Whenever one takes down an old volume of a musical journal, or browses through the musical columns of old newspapers, serendipity immediately takes over and before one quite knows what has happened one has accumulated such a quantity of forgotten but fascinating material that one is in danger of being swamped by it all. Speaking personally, I always find this activity most rewarding when considering the period from the death of Queen Victoria to the outbreak of the Great War, a golden age of voluminous commentary, and a time of great growth and achievement in the musical field. The only way to control a mass of such otherwise ephemeral material is to collect it into volumes and index it, for even with considerable time spent in a library such as the British Library’s newspaper collection at Colindale, it is to all intents and purposes lost.

Collections of musical journalism have of course appeared many times before, and can be categorised by writer, by subject, or in the case of the most useful of all such compilations, The Mirror of Music [1], by journal (in the latter case writings that had appeared previously in The musical times). Malcolm MacDonald has encompassed two of these approaches in his investigation of the musical journalism of Havergal Brian: by author and then by subject — and in his first volume the theme is British music.

Before going on to consider the value of Brian’s commentary we should perhaps briefly take note of his stature as a writer, the demonstration of which is not the least of the achievements of this remarkable book. Havergal Brian has long been forgotten as a writer of vivid style and permanent value, even by his friends who were, perhaps, preoccupied with their first priority of trying to obtain a hearing for his music. Yet we have long known that Brian freelanced as a journalist to earn his living at different times of his life, but apart from Paul Rapoport’s consideration of the matter in his thesis on The Gothic [2], it has escaped the attention of commentators.

Brian is revealed as a writer of vast experience, who appears to have been present on a great many celebrated occasions, plus (perhaps of even more value) a great many others which would now be completely forgotten without his vivid pen. Brian always makes an occasion personal; he usually can add that fascinating comment only known to the insider, or that apt comparison with some previous similar event. The sequence in which this book has been arranged contributes much to its readability, and a first sitting with it repays reading straight through.

Its 102 essays range from the general, through sections devoted to Elgar, Delius and Bantock (which make the book a must for admirers of any of them), to discussions of particular events including, for example, the Birmingham Triennial Festival of 1906 (halfway through Stanford’s conductorship), to the BBC’s celebrated 1934 series of six concerts. Other composers discussed include 15 of Brian’s contemporaries (they are not always the most obvious ones, including Albert Coates, Dyson, Foulds and Sorabji), six of the older generation and seven of the younger. The range of the latter can be demonstrated by noting the piece on the (then) young Arnold Cooke, whose short cantata Holderneth, Brian found ‘unusually attractive’.

What Brian wrote is of the widest interest and deserves this handsome volume for its permanent presentation to most readers. It is made doubly valuable both by Malcolm MacDonald’s sympathetic presentation and for his scholarly footnotes. However, in the last analysis, for reference use we are particularly indebted for the splendid 24 page index compiled by John Grimshaw. This is of the greatest importance, and for anyone researching the period this book immediately becomes one of the first places to be checked. Brian enthusiasts will need no further bidding — this is a really substantial and worthwhile compilation, which incidentally throws a lot of light on Brian the man and the composer.

However, this book is of far wider interest, and when the projected multi-volume collection of articles by Brian is completed it will be nothing short of a major key to research in the music of the period. Certainly all those libraries who bought George Bernard Shaw’s collected writings on music and added them to their reference shelves should place a standing order for this too, for it is a lot more reliable than the Shaw as to opinion and evaluation of the music considered, and almost as amusing for its style. Brian’s sympathies are so much broader: not for him the destructive criticism.

This is one of the most important and lasting of the Brian Society’s initiatives: do please support it. No one interested in British music will wish to be without it, and you will certainly not regret having it on your shelves.