Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Losing our religion

James MacMillan’s European Requiem was not about Brexit – it was a requiem for Europe’s Christian civilisation

issue 05 August 2017

Sir James MacMillan’s European Requiem, performed at the Proms on Sunday, isn’t about Brexit. The composer had to make this clear in a Radio 3 interview just before the broadcast, because the BBC was just itching to cast the work — a melancholy score, despite its thunderous drumbeats — as a lament for us leaving the EU.

That would have been neat, given that the second half of the concert consisted of Beethoven’s Ninth, whose ‘Ode to Joy’ has been clumsily appropriated by Brussels. Incidentally, some Remainers in the audience chattered through the symphony’s first three movements, impatient for their Big Tune. I don’t know if there were any ancient white Rhodesians in the Albert Hall, but if there were I bet they waited respectfully for their former national anthem: ‘Rise, O voices, of Rhodesia/God may we Thy bounty share …’

But I digress.

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