Editing Alan Bush (section)

==Music==
{{Further|List of compositions by Alan Bush}}

===General character===
Despite undergoing various changes of emphasis, Bush's music retained a voice distinct from that of any of his contemporaries.<ref name= Daula/> One critic describes the typical Bush sound as "Mild dominant discords, of consonant effect, used with great originality in uncommon progressions alive with swift, purposeful harmonic movement ... except in [Benjamin] Britten they are nowhere used with more telling expression, colour and sense of movement than in Bush".<ref name= OMO/>

John Ireland, Bush's early mentor, instilled "the sophisticated and restrained craftsmanship which marked Bush's music from the beginning",<ref name= Obit>{{cite news|last= Christiansen|first= Rupert|title= Obituary: Alan Bush|url= https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-alan-bush-1537087.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121022125142/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-alan-bush-1537087.html |archive-date=2012-10-22 |url-access=limited |url-status=live|newspaper= The Independent|date= 3 November 1995|access-date= 15 June 2017 }}</ref> introducing him to folksong and [[Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina|Palestrina]], both important building blocks in the development of Bush's mature style.<ref>Foreman, p. 100</ref> Daula comments that "Bush's music does not [merely] imitate the sound-world of his Renaissance predecessors", but creates his unique fingerprint by "[juxtaposing] 16th century modal counterpoint with late- and post-romantic harmony".<ref name= Daula/>

Bush's music, at least from the mid-1930s, often carried political overtones. His obituarist [[Rupert Christiansen]] writes that, as a principled Marxist, Bush  "put the requirements of the revolutionary proletariat at the head of the composer's responsibilities",<ref name= Obit/> a choice which others, such as Tippett, chose not to make.<ref>Kemp, p. 27</ref> However, Vaughan Williams thought that, despite Bush's oft-declared theories of the purposes of art and music, "when the inspiration comes over him he forgets all about this and remembers only the one eternal rule for all artists, 'To thine own self be true'."<ref name= Hall132>Hall, p. 132</ref>{{refn|Hall points out that Bush may have found Vaughan Williams's tribute insulting, since it implied that his theories about the relationship between music and politics were insincere, and forgotten during the process of composition.<ref name= Hall132/>   |group= n}}

===To 1945===
{{Quote box|width=300px|bgcolor=#E0E6F8|align= left|quote= '''Bush's First Symphony''':

"In this Symphony, the composer's intention is to evoke the feelings of the men and women of Britain during the 1930s.  There is no programme of events depicted; the three main movements are more in the nature of mood pictures, each an expression of the prevailing mental and emotional atmosphere of the social movement of the time."  |salign = left|source= Bush, Alan: ''Programme notes for first performance''  24 July 1942.<ref>{{cite web|title= Symphony No. 1 in C, Op. 21 (1939–40)|url= http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/music/commentaries/commentary65.asp?room=Music|publisher= The Alan Bush Music Trust|access-date= 30 June 2017}} Reproduced from original programme notes by Alan Bush, 24 June 1942</ref>  }}

According to Duncan Hall's account of the music culture of the Labour Movement in the inter-war years, Bush's youthful music, composed before his Berlin sojourn, already demonstrated its essential character.<ref name="Hall, p. 133"/> His ''Dialectic for String Quartet'' (1929), Op. 15, created a strong impression when first heard in 1935, as "a musical discourse of driving intensity and virile incident".<ref>Foreman, p. 103</ref> Christiansen highlights its "tightness and austerity" in contrast to the more fashionable lyricism then prevalent in English music.<ref name= Obit/>

Bush's years in Berlin brought into his music the advanced Central European idioms that characterise his major orchestral compositions of the period: the Piano Concerto (1935–37), and the First Symphony (1939–40).<ref name= OMO/> Nancy Bush describes the Piano Concerto as Bush's first attempt to fuse his musical and political ideas.<ref name= NB38/> The symphony was even more overtly political, representing in its three movements greed (of the bourgeoisie), frustration (of the proletariat) and the final liberation of the latter,<ref>Foreman, p. 112, quoting from the concert's programme notes</ref>  but not, according to  Christiansen, "in an idiom calculated to appeal to the masses".<ref name= Obit/>

Aside from these large-scale works, much of Bush's compositional activity in the 1930s was devoted to pageants, songs and choruses written for his choirs, work undertaken with the utmost seriousness. In his introduction to a 1938 socialist song book, Bush wrote that "socialists must sing what we mean and sing it like we mean it".<ref name= Hall134>Hall, p. 134</ref>  Under Bush's influence the "music of the workers" moved from the high aesthetic represented by, for example, [[Arthur Bourchier]]'s mid-1920s pamphlet ''Art and Culture in Relation to Socialism'', towards an expression with broader popular appeal.<ref name= Hall134/>

