Bush, Alan

[Sydney Grew]

Alan Bush was born in London in the year 1900, and studied music at the RAM. In 1921 he met Ireland and in the following year began to study composition with him privately. He also studied philosophy and musicology at the University of Berlin.

He left us four symphonies:
no. 1 in C, opus 21, 1940;
no. 2 ‘Nottingham’, opus 33, 1949;
no. 3 ‘Byron’, opus 53, including parts for baritone and chorus, 1960;
and no. 4 ‘Lascaux’, opus 98, 1983.

There is a piano Concerto, 1937,
and a Violin Concerto, opus 32, 1948;

Also noteworthy are a String Quartet in A minor, opus 4, 1923;
a piano quartet, opus 5, 1924;
Dialectic opus 15, for string quartet, 1929;
amd a great deal more.

[Bryn]

Bush's Variations , Nocturne and Finale On An Old English Song is also worth seeking out. It was coupled with the Delius Double Concerto on what was effectively something of a vanity project of Gerald Warburg's.

[silvestrione]

Bush's Variations , Nocturne and Finale On An Old English Song is also worth seeking out. It was coupled with the Delius Double Concerto on what was effectively something of a vanity project of Gerald Warburg's.

Yes, I enjoyed that. Also I had a soft spot for the 'Nottingham' Symphony, which I had an off-air tape of once.

[Serial_Apologist]

For many on the left who probably feel Bush's devotion to the Soviet Union, and nationalism by association, to have been naive at best, he was surely sincere in his convictions. For me A Winter Journey, in which the background to the Nativity story is given a socialist interpretation, is especially touching. My favourite however has to be Voices of the Prophets (1953), settings at once moving and powerfully uplifting of Isiah, Milton, Blake,and the West Indian poet Peter Blackman, which I find myself returning to frequently these days.

The link is to a different performance from the one I have of Peter Pears, particularly on form, backed by the composer - part of the lovely A Treasury of English Song (Decca Eloquence) I was lucky to pick up a few years ago before the shop closed down. Apologies if I've already drawn attention to this previously.

http://www.allmusic.com/performance/voices-of-the-prophets-cantata-for-tenor-piano-op.41-mq0000102677

[ahinton]

For many on the left who probably feel Bush's devotion to the Soviet Union, and nationalism by association, to have been naive at best, he was surely sincere in his convictions. For me A Winter Journey, in which the background to the Nativity story is given a socialist interpretation, is especially touching. My favourite however has to be Voices of the Prophets (1953), settings at once moving and powerfully uplifting of Isiah, Milton, Blake,and the West Indian poet Peter Blackman, which I find myself returning to frequently these days.

The link is to a different performance from the one I have of Peter Pears, particularly on form, backed by the composer - part of the lovely A Treasury of English Song (Decca Eloquence) I was lucky to pick up a few years ago before the shop closed down. Apologies if I've already drawn attention to this previously.

http://www.allmusic.com/performance/...1-mq0000102677

Bush's Communist beliefs were certainly sincerely held but have arguably done him and his work few favours during and after his lifetime, which is a great pity indeed. He and his friend Tippett shared socialist thoughts in the early days but Tippett never espoused Communism in the ways in which Bush did. Bernard Stevens did likewise but it sesems that there was some falling out between the two over this, largely on account of Bush's lack of sympathy towards the younger composer's seemingly less "fundamentalist" approach.

There are major pieces in Bush's output that deserve more attention that they usually receive, the splendid Voices of the Prophets undoubtedly being one of them; its piano part requires a seriously gifted pianist to bring off well and Bush himself was no slouch in this regard. The early quartet Dialectic is an important milestone and the Piano Concerto, an ambitious four-movement work of almost an hour that includes a make chorus in its finale (like the Busoni Concerto) whose première in the late 1930s was conducted by Boult with Bush himself as soloist (Randall Swingler's text that Bush set in it reads to me like an embarrassing piece of schoolboyish doggerel but Bush's music sustains its power to the movement's end in spite of it). The first and third of his four symphonies certainly need to find their ways onto concert programmes far more frequently, but the most scandalously neglected areas of his output are his four operas, all very much in tune with his political sympathies; I was surprised and fascinated in the latter 1970s to receive a fulsomely enthusiastic telephone call from Kaikhosru Sorabji, whose seemed to be light years away from Bush politically, praising the last of these - Joe Hill: The Man who dever Died - to the heavens and beyond and urging me to get to listen to it as soon as possible. Sorabji and Bush had become friends in the late 1930s following the elder composer's warm published review of the younger one's piano concerto, of which Sorabji gave me a facsimile of its full score in the 1970s urging me to learn it (did he think that I was a pianist?!); their friendship lasted almost half a century and ended with Sorabji's death in 1988.

I gained a place to study with Bush at RAM but was unable to take this up and I ended up attending RCM a couple of years later to study with Searle.

