From my monthly essay in The Critic:
A rustling in the record schedules warns me that 2026 will be the Year of Havergal Brian. Never heard of him? Don’t panic. He’s an English composer of 32 symphonies that, some proclaim, will bring audiences storming back into concert halls.
These believers are not isolated. The classical music community is fringed with faith groups who bang the drum for obscure composers. In Britain alone, there are societies promoting Bax, Bantock, Berkeley, Bliss, Boughton and Butterworth and that’s just the ones beginning with “B”.
I was once pinned for two hours to a business-class seat by a man preaching that Georg Philipp Telemann was a great composer, superior to Bach and Handel….
Read on here.
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