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Music

Our neglect of this great working-class British composer is a disgrace

If Havergal Brian’s Symphony No 30 were premiered today as the work of a photogenic 25-year-old, preferably female or gay, it would cause a sensation

14 May 2016

9:00 AM

14 May 2016

9:00 AM

One of the greatest choral symphonies of the 20th century, entitled Das Siegeslied (Psalm of Victory), has been heard only three times since it was composed in 1933. The last performance took place in Bratislava in 1997.

The text is a German translation of words from Psalm 68: ‘…as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God’.

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