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Would the Great Composers be Conservative, Moderate or Liberal?

23K views 67 replies 33 participants last post by  Tallisman 
#1 ·
Would the great composers be conservative, moderate or liberal?

Seems like we know what a few of them were. Does anyone know which were which?
 
#66 ·
I have waded through quite a lot of inconsequential nonsense in this thread. If nothing else it, in European political terms, affirms George Bernard Shaw's observation that the USA and UK are two nations separated by a single language.

No-one has yet mentioned Alan Bush (1900-1995), an English composer who was a committed Communist and whose long life enabled him to witness the gestation, maturation and eventual demise of the Soviet Union (although his final years were clouded by dementia). He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1935. For the early part of WW2, his music was banned on the BBC.

His music has been very rarely played in his native country (in which he lived for almost the whole of his life). He wrote four operas which were premiered in East Germany.

His Nottingham Symphony (1948) had its first performance in Nottingham but has been performed rarely since. I did hear a broadcast of this many years ago and rather liked it (although I must also add that, since I was born in Nottingham, I might not be entirely objective in this respect). He also wrote a Byron Symphony (possibly continuing the Nottingham connection?) and a Lascaux Symphony.

Apparently, he was a respected teach of composition.
 
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