BRITISH BOOSTERIMS, PARTE THE SECONDE

posted by James Reel

    Kyle Gann presents further evidence of the parochialism of Brit-oriented music critics. Gann is aghast that The Pimlico Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Composers (1999), by Mark Morris, contains full essays on such rather marginal English figures as William Alwyn, Ivor Gurney, Daniel Jenkyn Jones, Elizabeth Maconchy and Grace Williams, but barely mentions the more influential but American-based Morton Feldman—and that's just one example of its Anglocentric tendencies. You can find Gann’s full post here, and while you’re at it, you might care to review my own intemperate remarks on the general subject of British music criticism here.
    PS: I like Alwyn's music, actually, but still, the English have been puffed with self-importance ever since they contrived to run the 0-degree longitude through Greenwich.