Allen : The Musician and the Man
SIR HUGH ALLEN, as Dr. Bailey remarks in his preface, was "a great man, who had a profound influence on his generation." Historians may still over-rate the importance of statesmen, and underestiuiate that of musicians ; but only those ignorant of the facts could deny to Allen a significant place in the history of British civilisation in the twentieth century. Yet the mode and manner of his influence were such that its range and intensity seemed peculiarly liable to, be forgotten. once those who came into personal contact with him had passed away. Through the large amateur choral societies and the
Oxford orchestra which he conducted for many years, through the Royal College of Music of which he was Director from 1918 to 19371 and owing to the great weight which selecting boards attached to his advice in making appointments in the musical profession, the inspiration which he gave spread far and wide—not only in this country but throughout the Empire. But his influence was direct and personal. He was no composer. He wrote almost nothing. Formal lectures and addresses of the sort that can be reported and published were not in his line. Even intimate friends received few letters from him. It was by direct personal contacts, by vivid and vehement speech, by the sheer force of a burning imagination and a titanic personality, that he infused, into others his own devotion to the best in music, his own sense of its greatness and nobility, the dauntless courage of his faith in the capacity of ordinary people to rise to these things.
To write the biography of such a man must have been a difficult task, and could only be accomplished during the lifetime of those able to contribute personal recollections. Dr. Bailey has triumphed over all the difficulties, and in a v Though the details are so various, Dr. Bailey makes it all " add up." Like the strokes of a fine artist's pencil everything combines to make a definite picture. In this the book is like the splendid portrait- drawing by Sargent which is reproduced as a frontispiece. In both, Allen's friends will see those qualities which in the telling sound- so inconsistent—humour and rollicking fun, tremendous- energy and concentration, terrifying ferocity, waywardness, warm-heartedness and a large capacity for deep and enduring affection. They will see all these things, however, not as a medley of incongruities, but n elements that were somehow quite naturally combined in a thoroughly integrated personality—one utterly sincere and single- minded, fundamentally direct, and wholly devoted to what is great and noble in both music and in life. REGINALD LENNARD.
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