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<\/figure><\/div>\n\nJerusalem \u2013 Blake, Parry and the Fight for Englishness <\/span><\/strong> When my schoolmates and I belted out \u2018Jerusalem\u2019 in the 1950s, we knew instinctively what it purveyed: a simple socialist message. But as Jason Whittaker makes clear, William Blake\u2019s lapidary lines initially caused great exegetic confusion. Whittaker\u2019s subtitle, \u2018Blake, Parry and the Fight for Englishness\u2019, indicates the three main elements in this brilliant book, which is both the tangled history of a song, and an up-to-the-minute essay on social history, with \u2018Jerusalem\u2019 reflecting many contrary kinds of Englishness. <\/p>\n\n Through the prism of \u2018Jerusalem\u2019 \u2013 long a contender to be our national anthem \u2013 we view the politics of the Great War and the \u201920s, with Hubert Parry\u2019s Blake espoused first by the army and then by the suffragette movement. Throughout much of the 20th century it was owned by the Women\u2019s Institute and the Proms, with Elgar\u2019s bombastic arrangement setting the seal on it as an expression of quintessential conservatism. <\/p>\n\n But this book is fascinating on what people have done with it over the past 30 years, with hardleft playwrights and filmmakers balanced by Brexiteers and the far right. Blake the revolutionary was never more relevant. Michael Church <\/em><\/p>\n\n \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n Malcolm Arnold \u2013 The Inside Story Even your best friend can get bored if you keep banging on about your medical problems, and readers may feel in a similar position with Malcolm Arnold: The Inside Story. <\/em>The outside story of this singularly gifted but troubled British composer, relayed in an earlier book by Meredith, is gruelling enough. But the amount of new detail about his mental breakdowns, drunken sprees, hospitalisations and decades of living under the control of his over-reaching carer, the late Anthony Day, stretches beyond the pale. <\/p>\n\n For the first hundred pages, the music Arnold actually composed is kept in counterpoint with the chronicle of personal difficulties. But for the 420 others, toxic relationships and calamities dominate, reaching a nadir in the lengthy transcriptions of Day\u2019s vituperative answerphone messages to Arnold\u2019s long-suffering daughter Katherine, the book\u2019s instigator and dedicatee. <\/p>\n\n Meredith\u2019s journalistic tenacity should be acknowledged, but when the result takes us so far away from Arnold\u2019s music (the only element in a composer\u2019s life that should really matter for posterity), the number of people who might profit from reading this monster volume is likely to be small. Geoff Brown<\/em><\/p>\n\n \u2605\u2605<\/p>\n\n The Silver Chain This emotive Young Adult verse novel explores the power of music to heal, transform and build resilience. Told through free-flowing poetry, the story charts the struggles of 16-year-old Azadeh, a talented violinist with a music scholarship to an elite private school. Alongside the usual teenage travails of heartache and friendship groups, Azadeh must also navigate her mother\u2019s severe mental health problems and the distance she feels from her Iranian heritage: \u2018Farsi is a song I know so well in my head \/ but cannot sing\u2019. Throughout these various struggles it is the violin that proves Azadeh\u2019s safety net, the one thing that offers a \u2018tiny light\u2026 in all this darkness\u2019. <\/p>\n\n Sheibani writes with confidence and integrity, and her descriptions of classical music ring with knowledge and experience. While mostly written in free verse, the book draws imaginatively on other poetic forms \u2013 from acrostics to shape poems \u2013 and also includes an especially beautiful ghazal, <\/em>originally an Arabic form that uses hypnotic repetition to explore themes of loss and love. This is a sensitive and engaging book that offers a moving celebration of music\u2019s capacity to bring solace in times of darkness. Kate Wakeling <\/em><\/p>\n\n \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n\n Vaughan Williams \u2013 Master Musicians Series We\u2019ve waited too long for a truly authoritative new Vaughan Williams biography from a leading scholar. Here it is, from the professor of music history at Drake University in Iowa. The sole regret is that Saylor\u2019s clearly exhaustive research couldn\u2019t have been expended on a volume of greater length than the \u2018Master Musicians\u2019 brand can allow. That\u2019s life, but one deceptively small example makes the point: Saylor can mention only in passing the possibility that VW\u2019s \u2018London\u2019 Symphony could have had HG Wells\u2019s novel Tono-Bungay <\/em>as a prime (rather than