Editing Alan Bush (section)

===Music and politics===
Bush had begun to develop an interest in politics during the war years.<ref name= Jones/> In 1924, rejecting his parents' conservatism, he joined the [[Independent Labour Party]] (ILP).<ref name= Craggs1/> The following year he joined the London Labour Choral Union (LLCU), a group of largely London-based choirs that had been organised by the socialist composer [[Rutland Boughton]], with [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] support, to "develop the musical instincts of the people and to render service to the Labour movement".<ref>Hall, p. 64</ref> Bush was soon appointed as Boughton's assistant, and two years later, he succeeded Boughton as the LLCU's chief musical adviser, remaining in this post until the body disbanded in 1940.<ref name= OMO/> 

Through his LLCU work, Bush met [[Michael Tippett]], five years his junior, who shared Bush's left-wing political perspective. In his memoirs Tippett records his first impressions of Bush: "I learned much from him. His music at the time seemed so adventurous and vigorous".<ref name= Tippett>Tippett 1991, pp. 43–44</ref> Tippett's biographer Ian Kemp writes: "Apart from Sibelius, the contemporary composer who taught Tippett as much as anyone else was his own contemporary Alan Bush".<ref>Kemp, p. 72</ref>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2006-0130, Berlin, Humboldt Universität.jpg|thumb|The Friedrich-Wilhelm University, Berlin, as it was in the 1930s]]
After his 1928 concert tour in Berlin, Bush returned to the city to study piano under [[Artur Schnabel]].<ref name= Bulliv1>Bullivant, p. 1</ref> He left the ILP in 1929, and joined the Labour Party proper,<ref name= Craggs1>Craggs, p. viii</ref> before taking extended leave from the RAM to begin a two-year course in philosophy and musicology at Berlin's [[Humboldt University of Berlin|Friedrich-Wilhelm University]].<ref name= OMO/> Here, his tutors included [[Max Dessoir]] and [[Friedrich Blume]].<ref name= Bulliv1/> Bush's years in Berlin profoundly affected his political beliefs, and had direct influence on the subsequent character of his music. Michael Jones, writing in ''British Music'' after Bush's death, records Bush's concern at the rise of fascism and antisemitism in Germany. His association with like-minded musicians such as [[Hanns Eisler]] and [[Ernst Hermann Meyer]], and writers such as [[Bertold Brecht]], helped to develop his growing political awareness into a lifelong commitment to Marxism and communism.<ref name= Jones>{{cite journal|last= Jones|first= Michael|title= Alan Bush (1900–1995) – Time Remembered|url= http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/articles/article_mjones.asp?room=Articles|journal= British Music|volume= 22|year= 2000|access-date=26 May 2017}} Article reproduced in edited form by the Alan Mush Music Trust</ref> Bush's conversion to full-blown communism was not immediate, but in 1935 he finally abandoned Labour and joined the [[Communist Party of Great Britain|British Communist Party]].<ref name= ODNB/>

Notwithstanding the uncompromising nature of his politics, Bush in his writings tended to express his views in restrained terms, "much more like a reforming patrician Whig than a proletarian revolutionary" according to [[Michael Oliver (writer, broadcaster)|Michael Oliver]] in a 1995 ''Gramophone'' article.<ref>{{cite journal|last= Oliver|first= Michael|title= Music by Alan Bush|url=https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/music-by-alan-bush|journal= Gramophone|date= April 1995|access-date= 26 May 2017}}</ref> Bush's [[Grove Music Online]] biographers also observe that in the politicisation of his music, his folk idioms have more in common with the English traditions of [[Ralph Vaughan Williams]] than with the continental radicalism of [[Kurt Weill]].<ref name= OMO>{{cite web|last= Mason|first= Colin|display-authors=etal|title= Bush, Alan (Dudley)|url= http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/04432?q=Alan+bush&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1|publisher = Grove Music Online|date= 2007–17|access-date= 26 May 2017}} {{subscription required}}</ref>