[Bryn]

Bush's Communist beliefs were certainly sincerely held but have arguably done him and his work few favours during and after his lifetime, which is a great pity indeed. He and his friend Tippett shared socialist thoughts in the early days but Tippett never espoused Communism in the ways in which Bush did. Bernard Stevens did likewise but it sesems that there was some falling out between the two over this, largely on account of Bush's lack of sympathy towards the younger composer's seemingly less "fundamentalist" approach.

There are major pieces in Bush's output that deserve more attention that they usually receive, the splendid Voices of the Prophets undoubtedly being one of them; its piano part requires a seriously gifted pianist to bring off well and Bush himself was no slouch in this regard. The early quartet Dialectic is an important milestone and the Piano Concerto, an ambitious four-movement work of almost an hour that includes a make chorus in its finale (like the Busoni Concerto) whose première in the late 1930s was conducted by Boult with Bush himself as soloist (Randall Swingler's text that Bush set in it reads to me like an embarrassing piece of schoolboyish doggerel but Bush's music sustains its power to the movement's end in spite of it). The first and third of his four symphonies certainly need to find their ways onto concert programmes far more frequently, but the most scandalously neglected areas of his output are his four operas, all very much in tune with his political sympathies; I was surprised and fascinated in the latter 1970s to receive a fulsomely enthusiastic telephone call from Kaikhosru Sorabji, whose seemed to be light years away from Bush politically, praising the last of these - Joe Hill: The Man who dever Died - to the heavens and beyond and urging me to get to listen to it as soon as possible. Sorabji and Bush had become friends in the late 1930s following the elder composer's warm published review of the younger one's piano concerto, of which Sorabji gave me a facsimile of its full score in the 1970s urging me to learn it (did he think that I was a pianist?!); their friendship lasted almost half a century and ended with Sorabji's death in 1988.

I gained a place to study with Bush at RAM but was unable to take this up and I ended up attending RCM a couple of years later to study with Searle.

.
The Piano Concerto received a very fine broadcast performance from Rolf Hind, the BBCSO, Slatkin and co. It has been uploaded to Youtube, though the broadcast had better audio quality:

[ahinton]

.
The Piano Concerto received a very fine broadcast performance from Rolf Hind, the BBCSO, Slatkin and co. It has been uploaded to Youtube, though the broadcast had better audio quality:

Yes, I remember the broadcast; what for me remains Tippett's finest symphony, the second, was the other work in the programme, though its performance sseemed rather less successful (perhaps more rehearsal time was devoted to the Bush).

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, I remember the broadcast; what for me remains Tippett's finest symphony, the second, was the other work in the programme, though its performance sseemed rather less successful (perhaps more rehearsal time was devoted to the Bush).

I love the story of Boult's conducting the premiere of the Piano Concerto, and to quell the wild applause ordering the immediate performance of the National Anthem!

[Serial_Apologist]

Tons of useful info on Alan Bush on this dedicated site, with recorded excerpts linked, including two movements from Voices of the Prophets, and a big essay on the opera Joe Hill in the second link below.

http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/music/recordings.asp

http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/music/operas/jhill.asp

The symphonies are available on youtube.

[Bryn]

What a pity nobody has uploaded to Youtube a recording of one of the BBC broadcasts of Joe Hill. I recorded the initial broadcast to reel-to-reel but the tape went in a house fire in the 1980s.

[ahinton]

I love the story of Boult's conducting the premiere of the Piano Concerto, and to quell the wild applause ordering the immediate performance of the National Anthem!

Indeed! Why on earth did he agree to conduct the work if that was his attitude after having done so?!

[ahinton]

What a pity nobody has uploaded to Youtube a recording of one of the BBC broadcasts of Joe Hill. I recorded the initial broadcast to reel-to-reel but the tape went in a house fire in the 1980s.

I hope that one such will surface eventually; I believe it to be one of his finest works. There can be no reasonable excuse for overlooking this or indeed his previous three stage works.

[Serial_Apologist]

Indeed! Why on earth did he agree to conduct the work if that was his attitude after having done so?!

He probably wasn't expecting the enthusiastic reception!

[ahinton]

He probably wasn't expecting the enthusiastic reception!

Even so, dealing with it as legend has it that he did does still raise the question as to why he'd agreed to conduct the première of a substantial work that he'd prefer would not risk generating enthusiastic applause! - and in so suppressing such applause at least some of which must have been for the soloist he surely did himself still less favours?!...

[edashtav]

What a pity nobody has uploaded to Youtube a recording of one of the BBC broadcasts of Joe Hill. I recorded the initial broadcast to reel-to-reel but the tape went in a house fire in the 1980s.

My feeble memory suggests that I recorded the same Joe Hill performance on a Dolby cassette deck. Unfortunately, I suspect I used Sony’s Dolby C noise reduction. I desperately need a replacement tape deck but quality ones are as rare as hen’s teeth and Dolby C technology is even rarer. Perhaps, I should search my vast Cassette library in case someone wants to accept the challenge of rescuing this historic performance.