Brian’s writings on the website

This page lists the articles on this website by Havergal Brian.

With the exception of a few pieces, all the writing derives from Brian’s period as editor of Musical opinion. He wrote both editorial and more informal and opinionated material, the latter under the pseudonym La main gauche in his column ‘On the other hand’.

Shortcuts: • Music • Musicians • Composers • Performance • Programming • Criticism • Miscellaneous

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Music

• Popular ballads (January 1932)
• Kaikhosru Sorabji »Opus clavicembalisticum« (June 1932)
• On popularity (and Elgar, Reger, Harty, …) (October 1932)
• Berg’s »Wozzeck« in concert (May 1934)
• Some ado about nothing – HB’s reviews of a contentious book on Beethoven and Shakespeare (November 1934)
• Some ado about nothing – HB’s comments on Schering’s contentious book on Beethoven and Shakespeare (November 1934)
• The »Londonderry air« (February 1935)
• »Atalanta« in America – Bantock’s Atalanta in Calydon under Goossens (March 1935)
• The Schütz passion music (March 1935)
• The spirit of England – in music (April 1935)
• What is melody? – and happy 83rd birthday to Frederick Cowen (June 1935)
• What is truth? – Kreisler and Parry: imitation and parody (June 1935)
• The transit of opera – opera as a form (May 1936)
• Is music national? (March 1937)
• Mozart on the piano (March 1937)
• What is dance music? – music for ballet (March 1937)
• The glory of English music – review of Basil Maine’s book of the same name (July 1937)
• Folksongs (July 1938)
• The nature of modern music – prompted by the 1938 ISCM Festival (July 1938)
• »Abide with me« (March 1939)
• The composer’s reward – British music (March 1939)
• Alexander Brent Smith’s »Elegy« (June 1939)

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Musicians

• Protecting British musicians’ jobs (February 1932)
• The Brighton Municipal Orchestra (April 1932)
• A British musical league (July 1932)
• A British musical league (August 1932)
• Harry Barlow (August 1932)
• George Henschel (April 1934)
• Arthur Fagge remembers (October 1934)
• Toscanini (November 1934)
• The modern puritan – Furtwängler (January 1935)
• Toscanini and Debussy (February 1935)
• Felix Goodwin – editor and reviewer (March 1935)
• Ebenezer Prout – composer and writer (April 1935)
• The Fleet Street Choir (December 1935)
• Frederick Lamond (January 1936)
• Hallé the pianist (March 1936)
• John Barbirolli (May 1936)
• Orchestras – Bath and municipal orchestras generally (July 1936)
• Sir Henry Wood’s Jubilee (September 1938)
• The McCormack farewell (January 1939)
• Willy Hess – one time leader of the Hallé orchestra (April 1939)

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Composers

• Frederic H Cowen
• The English musical renaissance (May 1932)
• Remarks on Haydn (May 1932)
• Alfred Bruneau – memento mori (July 1932)
• Fritz Cortolezis – memento mori (July 1932)
• Ernest Bloch (March 1934)
• Contemporay Italian composers – Respighi and Pizetti (March 1934)
• Bach and Handel – review of Parry’s Bach: the story of the development of a great personality (April 1934)
• Walford Davies (May 1934)
• Gustav Holst – memento mori (June 1934)
• Constant Lambert (and Hindemith) (June 1934)
• Sergei Rachmaninov (June 1934)
• Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (September 1934)
• 64th Festival of German composers (September 1934)
• Heseltine and Delius (January 1935)
• Vaughan Williams (January 1935)
• The man Liszt – on Ernest Newman’s book of the same name (February 1935)
• Conversations of a cellist-composer – John Foulds (March 1935)
• Fifty years after – Stanford and the vicissitudes of popularity (May 1935)
• Wagner in brief (December 1935)
• Wagner (June 1936)
• Gluck: a master musician (October 1936)
• C17 Italians – on a revised version of Parry’s Music of the seventeenth century (June 1938)
• Truth in romance – HB reviews a biographical novel about Tchaikovsky (August 1938)
• Holbrooke the pioneer! (February 1939)
• The Delius memorial (May 1939)
• On Bantock – substantial article (1949)

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Performance

• On the wireless - Busoni – Busoni, and more (March 1932)
• On the wireless - operas – Tristan, Boris and more (April 1932)
• Performing Sibelius (July 1932)
• Reviews – BBC concerts (March 1934)
• Reviews – Russian music (March 1934)
• Reviews – BBC symphony concerts (April 1934)
• Student performances of Beethoven, Delius and Wolf (August 1934)
• Royal Academy of Music Students’ Orchestra – reviews (January 1935)
• Objectivity versus subjectivity – in performance and interpretation (June 1935)
• Antonio Janigro – review (February 1937)
• Haigh Marshall String Orchestra – review (February 1937)
• Royal Academy of Music Students’ Orchestra – reviews (February 1937)
• Royal Academy of Music Students’ Orchestra – reviews (April 1937)
• The school orchestra – eighth annual achool orchestra festival (June 1937)
• Old wine in new bottles – choice of piano, particularly in Chopin and JS Bach (July 1937)
• The interpreter – the effects of different conductors’ interpretations (February 1939)

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Programming

• English music in Germany (January 1932)
• Performing music – choice of work, referring to Elgar (July 1932)
• The cause of native music – in Germany (August 1933)
• The Promenade Concerts (August 1933)
• Proms 34 (August 1934)
• The great hoax (October 1934)
• A ‘come-back’ causerie – revivals of interest in composers (May 1935)
• The lost opportunity – recollections of the 1911 London Music Festival (June 1935)
• The tides of opinion (July 1935)
• Music at the Crystal Palace (October 1935)
• Fading fame (December 1935)
• Bach and others in America (January 1936)
• Novelties at the Proms [1936] (September 1936)
• The Toscanini programmes (July 1937)
• John Connell’s Johannesburg Festival (June 1938)
• The orchestral season – (1938/39) (October 1938)
• Un cercle français – promotion of French music (November 1938)
• Chamber music in America – particularly Mrs Coolidge (January 1939)

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Criticism

• Observations on G B Shaw as a music critic (July 1932)
• Literature and music (October 1934)
• Grove’s dictionary (October 1935)
• Bennett the journalist (March 1936)
• A critic’s ‘remains’ – AH Fox Strangways (February 1937)

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Miscellaneous

• Havergal Brian’s own… ?
• Memento mori: Mrs Samuel Courtauld – concert sponsor and promoter (February 1932)
• The Mendelssohn scholarship (April 1932)
• Broadcasting House (June 1932)
• Suppression of music (May 1934)
• The huge machine – the BBC (October 1934)
• Art rewards and values (November 1934)
• Fundamental principles (July 1935)
• Politics of music (November 1935)
• Experiments in reception – the radio, that is (January 1936)
• Genius in the making! – when will America produce a Beethoven? (February 1936)
• Beliefs and deceits (July 1936)
• When and what is new (July 1936)
• Wanted: a national organisation – … ‘of all those vitally interested in music’ (October 1936)
• Blake’s »Jerusalem« (November 1936)
• The music teachers – and the Incorporated Society of Musicians (February 1937)
• The drummer-boy’s luck – relative remuneration of musicians (March 1937)
• Music everywhere – the municipal provision of music (April 1937)
• The new learning – review of Edward Bairstow’s Counterpoint and harmony (July 1937)
• German musical education (August 1937)
• A Handel museum (August 1937)
• The cultured minority – and the avoidance of the unknown (September 1938)
• Music in the making – methods of composition (November 1938)
• Hindemith’s original teaching methods (June 1939)