Editing Alan Bush (section)

===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}}