The writer Diana McVeagh, who has died aged 98, carved a niche for herself as a particular authority on the composers Edward Elgar and Gerald Finzi. Indeed she may aptly be described as the doyenne of Elgar studies, which previously had been a largely male preserve.
While still in her 20s she was invited by the scholar Eric Blom, as an adviser to the publishers Dent, to write a book about Elgar. The result, published as Edward Elgar: His Life and Music (1955), preceded three other major postwar biographies (by Jerrold Northrop Moore, Michael Kennedy and Robert Anderson), though Diana outlived those writers. Replete with insight and characterised by the bold, sometimes controversial, judgments that she became known for in later years, it was a remarkable achievement.
