected contributions to the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, THE FORMS OF MUSIC; and the present volume. Tovey died in Edinburgh on August 10, 1940.