1939 in British music

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This is a summary of 1939 in music in the United Kingdom.

¡==Events==

April – a left-wing Festival of Music for the People is held in London. Participants include a pageant for 500 singers and 100 dancers featuring the American singer Paul Robeson as soloist, a balalaika orchestra playing Russian tunes, music by Alan Bush, and Benjamin Britten's Ballad of Heroes with words by W.H. Auden and Randall Swingler, performed by "Twelve Co-operative and Labour Choirs".^[1] John Ireland's These Things Shall Be is performed at the festival's third concert in the Queen's Hall conducted by Constant Lambert.^[2]
29 April – Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears leave the UK for North America on board the SS Ausonia.^[3]
10 May – Heimo Haitto, 13, wins the British Council music prize^[4]
10 June – the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, gives the first public performance of Arthur Bliss's Piano Concerto in B flat with soloist Solomon; Arnold Bax's Symphony No. 7; and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, in a concert held at Carnegie Hall.
1 September – Henry Wood conducts a concert of Beethoven – the Symphony No 6 and the Piano Concerto No 2 – then announces to the audience that the rest of the season is cancelled, because Britain is at war with Germany.
7 December – William Walton's Violin Concerto is given its première in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, by Jascha Heifetz, for whom it was written.^[5]
The Nordstrom Sisters are the resident act at the Ritz Hotel in London.
The National Gallery, with all its pictures taken to a secure location at the outbreak of war, becomes home of popular lunchtime concerts organised by pianist Myra Hess, assisted by the composer Howard Ferguson and with the enthusiastic backing of the gallery's director Sir Kenneth Clark.^[6]

^ Tuppen, Sandra (9 July 2013). "War and peace in Britten". British Library. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
^ Foreman, Lewis. The John Ireland Companion. The Boydell Press, 2011: p. xxxiii
^ Mitchell, Donald (ed) (1991). Letters From A Life: Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Vol. 1 1923–39. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-15221-X. p. 318
^ "Two Loves: Fiddle and Football". The Mail Magazine. Adelaide. 15 July 1939. p. 11.
"Heimo Haiton voitto". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). Helsinki. 11 May 1939. p. 9.
^ Schonberg, Harold C. (December 12, 1987). "Jascha Heifetz Is Dead at 86; A Virtuoso Since Childhood". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 May 2017.
^ Foreman, Lewis & Foreman, Susan. London: A Musical Gazetteer. Yale University Press, 2005: p. 36

[1] Tuppen, Sandra (9 July 2013). "War and peace in Britten". British Library. Retrieved 19 June 2014.

[2] Foreman, Lewis. The John Ireland Companion. The Boydell Press, 2011: p. xxxiii

[3] Mitchell, Donald (ed) (1991). Letters From A Life: Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Vol. 1 1923–39. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-15221-X. p. 318

[4] "Two Loves: Fiddle and Football". The Mail Magazine. Adelaide. 15 July 1939. p. 11.
"Heimo Haiton voitto". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). Helsinki. 11 May 1939. p. 9.

[5] Schonberg, Harold C. (December 12, 1987). "Jascha Heifetz Is Dead at 86; A Virtuoso Since Childhood". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 May 2017.

[6] Foreman, Lewis & Foreman, Susan. London: A Musical Gazetteer. Yale University Press, 2005: p. 36

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1939 in British music

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