Editing Alan Bush (section)

===Royal Academy and after===
[[File:Royal Academy of Music, London W1.jpg|thumb|The Royal Academy of Music]]
At the RAM, Bush studied composition under [[Frederick Corder]] and piano with [[Tobias Matthay]].<ref name= ODNB>{{cite ODNB|last= Stoker|first= Richard|title= Bush, Alan Dudley|url= http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/60406|date= September 2013|doi= 10.1093/ref:odnb/60406|access-date= 16 May 2017}} {{subscription required}}</ref> He made rapid progress, and won various scholarships and awards, including the Thalberg Scholarship, the Phillimore piano prize, and a Carnegie award for composition.<ref name= ODNB/> He produced the first compositions of his formal canon: Three Pieces for Two Pianos, Op. 1, and Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 2,<ref>Craggs, pp. 28–29</ref>  and also made his first attempt to write opera – a scene from [[Edward Bulwer-Lytton|Bulwer Lytton]]'s novel ''[[The Last Days of Pompeii]]'', with a [[libretto]] by his brother Brinsley. The work, with Bush at the piano, received a single private performance with family members and friends forming the cast. The manuscript was later destroyed by Bush.<ref>Craggs, p. 30</ref>

Among Bush's fellow students was [[Michael Head (composer)|Michael Head]]. The two became friends, as a result of which Bush met Head's 14-year-old sister Nancy.   In 1931, ten years after their first meeting, Bush and Nancy would marry and begin a lifelong artistic partnership in which she became Bush's principal librettist, as well as providing the texts for many of his other vocal works.<ref name= Dalgleish/> {{refn | The critic Paul Dalgleish later wrote: "To experience the blending of the talents of both Alan and Nancy  through the medium of song cycles, listen to ''To Whom a Future World May Hold'' in which Nancy's poems for ''Woman's Life'', together with pairs of poems by Nancy and C. Day Lewis in ''Life's Span'' ... make up a fascinating projection of Alan Bush's obvious relish in setting words."<ref name= Dalgleish/>   |group= n}}

[[File:John-Ireland-1919.jpg|thumb|upright 0.7|left|John Ireland, Bush's early mentor and enduring friend]]
In 1922 Bush graduated from the RAM, but continued to study composition privately under [[John Ireland (composer)|John Ireland]], with whom he formed an enduring friendship.<ref>Ireland, pp. 15–16</ref> In 1925 Bush was appointed to a teaching post at the RAM, as a professor of harmony and composition, under terms that gave him scope to continue with his studies and to travel. He took further piano study from two pupils of [[Theodor Leschetizky|Leschetizky]],   [[Benno Moiseiwitsch]] and [[Mabel Lander]], from whom he learned the Leschetizky method.<ref>Craggs, p. vii</ref>{{#tag:ref|The Leschetizky method follows the teaching and practices of [[Theodor Leschetizky]], who first gained eminence as [[Ignacy Jan Paderewski|Paderewski]]'s piano tutor.<ref name= GMO>{{cite web|last= Methuen-Campbell|first= James|title= Leschetizky, Theodor|url= http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/16474?q=Theodor+Leschetizky&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1|publisher= Grove Music Online|date= 2007–17|access-date= 26 May 2017}} {{subscription required}}</ref> The method is described in numerous works, among them Malwine Brée's  ''Groundwork of the Leschetizky Method'' (1902).<ref>{{cite book|last= Brée|first= Malwine|title= Groundwork of the Leschetizky Method|url= https://archive.org/stream/groundworkoflesc00b186#page/n9/mode/2up|publisher= Haskell House|location= New York|year= 1902}}</ref> Some writers have inferred that the techniques promoted by Leschetizky were common knowledge among piano teachers and only acquired their special gravitas from his force of personality and his skill as a teacher.<ref>{{cite journal|last= Corey|first= N.J.|title= The Leschetizky Method – The Teachers' Round Table|url= http://etudemagazine.com/etude/1910/10/the-leschetizky-method.html|journal= The Etude|date= October 1910|access-date= 26 May 2017}}</ref> According to his Grove biographer, "It was Leschetizky's profound musicality, his wealth of experience in teaching and his ability, through sheer force of personality, to communicate with the pupil that led to his unassailable status as having been the greatest piano teacher of the modern era.<ref name= GMO/> |group= n}} In 1926 he made his first of numerous visits to Berlin, where with the violinist Florence Lockwood he gave two concerts of contemporary, mainly British, music which included his own ''Phantasy'' in C minor, Op. 3. The skill of the performers was admired by the critics more than the quality of the music. In 1928 Bush returned to Berlin, to perform with the [[Antonio Brosa|Brosa Quartet]] at the Bechstein Hall, in a concert of his own music which included the premieres of the chamber work ''Five Pieces'', Op. 6 and the piano solo ''Relinquishment'', Op. 11. Critical opinion was broadly favourable, the ''Berliner Zeitung am Mittag'' correspondent noting "nothing extravagant but much of promise".<ref>N. Bush, pp. 19–20</ref>

Among the works composed by Bush during this period were the Quartet for piano, violin, viola and cello, Op. 5; Prelude and Fugue for piano, Op. 9; settings of poems by [[Walter de la Mare]], [[Harold Monro]] and [[W. B. Yeats]]; and his first venture into orchestral music, the Symphonic Impressions of 1926–27, Op. 8.<ref>Craggs, pp. 32–35</ref> In early 1929 he completed one of his best-known early chamber works, the string quartet ''Dialectic'', Op. 15, which helped to establish Bush's reputation abroad when it was performed at a Prague festival in the 1930s.<ref name= OMO/>