by David Wemyss (October 2011)

At a dinner party recently, it was suggested to me that classical music was supposedly elitist but largely populated by composers on the left. The consequent conversation was edifying, and I thought I would share its main themes with readers of the New English Review. For stylistic reasons, I have resisted the temptation to present this article as a semi-fictionalised dialogue and have opted instead for a fairly conventional essay form, concentrating on the four composers named above. They were the ones we kept coming back to as the evening progressed. In vino veritas!  more>>>