Keynes on English church music

Keynes on English church music

I’m reading the third volume of Robert Skidelsky’s wonderful biography of John Maynard Keynes. Here’s an extract from a letter Keynes wrote to his doctor, Janos Plesch, inviting him to a chapel service in King’s College chapel:

“You would hear English church music in its most exquisite form and in the grandest possible environment. To my thinking, though exquisite, it is lifeless and even moribund… But if you have never been to one of these highly respectable, quasi-aesthetic Victorian performances, where deathly moderation and pseudo-good taste have drowned all genuine emotions, you might find it an interesting experience”.