YANA PETTICREW explains what’s behind the strike and how the entire sector rests on super-exploiting an unorganised workforce
Holst: the socialist composer and his (accidental) patriotic smash hit
MAT COWARD unearths Gustav Holst’s radical roots, from meetings at William Morris’s house to pamphlet-printing and agitation with the Red Vicar of Thaxted — and laments that he is remembered today for the entirely wrong reason
MILITARIST ANTHEM:
I Vow to Thee, My Country is performed at the commissioning ceremony for the Royal Navy warship HMS Queen Elizabeth
BILL KIDD MSP says increasing Britain’s nuclear arsenal at this time is dangerous and expensive folly
ROGER McKENZIE asks whether the US’s shift to targeting everyone at once will instil greater co-operation among rising powers
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the government’s proposals to further limit the right of citizens to trial by jury
As we mark the anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, JOHN WIGHT reflects on the enormity of the US decision to drop the atom bombs
DIANE ABBOTT explodes the anti-migrant myths perpetrated by cynical politicians and an irresponsible mass media
LEADER of the Can’t Sing Choir, pioneer of musical education for women, close collaborator with the notorious Red Vicar of Thaxted, involuntary composer of I Vow to Thee, My Country, and composer of Britain’s most recorded piece of music ever, Gustavus von Holst was born in Cheltenham on September 21, into a family of musicians and music teachers.
In his teens, he was employed as an organist and choirmaster. Physical frailties forced him to abandon the piano and take up the trombone instead. Earnings from that financed his studies in composition.
Except for one or two brief sabbaticals, paid for by wealthy patrons, Holst never worked as a full-time composer. To the very end of his life, he taught music at private schools, and for much of it, he was variously a trombonist in orchestras and theatres, college lecturer, church organist and choir leader.
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