===Postwar and beyond===
Although Bush accepted [[Zhdanov Doctrine|Zhdanov]]'s 1948 diktat without demur and acted accordingly,<ref name= Obit/><ref>{{cite journal|last= Bullivant|first= Joanna|title= Modernism, Politics, and Individuality in 1930s Britain: The Case of Alan Bush|url= https://muse.jhu.edu/article/363066/pdf|journal= Music and Letters|volume= 90|issue= 3|date= August 2009|pages= 432–52|doi= 10.1093/ml/gcp051|s2cid= 144687825}} {{subscription required}}</ref> his postwar simplifications had begun earlier and would continue as part of a gradual process.<ref name= OMO/> Bush first outlined the basis of his new method of composition in an article, "The Crisis of Modern Music", which appeared in WMA's ''Keynote'' magazine in spring 1946.   The method, in which every note has thematic significance, has drawn comparison by critics with [[Arnold Schoenberg|Schoenberg]]'s [[Twelve-tone technique|twelve-note system]], although Bush rejected this equation.<ref name= Dalgleish/>{{refn|The 12-note system employs a dodecaphonic scale which uses all the tones and semi-tones as provided by the black and white notes on the piano keyboard. The central principle of 12-tone music that emerged in the early 20th century was the belief that all 12 notes had equal importance in the music, rather than the use of a dominant key.<ref>Ward, p. 916</ref> |group= n}}

Many of Bush's best-known works were written in the immediate postwar years.  [[Anthony Payne]] described the ''Three Concert Studies for Piano Trio'' (Op. 31) of 1947 as exceeding Britten in its inventiveness, "a high-water mark in Bush's mature art".<ref name= Payne>{{cite journal|author-link= Anthony Payne|last= Payne|first= Anthony|title= Alan Bush|jstor= 949357|journal= The Musical Times|volume= 105|issue= 1454|date= April 1964|pages= 263–65|doi= 10.2307/949357}} {{subscription required}}</ref> The Violin Concerto (Op. 32, 1948) has been cited as "a work as beautiful and refined as any in the genre since Walton's".<ref name= Obit/> Foreman considers the concerto, which uses twelve-tone themes, to be the epitome of Bush's thematic theory of composition, although Bush's contemporary, [[Edmund Rubbra]], thought it too intellectual for general audiences.<ref>Foreman, pp. 118–19</ref> The ''Dorian Passacaglia and Fugue'' for timpani, percussion and strings, (Op. 52, 1959), involves eight variations in the [[Dorian mode]], followed by eight in other modes culminating in a final quadruple fugue in six parts.<ref>Foreman, p. 141</ref> ''Musical Opinion''{{'}}s critic praised the composer's "wonderful control and splendid craftsmanship" in this piece, and predicted that it could become the most popular of all Bush's orchestral works.<ref>{{cite web|title= Dorian Passacaglia and Fugue for Orchestra, Op. 52 (1959)|url= http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/music/commentaries/commentary73.asp?room=Music|publisher= The Alan Bush Music Trust|access-date= 28 June 2017}} (Review quoted in ABMT website)</ref>   
{{Quote box|width=300px|bgcolor=#E0E6F8|align= right|quote=  "All [Bush's] operas deal with things that actually happened, the message being contained in a judicious selection of fact, the music aimed at the heart before brain." |salign = left|source=  Christopher Ford: ''Burning Bush'' (1974)<ref name= Ford/>  }}
The postwar period also saw the beginning of Bush's 20-year involvement with grand opera, a genre in which, although he achieved little commercial recognition, he was retrospectively hailed by critics as a master of British opera second only to Britten.<ref name= Ford/> His first venture, ''Wat Tyler'', was  written in a form which Bush thought acceptable to the general British public;<ref name= Foreman122>Foreman, pp. 122–23</ref> it was not his choice, he wrote, that the opera and its successors all found their initial audiences in East Germany.<ref>A. Bush, p. 21</ref>  When eventually staged in Britain in 1974 the opera, although well received at Sadler's Wells, seemed somewhat old-fashioned;<ref name= Foreman122/> [[Philip Hope-Wallace]] in ''The Guardian'' thought the ending degenerated into "a choral union cantata", and found the music pleasant but not especially memorable.<ref>{{cite news|author-link= Philip Hope-Wallace|last= Hope-Wallace|first= Philip|title= Bush's Wat Tyler at Sadler's Wells|newspaper= The Guardian|date= 20 June 1974|page= 10|id= {{ProQuest|185814048}}}} {{subscription required}}</ref> Bush's three other major operas were all characterised by their use of "local" music: Northumbrian folk-song in the case of ''Men of Blackmoor'', Guyanese songs and dances in ''The Sugar Reapers'', and American folk music in ''Joe Hill'' –  the last-named used in a manner reminiscent of Kurt Weill and the German opera with which Bush had become familiar in the  early 1930s.<ref>Foreman, p. 128</ref>