partial) inspiration \u2013 an eminently arguable and seriously perception-changing proposition. Whatever, Saylor masterfully embraces the constraints of the \u2018Master Musicians\u2019 brief (including the necessity of separating out biography and music) without his highly readable prose ever seeming rushed. New material is expertly woven into familiar narratives \u2013 for example, revealing information on the earliest works is integrated into a convincing account of an uncertain young composer finding his feet. Vaughan Williams enthusiasts of all hues will want this; but prepare to be rendered breathless at the great man\u2019s astonishing energy. Andrew Green <\/em><\/p>\n\n \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n\n Books Our critics cast their eyes over this month\u2019s selection of books on classical music Jerusalem \u2013 Blake, Parry and the Fight for Englishness Jason Whittaker Oxford University Press 256pp (hb) \u00a325 When my schoolmates and I belted out \u2018Jerusalem\u2019 in the 1950s, we knew instinctively what it purveyed: a simple socialist message. But as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":20240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"110","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"110","purple_seq_number":"1","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"1","purple_source_article":"article_110-1.xml","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"article_110-1.xml","purple_source_issue":"November-2022","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"November-2022","purple_external_id":"November-2022-110-1","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"November-2022-110-1","purple_issue_code":"|0000086188||","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000086188||","purple_android_product":"com.im.bbcmusic.380","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.bbcmusic.380","purple_ios_product":"com.im.bbcmusic.380","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.bbcmusic.380","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"5b9287a1-9911-4f59-a9d7-30a805560f3d","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2022-10-06T09:47:17Z","apple_news_article-theme":"","apple_news_api_id":"ec93abbc-e027-41fb-a316-ff46b7fae0af","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2022-10-06T09:47:17Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A7JOrvOAnQfujFv9Gt_rgrw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":true,"apple_news_is_preview":true,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_article_theme":"","apple_news_sections":"[]"},"categories":[19],"tags":[13],"apple_news_notices":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/GettyImages613499896_cmyk-e1664553281797.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"5","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/GettyImages613499896_cmyk-e1664553281797.jpg",2000,1340,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/GettyImages613499896_cmyk-e1664553281797-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/GettyImages613499896_cmyk-e1664553281797-300x201.jpg",300,201,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/GettyImages613499896_cmyk-e1664553281797-768x515.jpg",768,515,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/GettyImages613499896_cmyk-e1664553281797-1024x686.jpg",800,536,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/GettyImages613499896_cmyk-e1664553281797-1536x1029.jpg",1536,1029,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/GettyImages613499896_cmyk-e1664553281797.jpg",2000,1340,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Books Our critics cast their eyes over this month\u2019s selection of books on classical music Jerusalem \u2013 Blake, Parry and the Fight for Englishness Jason Whittaker Oxford University Press 256pp (hb) \u00a325 When my schoolmates and I belted out \u2018Jerusalem\u2019 in the 1950s, we knew instinctively what it purveyed: a simple socialist message. But as…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19836"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19836"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20355,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19836\/revisions\/20355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Jason Whittaker <\/strong>
Oxford University Press 256pp (hb) \u00a325 <\/em><\/p>\n\n
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<\/span>Anthony Meredith <\/strong>
Book Guild 528pp (hb) \u00a319.95 <\/em><\/p>\n\n
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<\/span>Jion Sheibani <\/strong>
Hot Key Books 341pp (hb) \u00a312.99 <\/em><\/p>\n\n
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<\/span>Eric Saylor <\/strong>
Oxford University Press 336pp (hb) \u00a322.99 <\/em><\/p>\n\n