ANDREW MURRAY breaks down this week’s rift in the new left party that was at one point polling at 15 per cent of the vote without even having formed — whether it will form now has been thrown into a pit of doubt
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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
DIANE ABBOTT MP argues we shouldn’t see last week’s march as an inarticulate outpouring of confused class consciousness, arguing that the agenda was set by the stars of the international far right, whose speeches were explicit, extreme and unopposed
ROGER McKENZIE argues that the BRI represents a choice between treating humans as commodities or as equals — an essential project when, aside from China’s efforts, hundreds of millions worldwide are trapped in poverty
Our annual memorial event and lecture honouring a legend of English working-class history, who ‘organised the unorganisable’ in the countryside, will hear from today’s organisers of the unorganisable fighting the bosses of Amazon, writes NICK MATTHEWS
BERNADETTE KEAVENEY announces a simplified and streamlined way to get your paper delivered daily, and a big push for new readers that we can all help make into a success
Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO reports from the start of Kunming’s Belt and Road media forum, where 200 journalists from 71 countries celebrated a new openness and optimism, forged by China’s enormous contribution to global development
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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