U.S. concertgoers tend to believe that, after Purcell, there are really only two major English composers: Edward Elgar and Benjamin Britten. And most are at least aware of two other remarkable composers, Arthur Sullivan and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
But very few people, in England or America, are aware that World War I marked the beginning of a new explosion of creative energy in England, one that saw exciting modern composers pour into England's concert halls.
The American Symphony Orchestra's program "This England" will showcase the work of four of these unjustly neglected composers: Arthur Bliss, Frank Bridge, Robert Simpson and William Walton at Carnegie Hall on Friday, January 31 at 8:00 p.m.
The reasons for this neglect stem from a perception in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that, despite England's power and reputation, it wasn't actually very good at producing interesting music. Modernist composer Elizabeth Lutyens summed up this attitude when she famously dismissed English music as "cowpat music."
The ASO invites you, then, to discover just how wrong she was.
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