Talk:Alan Bush

	Alan Bush is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on December 22, 2018.
Article milestones Date Process Result August 10, 2017 Featured article candidate Promoted
	Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on December 22, 2019, December 22, 2020, and December 22, 2025.

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Do we/you have copyright clearance to reproduce this article?

Oh dear, you've been waiting almost 4 years for an answer. Sorry to disappoint you, but you still haven't got one. Is this some sort of record? JackofOz 09:40, 8 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

The index ref [10]:6 in a couple of places is confusing. Can someone who understands it have a look? Mike Spathaky (talk) 10:07, 8 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

superseded Brianboulton (talk) 18:25, 30 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

Work begins today. Let's have a worthwhile article for this significant if largely overlooked 20th century composer. Brianboulton (talk) 11:26, 21 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

Done. Letting it rest for a bit. Brianboulton (talk) 18:23, 30 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

Well done Brian! This is now an excellent article. Keep as well as you can! Mike Spathaky (talk) 19:54, 30 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

BB, you asked for my comments on the overhauled article, and here they are:

• Biography
  • Title of section. In other composer "Life-and-works" articles (e.g. Holst and Britten) we have called this section "Life and career". I see no objection to "Biography" instead, here, but some editors get strangely aerated by it, insisting that the whole article is a biography. I think they"re wrong, but it does no harm to avoid a battle.
• Family background and early life
  • "the Principal, Sir Alexander Mackenzie" – although, as you may have spotted over the years, I tend to be quite liberal with my capitalisation, I don"t think giving "Principal" one here is in Wikipedia's usual style.
• Royal Academy and after
  • "He met and befriended a fellow-student, Michael Head, as a result of which Bush met Head's 14-year-old sister" – two meetings. You could perhaps lose the first altogether and start "He befriended".
  • "with whom he became close" – not sure about the preposition. Does one become close with someone?
  • "In 1931, ten years after their first meeting, they would marry" … As a rule I abominate he woulds, it woulds, they woulds and so on, but I suppose it's tolerable here as you are peeking ahead of the chronology.
• Music and politics
  • "Ian Kemp writes that "Apart from Sibelius…"" An old-fashioned pedant, e.g. me, might object that the "that" leads one to expect oratio obliqua rather than the oratio recta we get here; replacing "that" with a comma would be preferable,
  • "at the rise of Fascism and antisemitism in Germany" – if with a capital F, is Fascism strictly interchangeable with "Nazism" in Germany? The OED steers us in the direction of capitalising the word for Mussolini's shower, but lower-casing it for other right wing rabbles.
• 1930s: emergent composer
  • "In the following years three daughters were born, after which they moved to a larger house"… – nobody is really going to suppose you mean that the daughters moved on their own, but it might still be better to say "the family moved…"
  • "this remained their home until their respective deaths in the 1990s" – I imagine the deaths are those of Alan and Nancy, rather than the whole family. I might make this something like "….Bush and Nancy lived there until their respective deaths in the 1990s."
  • "caustic comments from the Manchester Guardian's Neville Cardus" – is it just me or is there a touch of tabloidese about this construction? I should prefer to say caustic comments in The Manchester Guardian from Neville Cardus.
  • "Handel's oratorio" – you might link Handel, perhaps.
• Second World War
  • "Queen's Hall" – another article you might want to link to.
  • Last 12 words of first para: obiter dicta from TR: proof, if proof were needed, of the capriciousness and unreliability of Glock's musical judgment. What a B.F.!
• Post-war: struggle for recognition and performance
  • "his ODNB biographer" – I think you probably ought to give the ODNB its full title, and perhaps even add a link to the WP article on the ODNB.
  • First para: two "alikes" in quick succession. You could make the second something on the lines of "alienated both the music establishment and the public".
  • "persona non grata"– nobody reading this article is likely to need to be told what persona non grata means, but can bet your boots that some well-meaning ninny will nonetheless think you need to link it to the WP article.
  • "London's Conway Hall" – another construction that seems unnecessarily tabloidese to my eye.
• Opera ventures
  • "St Christopher's School, Letchworth" – my partner went to school there, and I shall be at risk of a harrumph if I do not point out that its title is St Christopher School, Letchworth (no possessive apostrophe ess) and that it has a WP article you can link to.
• Mature career
  • Title of section – you and I may be ancient enough to think of one's forties as years of immaturity but I question whether this is a suitable title for a sub-section that starts with Bush aged fifty-two. I might just make this header "1953–1975"
  • "The Guardian's Colin Mason saw in the work similarities with Richard Strauss, and considered it among Bush's best works" – two points here: first a repeat of my previous bleat about The Guardian's Neville Cardus, and secondly, you have "work" twice in the sentence. The first would read equally well if you changed it to "piece"
• Final years
  • "Sir Edward Downes" – not yet Sir in 1986.
• To 1945
  • "In contrast to these large-scale works" – Fowler would have us say in contrast with, rather than to.
• Postwar and beyond
  • "Payne described the Three Concert Studies" – As this is the great and good Anthony Payne who gave us Elgar's Third Symphony he deserves his Christian name and a blue link in the text rather than just in the citation.

And that's my lot. I don't see how this article could be better done, and not only has it been a pleasure to review: it has sent me off in search of Bush's music, on which you shall hear from me by email or viva voce. – Tim riley talk 11:18, 9 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

Many thanks for these comments – all done save one; I will let the ninnies prattle over persona non grata. As to Glock, well, I've softened what he actually said, which was: "The programme did not tell us that we should be faced with a relentless surge of sixth-rate music described as a pianoforte concerto by Khatachurian, or that Shostakovitch's fifth symphony is so long that there seems no reason why it should not be much longer". Sarky bastard or what, eh? Brianboulton (talk) 07:26, 10 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

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Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Alan Bush. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160412140116/http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/music/operas/jhill.asp?room=Music to http://www.alanbushtrust.org.uk/music/operas/jhill.asp?room=Music

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There's a request at WP:ERRORS to make a change in the TFA blurb. I'm asking here to see if there's support for making the same change in the article lead. Currently: "Bush ... enjoyed considerable success as a student at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) ... [eight sentences later] ... He taught composition at the RAM for more than 50 years ...". Suggested: "Bush ... enjoyed considerable success as a student at the Royal Academy of Music [or Royal Academy of Music (RAM)] ... He taught composition at the Academy [or Royal Academy] for more than 50 years ...". (The RAM acronym is defined again at the first occurrence below the lead.) - Dank (push to talk) 01:49, 21 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

I am the contributor who made the suggestion at ERRORS, but I see no reason why change there requires change here, and think that use of the initialism on the second occurrence here is totally justified. I have removed the redundant second explanation of the acronym in the section "Family background and early life". Kevin McE (talk) 11:50, 21 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

In lead section: "Bush's style retained what commentators have described as an essential Englishness" – this statement is concerning me. As this is a featured article, it really should comply with MOS:LEAD which states that the lead summarizes the points of the body. I can't find any repetition of the statement in the body and certainly no sources that cover his style being characterized as "Essential Englishness". Rodney Baggins .talk. 09:07, 25 September 2025 (UTC)Reply