Gentlemen v. players : alienation and the esoteric in English music 1900-1939

Abstract

The English Musical Renaissance flourished at the beginning of the twentieth century because it satisfied an urgent political and cultural need for a National Music. Its influential composers and their circle (the 'Gentlemen') quietly ostracised the few musicians who did not subscribe to their ethos, especially those (the 'Players') whose esoteric beliefs and cosmopolitan musical style alienated them from the Renaissance mainstream. Warlock and Holst, as closet Players, were circumspect in their absorption in Western hermeticism or Hindu philosophy respectively and were therefore accepted, but the overt occult publicists, Cyril Scott and John Foulds, were deliberately ignored despite their enormous, but temporary, popularity with the public.

The originality and quality of much of the Players' music makes their subsequent relegation puzzling, therefore there must be hidden reasons for their neglect. Nature-mysticism and Christian agnosticism, central beliefs of the Gentlemen, were threatened by the Players' brand of esoteric and occult mysticism. The Players' cosmopolitan awareness and occasional use of the popular Oriental style threatened the establishment of a definitive English musical style. Though there were some similarities in musical vocabulary in both teams' attempts to express mysticism in music, the Players also shared a recognizable style which differed in source and expression from that of the Gentlemen.

The BBC Archives at Caversham proved invaluable in tracing the gradual fading of the Players' music from the scene due to the BBC's musical policy. The Gentlemanly music selectors' verdicts when rejecting Scott, suppressing Fould's World Requiem and condemning Holst's later works ensured neglect, and this attitude was reflected in the descent from initial enthusiasm to hostility in the contemporary musical press.

Despite the Players' apparent irrelevance to the musical needs of the first part of the twentieth century, their works should be reconsidered as an aspect of the more recent embracing of other cultures than that of the West. Maybe the more varied picture which would have resulted from a combination of Players with Gentlemen might have ensured the musical recognition in Europe that was unsuccessfully sought by the English Renaissance.

More information

Identifiers

Catalogue record

Export record

ASCII CitationAtomBibTeXData Cite XMLDublin CoreDublin CoreEP3 XMLEndNoteHTML CitationHTML CitationHTML ListJSONMETSMODSMPEG-21 DIDLOpenURL ContextObjectOpenURL ContextObject in SpanRDF+N-TriplesRDF+N3RDF+XMLRIOXX2 XMLReferReference ManagerSimple Metadata