Food for the Soul
In the recent BBC Music Magazine (yes I get it) the cover CD contains performances of works premiered at the Proms. One of them is "Epic March" by John Ireland which was first heard at the 1942 Proms. It was the first year in the Royal Albert Hall after the Luftwaffe bombed Queens Hall.
It then struck me how a work could not only be composed during those years, but how anyone could have the fortitude to mount a music festival in the middle of a war which saw the destruction of so much of the city.
So when anyone comments that the arts as being elite and a luxury, I will point them in the direction of 1942 and tell them they have nothing to complain about. Britons in the Second Wold War saw music not as a luxury, but is a necessity. It is food for the soul and it is how a cultural will be judged.
And then I'll shut them down.
It then struck me how a work could not only be composed during those years, but how anyone could have the fortitude to mount a music festival in the middle of a war which saw the destruction of so much of the city.
So when anyone comments that the arts as being elite and a luxury, I will point them in the direction of 1942 and tell them they have nothing to complain about. Britons in the Second Wold War saw music not as a luxury, but is a necessity. It is food for the soul and it is how a cultural will be judged.
And then I'll shut them down.
posted by Rich Russell at
11:44 PM
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