Page 154 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2026 Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes.../Composers’ Societies Past and Present...

Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes | Composers’ Societies Past and Present
Benjamin (composer and piano teacher of Britten, but no communist) was
all for the plan:
As I see it, if the formation of the “Second International Congress” is
aimed at supplanting the I.S.C.M., which in my opinion is far from,
and is drifting farther from, a true representation of this country’s mu-
sical culture, then I am all for it. I need hardly state that if I thought
that it means that the movement is to be in any way political I could
not honestly subscribe to it. But if it means that musicians of all na-
tions will be drawn together in friendships and understanding it has my
whole-hearted support. That there is a serious crisis in the world of mu-
sic is not to be doubted, and I am all for trying any method which will
surmount the crisis. 47

The First International Congress had already invoked “problems of
modern music” in the sense that had had considerable currency before the
Second World War and would continue to resonate in a variety of circles,
that is, the virtues of experimental or traditional systems of tonality. Ben-
jamin, a relative traditionalist musically, welcomed the affiliation if it bal-
anced what he perceived as the domination of the more avant-garde In-
ternational Society for Contemporary Music. However, for Benjamin and
ultimately for a majority of Guild members, involvement in politics was a
red line. Lennox Berkeley argued that joining the IAPCM would be “a most
undesirable step”, as “the manifesto circulated by the promoters of the project
is unmistakably tendentious, and raises very controversial points.” Any no-
48
tion of joining the IAPCM was roundly defeated at an emotive Extraordi-
nary General Meeting, despite the efforts of not only Bush but other com-
munist members like Christian Darnton. This loss was not Bush’s only
49
one in 1948. In March that year, the BBC wrote to MI5 requesting informa-
tion on Bush and noting that they had had to resist his endeavours to give
his broadcast talks on Yugoslavia ‘a strong political flavour’. The BBC con-
50
sequently decided, without informing Bush, to restrict his employment as a

47 Arthur Benjamin to Alan Bush, 6 July 1948, British Library Alan Bush Collection
MS Mus. 463: Miscellaneous Correspondence 1948.
48 Lennox Berkeley to ‘Miss Sands’, 2 July 1948, British Library Alan Bush Collection
MS Mus. 463.
49 William Alwyn, “Notes in Retrospect,” in Time Remembered. Alan Bush: An 80 th
Birthday Symposium, ed. Ronald Stevenson (Kidderminster: Bravura Publications,
1981), 112; Christian Darnton to Alan Bush, 7 January 1949, British Library Alan
Bush Collection MS Mus. 464: Miscellaneous Correspondence January-April 1949.
50 Miss N.E. Wadsley [BBC] to Major Badham, TNA: PRO KV2/3516.

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