England experienced a resurgence of musical talent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries known as the "English Musical Renaissance." This rebirth spanned the years 1880 – 1945 and is credited to the work of Edward Elgar, Frederick Delius, Gustav Holst, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Their break with Continental compositional models and the subsequent rediscovery of Tudor music and English folk song eventually created a "pastoral" musical style, heard as the authentically English musical voice. A strain of English musical Romanticism continued parallel to the Renaissance, however, represented by Granville Bantock, Joseph Holbrooke, Rutland Boughton, Arnold Bax, and Havergal Brian. These composers retained Continental, specifically Wagnerian, Romantic techniques, including chromatic harmony, leitmotifs, virtuosic use of enormous performing forces, and an emphasis on programmatic music. Their inspiration was drawn from exotic sources and Nature's mystical, dangerous, and beguiling qualities instead of any "pastoral" traits. Each wrote emotionally extravagant music at a time when such was considered foreign to the English character. This dissertation demonstrates the Wagnerian character of these “English Romantics” through examination of stylistic features in representative scores. Further, by presenting scores, criticism, and monographs, it affirms their sustained compositional presence through the twentieth century though English cultural tastes had turned from Germany to France, Russia, and the United States after the First World War. Finally, in challenging the standard narrative of British musical history this study broadens the concept of authentically English music to include a great deal more music “made in England.”

Members of the second generation of the English Musical Renaissance have long been associated with a break from the Teutonic influence of their predecessors to create a musical idiom that is quintessentially English. Scholarship has long looked at these composers, who include those born between Vaughan Williams and Moeran, in isolation from the artistic movements and political and social issues of Europe, when in fact they were part of them. This thesis places these composers within these currents by discussing them as part of England’s Lost Generation and within the historical contexts of Europe in the early twentieth century. Though the Lost Generation is often associated with the post-war period, I propose that the phenomenon existed prior to World War I by focussing on England’s aesthetic lostness in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. The Lost Generation of composers inherited a musical culture that had been aesthetically lost for two hundred years and rebelled against it to define a musical idiom that was quintessentially English. After placing the second generation of the English Musical Renaissance within its historical contexts, I call into question previous discussions on English music that define it according to single definitions largely associated with the Pastoral School or the Folk School. Instead, I propose that the music of this generation was stylistically diverse while simultaneously a manifestation of common cultural influences, ultimately rooted in the goal of creating a sense of community. To support this claim, I discuss the various stylistic techniques of individual composers within their collective cultural influences, including the music of England’s past, the landscape, and English literature. Furthermore, I explore the role of musical community, both as a central goal in the creation of a national idiom and as a source of compositional inspiration. By examining the influences and compositional styles of these composers, I conclude that the music of this generation broke from Continental influences by developing a national idiom that was both stylistically unique to the individual composer and tied to common cultural influences that were rooted in the goal of creating a musical community within England. . / Graduate