Malcolm Arnold is dead.
Thank God. His suffering is over.
The BBC obituary is unfair. "... superficial and flippant... unpretentious". There's a Jekyll and Hyde quality to Arnold's output. Much of his more serious output (esp. the symphonies) is so involved in staring at the squalid recesses of his soul as to be almost unlistenable. And even much of the early chamber music has a shadow side. Painting the guy as a fluffbunny and drunk is just not fair, especially considering that the alcoholism was largely self-medication for bipolar disorder. I think that things like the various sets of British dances are deservedly popular. But there is something about the dark pieces, a kind of spiritual nihilism. There's a certain kinship with Shostakovich, I think, but with Shosty the suffering is never meaningless, and with Arnold it sometimes seems to be.
Oh well; it's for history to sort out, now.
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