Beauty among Beasts? Maconchy, Walton, Tippett, and Britten

The four British composers William Walton, Michael Tippett, Elizabeth Maconchy, and Benjamin Britten were born within twelve years of each other and overlap in their musical training, networks, and compositional interests. This chapter compares their early lives up to their first steps as fully trained composers, the posthumous assessment of their careers in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, their experiences during the Second World War, and their major String Quartets written during and after the War (Maconchy’s no. 4, Britten’s no. 2, Tippett’s no. 3, and Walton’s A minor). These various comparisons reveal similar biographical features and compositional strategies in Maconchy, Tippett, and Britten, but also differences in music analytic and historical methods of assessment and evaluation. Walton, not Maconchy, emerges as the true outsider in such a comparative approach, but Maconchy has suffered more neglect than any other of these four composers. The chapter argues that more awareness of Maconchy’s work in music analysis and critical reception can help to overcome this neglect