Much English music from the 1890s through the 1950s stands out for its intensive diatonicism: a studied avoidance of chromaticism and an elaboration of the expressive possibilities of purely diatonic writing. This music attempted to convey metaphysical thoughts, elevated feelings, eternity, and at times mysticism and ecstasy. English Diatonic Music 1887-1955 explores this unique stylistic movement, drawing on recent approaches in music theory and analysis and illustrating the argument with key representative musical examples. Through this analysis, author Matthew Riley offers a new perspective on the repertory.

This book advances a new conception and undertakes an historical remapping of early twentieth-century English music. Incorporating both music theory and music history, Riley evaluates the importance of syntactic and stylistic conventions in this era, in particular topic and schema. His position is anti-idealist in an analytical sense and anti-modernist in an intellectual sense, elevating the importance of convention and positioning composition as a craft above all. The book develops an alternative perspective to those in the existing broad surveys of the repertory and treats English diatonic music as primarily a post-Victorian modernity with remarkable consistency of vocabulary across the decades. It was the outcome of a coherent late-Victorian musical reform movement that worked against perceived sentimentality. Intensive diatonicism can be heard in many canonical compositions that are frequently performed and recorded, but its scope is much wider too, encompassing orchestral and choral-orchestral works, chamber music, solo song, music for the Anglican liturgy, opera, and commissions for coronations, festivals, and BBC projects. Many of the book's wider arguments and approaches are concerned with clearing out the misconceptions arising from over-emphasis on folksong and the Tudor revival and the confusion of diatonicism and pastoralism.