Max Kalbeck was a close friend and partisan of Johannes Brahms. Kalbeck's principal achievement was his eight-volume biography of that composer, published from 1904 to 1914, which has never been translated into English. Kalbeck also edited several volumes of Brahms's correspondence and in 1918, the letters of the poets Gottfried Keller and Paul Heyse, as well as publishing two collections of his own music reviews. Kalbeck wrote new libretti for Mozart's "Bastien und Bastienne" and "La finta giardiniera"; and he revised those of "Don Giovanni" and "The Marriage of Figaro" for Gustav Mahler's productions at the Vienna Hofoper. In addition, he supplied
David Wickham Guildhall School of Music and Drama and studied with Norman Beedie, Paul Roberts and later with Graham Johnson and Paul Hamburger. He is currently a lecturer at Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. He was a member of the music staff of the Australian Opera Studio from 2003 to 2006, where he was music director for productions of "Giulio Cesare", "Don Quichotte", "Carmen", "Così fan tutte", "Rodelinda", "Manon", "Bastien und Bastienne" and "Trouble in Tahiti", as well as "Elijah" and four cabarets. At the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts he has conducted "Candide", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Malcolm Williamson's