ABSTRACT
The English, George Orwell wrote in 1941, lacked artistic ability and were outside 'the European culture'. Poets and writers who had once enthused about the prospect of a popular culture under the aegis of a Socialist state now trembled before the prospect that they might become literary bureaucrats in a British Ministry of Culture. The formation of the London Philharmonic, under Beecham, in 1932 and the reconstruction of the London Symphony Orchestra a few years earlier were indications of the increasing importance of music in the life of the capital. The continuing authenticity of British musical culture was demonstrated by the fact that British singers did not get as close to the microphone as their American counterparts. Disestablishment might mean the loss of the special opportunities the Church of England had for presenting the Christian message to the nation. And Fisher sensed 'a fairly widespread beginning of a return' to the Christian religion.
