Bush: Symphony no 2

Day 275

Geoffrey Bush: Symphony no 2 Guildford

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Barry Wordsworth

Geoffrey Bush was an English composer whose dates are 1920 -1998. He was involved in musical education all his life and composed a reasonably substantial body of work, including 2 symphonies of which this is the second, written in commemoration of the 700th anniversary of the City of Guildford in 1957.

I do have a slight personal connection. The first piece of ‘modern’ music I ever played was Bush’s 1967 Music For Orchestra which was still a very new piece when I played it at a youth orchestra course in about 1972. I remember receiving the music in advance and being surprised, and perhaps a bit alarmed, by the constant changes of time signature and seeing for the first time composite time signatures such as 4/4+3/8. The opening must have stayed in my sub conscience because when I heard it again recently (it is on the same CD as this symphony) I immediately remembered it and it brought back memories of rehearsals and the performance - I don’t think that the assembled parents knew quite what to make of it, though in reality is was pretty mild compared to a lot of the music which was being written at the time. Geoffrey Bush came to at least one of the rehearsals and talked to us a little. Strange what you remember - I can’t recall much about what he said - other than he had disguised a musical neumonic of a place name somewhere in the score - but I do remember the cap he wore which gave him the look of a railway man!

This second symphony is an a slightly more relaxed style - I suspect that he didn’t want to upset the audience of the great and good of the city too much. I would say that stylistically is occupies a place somewhere between Walton and Malcolm Arnold. It is in that ‘bright and breezy’ style so characteristic of English composers in the middle of the 20th century.  I enjoyed listening to is but I can’t say that it made a big impression on me. It was to be honest nicely put together but rather anonymous. Still it is pleasant to think of my links to him and the opportunities I had in my youth orchestra days to explore interesting repertory.