Musical modernity and contested commemoration at the festival of remembrance, 1923-1927

This article makes the case for incorporating music into the history of war commemoration in 1920s Britain by examining John Foulds's A World Requiem , performed at the British Legion's first Festivals of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall between 1923 and 1926. A simultaneously modernist and spiritual work, Foulds's Requiem challenges Jay Winter's conclusion that modernism was unconcerned with public grief. The controversy which the Requiem caused also reveals the contested nature of public memory, particularly where music and religion were concerned. The Requiem' s axing in 1927 points to a hegemonic process which, although it had yet fully to take shape, found no room on Armistice Night for Foulds's progressive ideals. © Cambridge University Press 2009.