Almost without pausing to draw breath Billy Kitson responds:

>Yes:- PURCELL,H "A Dozen or so BAWDY Catches"; A "Cut+Paste" Job straight
>from the Catalogue Database!!  PURCELL was ONE of England's MANY Musical
>Geniuses - Just because the "Plebs" did Not & DO NOT know, is NOT to say
>there were No English Composers from Purcell to Elgar!!  Even the BBC
>continued this "Furphy" with the Programme "Land without Music" - "Bloody
>Load of Olde Rot"!!  Just given the Catalogue/Database a "fit" = TRY this
>list:- Avison, Bond, Brooks, Chilcott, Garth, Hall Hargrave, Hayes, Her.on;
>Hook, Marsh, Shaw, Travers!!  ...

You've forgotten a few: Thomas Arne, John Field, Thomas Wesley....  In
fact the latter looked like being a great until he had an accident on a
building site.

Also, I have mentioned before that I think there is a certain bias against
non Austro-German composers.  However, I think we would be hiding our heads
in the sand if we were to deny any truth in the suggestion that Britain was
lacking in great composers from 1700-1900 (approx).  Better to look for the
reason for this.

Britain had a vast empire to concentrate on for a start.  Also, between
those dates the industrial revolution took hold more dramatically in
Britain than anywhere else in the world.  It affected every family in the
country and thus brought a big cultural change.  Hence, whilst we find
Britain awash with the World's greatest scientists like Faraday, Maxwell
and Darwin, we had a shortage of classical composers.

Towards the end of the Victorian era the embers of the Industrial
Revolution were beginning to lose their glow and the empire began to look
like a burden.

Now in the 20c the floodgates are open and Britain has produced some the
greatest names of the last 100 years.

Steven Schwartz responded to me:

>>Still we always had Purcell to fall back on.  And, as far as I can
>>see musicologists used to think that Purcell just shaded it over
>>Elgar.
>
>Good Lord!  Why?

I can't answer this.  It's just what i have gleaned from articles I have
read.  I have not carried out any cross composer analysis myself.  This
would be futile anyway with composers from such different eras.

Bob Draper
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