These Simpsons are a cult classic

'His views were indeed held firmly. He was a lifelong pacifist, and his move to south-west Ireland in the early days of the Thatcher era was encouraged by the fact that Ireland did not have a nuclear arsenal.But don’t be misled into thinking that Simpson’s music is conservative or unadventurous. Starting from the legacy of Carl Nielsen (who remains one of the most underrated symphonists himself) he exploited the symphony orchestra to full advantage and developed a musical voice that offers a viable alternative to the late 20th century avant-garde.Having joined the BBC at the heyday of the Third Programme, he was appalled at the degeneration of its standards; like his friend Hans Keller, he saw the corporation as the ideal means of communicating the values he held to be important - not because of any cultural snobbery but because they both believed deeply in the civilising force of great art. The breaking-point came in 1980, when the BBC attempted to make swingeing cuts in its orchestral resources, occasioning the musicians union boycott of BBC work that summer. Simpson resigned, writing in a letter to the Times that he could no longer work for an institution whose views he no longer respected.'

For more boxed sets of music by another scandalously neglected composer take An Overgrown Path to Recommended cure for Shostakovich fatigue, and for another contemporary composer who fell out with the BBC take An Overgrown Path to Jerry Springer rebel grabs Gramophone accolade
Image credit - Simpsontrivia. The Robert Simpson symphonies, and all CDs featured On An Overgrown Path are available from the leading independent CD store, Prelude Records. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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