1. Chapter 1 Listening to Iris Murdoch.
Introduction.
Music and sound in fiction: a review of the field.
Music in Murdoch's life.
Discussions of music in Murdoch's philosophy.
The sound-worlds in Murdoch's fiction.
Part I - Music.
2. Chapter 2 'The music is too painful': Music as character and atmosphere.
Introduction.
'Awaken, my blackbird': Music in The unicorn.
'Like a breathless enchanted girl': Music in The red and the green.
The swan princess: Music in The time of the angels.
'The concourse of sweet sounds': Music in The nice and the good.
Conclusion.
3. Chapter 3 'The point at which flesh and spirit most joyfully meet': Singers and singing.
Introduction.
'Che cosa e amor?': Singing in The sea, the sea.
Singing as exclusion in The message to the planet.
'Never to sing again? Never?': Singing in The philosopher's pupil (1983).
Conclusion.
4. Chapter 4 Musical women and unmusical men.
Introduction: 'Of course they never let the women sing.'.
Quiet women: The good apprentice.
Silent pianos.
No women composers.
Opera, intimacy, sexuality and androgyny in A fairly honourable defeat.
Conclusion.
Part II - Silence and sound.
5. Chapter 5 'Different voices, different discourses': Voices and other human sounds.
Introduction: Serious noticing.
'The long search for words': Something special.
'The quiet sound of voices': The sandcastle.
'Intolerable with menace': Henry and Cato.
'A mechanical litany': The good apprentice.
Conclusion.
6. Chapter 6 'Like a clarity under a mist': Ambient noise and silence, dreamscapes and atmosphere.
Introduction.
The sacred and profane love machine: The drama of silence.
The black prince and Under the net: Silence and art.
Bruno's dream: Synaesthesia and perception.
Nuns and soldiers.
Conclusion.
Part III - Settings.
7. Chapter 7 'Just bring me the composers': Musical settings of Iris Murdoch's words.
Introduction.
The servants - opera: music by William Mathias, libretto by Iris Murdoch.
The round horizon, cantata in five parts: music by Christopher Bochmann, words by Iris Murdoch.
The one alone: Radio play with music by Gary Carpenter.
A year of birds: Song cycle for soprano and orchestra by Malcolm Williamson.
Forgive me. In memoriam Iris Murdoch, 1919-1999, for unaccompanied vocal ensemble (SATB) by Paul Crabtree.
Inspired by Iris: Paul Hullah and Kent Wennman.
Paul Hullah, All the names under the sun and Home.
Kent Wennman, A Jerusalem conversation and The thinker and the feeling one.
Conclusion: Iris Murdoch set to music.
Coda Sound, music, silence and listening.
Part IV - The music.
Appendix 1 Music mentioned in Murdoch's fiction.
Classical composers.
Vocal music.
Chronological list of music mentioned in Murdoch's fiction.
Appendix 2 Items in Iris Murdoch's Oxford music collection held at Kingston University Library.
Iris Murdoch's manuscript notebooks of songs.
Anthologies, collections, scores etc.
Single works.
