sound:

"Aesthetic plurality and licence in British contemporary music. Is it better here than elsewhere?"

James MacMillan discusses the great strengths of contemporary music in the UK; its plurality of styles and ideas, its openness to every possibility and apparent lack of the ideological straitjackets imposed in mainland Europe. Referring directly to his own experiences and those of other modern composers, MacMillan takes on those critics who paint British music as conservative and insular, and suggests that Marxist ideology has been a detrimental influence in understanding modernity in music.