The term English Musical Renaissance refers to a musical movement in the late 19th and early 20th century, when British composers, often those lecturing or trained at the Royal College of Music, were said to have freed themselves from foreign musical influences, to have begun writing in a distinctively national idiom, and to have equaled the achievement of composers in mainland Europe. The idea gained considerable currency at the time, with support from prominent music critics, but since the latter part of the 20th century the validity of these claims been challenged by some scholars.
The term was (and is) sometimes also used to encompass the expansion of the culture of classical music which took place in Britain in this era, including the burgeoning choral societies, the establishment of new professional orchestras, and the introduction of music education into the school system.
Among the composers championed by proponents of the theory were Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford and Alexander Mackenzie. Writers who propounded the theory included Francis Hueffer and J A Fuller Maitland.
Read more about English Musical Renaissance: Conception, Dissention, Notes and References
Famous quotes containing the words english, musical and/or renaissance:
“An English family consists of a few persons, who, from youth to age, are found revolving within a few feet of each other, as if tied by some invisible ligature, tense as that cartilage which we have seen attaching the two Siamese.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A pregnant woman and her spouse dream of three babies—the perfect four-month-old who rewards them with smiles and musical cooing, the impaired baby, who changes each day, and the mysterious real baby whose presence is beginning to be evident in the motions of the fetus.”
—T. Berry Brazelton (20th century)
“People nowadays like to be together not in the old-fashioned way of, say, mingling on the piazza of an Italian Renaissance city, but, instead, huddled together in traffic jams, bus queues, on escalators and so on. It’s a new kind of togetherness which may seem totally alien, but it’s the togetherness of modern technology.”
—J.G. (James Graham)