English Musical Renaissance - Dissention

Dissention

Bernard Shaw in his capacity as a music critic mocked the notion of an English musical renaissance led by Parry, Stanford and Mackenzie, describing their works as "sham classics" and characterising them as a "mutual admiration society":

ho am I that I should be believed, to the disparagement of eminent musicians? If you doubt that Eden is a masterpiece, ask Dr Parry and Dr Mackenzie, and they will applaud it to the skies. Surely Dr Mackenzie’s opinion is conclusive; for is he not the composer of Veni Creator, guaranteed as excellent music by Professor Stanford and Dr Parry? You want to know who Parry is? Why, the composer of Blest Pair of Sirens, as to the merits of which you only have to consult Dr Mackenzie and Professor Stanford.

The musicologist Colin Eatock writes that the term "English musical renaissance" carries "the implicit proposition that British music had raised itself to a stature equal to the best the continent had to offer"; among the continental composers of the period were Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Fauré, Mahler and Puccini. That idea was controversial at the time and later, though it retained its adherents well into the 20th century. Eatock notes that as late as 1966, Frank Howes, successor to Hueffer and Fuller Maitland at The Times, stated that the English musical renaissance was "a historical fact".

In 1993, Robert Stradling and Meirion Hughes argued that the proponents of the movement were "a self-appointed and self-perpetuating oligarchy" based at the Royal College of Music in London. Grove, Parry, and Vaughan Williams were "the dynastical figureheads of the renaissance establishment." Stradling and Hughes contended that this élite was single-minded to the point of ruthlessness in promoting its conception of British music, sidelining all native composers who did not conform to its aesthetic views. The composer Thomas Dunhill wrote that when he was a student at the Royal College under Parry "it was considered scarcely decent to mention Sullivan's name with approval in the building". Elgar, about whom Fuller Maitland wrote tepidly, was hailed by Richard Strauss as "the first progressive English musician."

The contention of Fuller Maitland and others that the "English musical renaissance" had brought British music into the world class is in contrast to the title of a 1914 book by the German writer Oscar Schmidt: Das Land ohne Musik: englische Gesellschaftsprobleme – "The Land without Music: problems of English society".