Book Review

I Dream a World: The Operas of William Grant Still by Beverly Soll. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2005. ISBN 1-55728-789-9. PP. xvi, 285. $24.95 (cloth).

As Beverly Soll aptly points out in the introduction to this volume, the study of William Grant Still as a composer has primarily focused on his orchestral works while "his eight operas have remained virtually unknown despite still's deepest desire to be recognized as a composer of opera". Soll has begun to shed more light on these long-neglected works with this book, which not only introduces the reader to some of the musical characteristics of the operas, such as plot, form, and motivic usage, but also to the gestation of each work and Still's compositional process.