The extent to which Bush's music  changed substantially after the war was addressed by Meirion Bowen, reviewing a Bush concert in the 1980s. Bowen noted a distinct contrast between early and late works, the former showing primarily the influences of Ireland and of Bush's European contacts, while in the later pieces the idiom was "often overtly folklike and Vaughan Williams-ish".<ref>{{cite news|last= Bowen|first= Meirion|title= Alan Bush|newspaper= The Guardian|date= 13 January 1986|page= 11|id= {{ProQuest|186673540}}}} {{subscription required}}</ref> In general Bush's late works continued to show all the hallmarks of his postwar oeuvre: vigour, clarity of tone and  masterful use of counterpoint.<ref name= OMO/> The Lascaux symphony, written when he was 83, is the composer's final major orchestral statement, and addresses deep philosophical issues relating to the origins and destiny of mankind.<ref name="Foreman, pp. 133–34"/>

===Assessment===
In the 1920s it appeared that Bush might emerge as Britain's foremost pianist, after his studies under the leading teachers of the day, but he turned to composition as his principal musical activity.<ref name= Obit/>  In Foreman's summary he is "a major figure who really straddles the century as almost no other composer does". He remained a pianist of consequence, with a strong and reliable, if heavy, touch.<ref name= ODNB/><ref>Foreman, pp. 98–99</ref>

Joanna Bullivant, writing in ''Music and Letters'', maintains that in his music Bush subordinated all ideas of personal expression to the ideology of Marxism.<ref>{{Cite journal|last= Bullivant|first= Joanna|title= Modernism, Politics, and Individuality in 1930s Britain: The Case of Alan Bush|url= https://muse.jhu.edu/article/363066/pdf|journal= Music and Letters|volume= 90|issue= 3|date= August 2009|pages= 432–52|doi= 10.1093/ml/gcp051|s2cid= 144687825}} {{subscription required}}</ref> The critic [[Hugo Cole]] thought that, as a composer, Bush came close to [[Paul Hindemith]]'s ideal: "one for whom music is felt as a moral and social force, and only incidentally as a means of personal expression".<ref>{{cite news|last= Cole|first= Hugo|title= Wigmore Hall: Alan Bush|newspaper= The Guardian|date= 19 January 1970|page= 8|id= {{ProQuest|185422901}}}} {{subscription required}}</ref> The composer [[Wilfrid Mellers]] credits Bush with more than ideological correctness; while remaining faithful to his creed even when it was entirely out of fashion, he "attempt[ed] to re-establish an English tradition meaningful to his country's past, present and future".<ref>{{cite web|author-link= Wilfrid Mellers|last= Mellers|first= Wilfrid|title= Alan Bush and the English Tradition|url= http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/articles/article_wmellers.asp?room=Articles|publisher= The Alan Bush Music Trust|access-date= 30 June 2017}} Originally published in the Trust's ''Clarion'' magazine, August 1998.</ref> Hall describes Bush as  "a key figure in the democratisation of art in Britain, achieving far more in this regard than his pedagogic, utopian patrons and peers, the labour romantics."<ref>{{cite web|last= Hall|first= Duncan|title= More Than a Pleasant Way to Pass the Time? Alan Bush and Socialist Music Between the Wars (book preview)|url= http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/articles/article_dhall.asp?room=Articles|publisher= The Alan Bush Music Trust|access-date= 2 July 2017}}</ref>

The music critic Colin Mason described Bush's music thus:<blockquote>His range is wide, the quality of his music consistently excellent. He has the intellectual concentration of Tippett, the easy command and expansiveness of Walton, the nervous intensity of Rawsthorne, the serene leisureliness of Rubbra ... He is surpassed only in melody, as are the others, by Walton, but not even by him in harmonic richness, nor by Tippett in contrapuntal originality and the expressive power of rather austere musical thought, nor by Rawsthorne in concise, compelling utterance and telling invention, nor by Rubbra in handling large forms well.<ref>{{cite web|first= Colin|last= Mason|title= Alan Bush – An Appreciation|url= http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/articles/article_jamis.asp?room=Articles|publisher= The Alan Bush Music Trust|access-date= 30 June 2017}} Quoted from a programme note for the Alan Bush and Aaron Copland Centenary Focus Concert, Purcell Room, 3 April 2000</ref></blockquote>