Kindly allow me a word of appreciation for what must be musicologist Joseph Vella Bondin’s magnus opus, namely The Great Maltese Composers: Historical Context, Lives and Works.

This magnificent and much-needed work is the first of its kind in English. It was launched when I was away and it was much later that I could read it. It is based on painstaking and very scholarly research pursued in local and foreign libraries and archives therein.

Mr Vella Bondin’s work is a mine of information, written in a very pleasant style. It is aimed at a general readership revealing in the process what an immensely rich musical heritage we have despite Malta’s minuscule size and limitations. He rightly highlights the importance of the patronage of the Church, and, with deep insight as a former singer, he traces the history of important ‘Cappelle di Musica’ such as the Nanis, Bugejas, Camilleris and Diaconos and the composers who directed them.

It is also no surprise that the author devotes a lot of attention to opera in an opera-mad country like ours. He deals with local composers, including the Balzano brothers, N. Isouard, the Vella dynasty,  G. Spiteri Fremond, A. Borg, the Gatts, P. Vassallo,  C. Pace, J. Vella, Ch. Camilleri and J. Sammut and many others, all of whom studied abroad at some time or another.

Also included are those who feeling certain local constraints too much decided to spread their wings in the wider world abroad. In previous books in Maltese the author made many of us aware for the first time of composers such as  Gerolamo Abos, Francesco Schira and Alessandro Curmi  and others who sought fame and fortune as far afield as Italy, England, Russia and Egypt. Now he brings these and others to the notice of a much wider readership.

The book’s 822-page hard-bound edition weighs almost 2.5 kilos. It certainly is not for carrying around but to peruse in the comfort of one’s home what definitely is an excellent companion to those who want to find out about the history of music right up to post-Independence Malta.