Malcolm Arnold: The Inside Story by Anthony Meredith (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Malcolm Arnold: The Inside Story by Anthony Meredith Ryan Ross Malcolm Arnold: The Inside Story. By Anthony Meredith. Market Harborough, Leicestershire: Book Guild, 2022. [xii, 524 p. ISBN: 9781914471490 (hardcover), £19.95.] Bibliography, plates, index. My first reaction when I learned of this book was a raised eyebrow. Here is another volume devoted to the life of Sir Malcolm Arnold (1921–2006), by my count the fourth since 1994 (see Piers Burton-Page, Philharmonic Concerto: The Life and Music of Sir Malcolm Arnold [London: Methuen, 1994]; Paul R. W. Jackson, The Life and Music of Sir Malcolm Arnold: The Brilliant and the Dark [Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003]; and Anthony Meredith's earlier collaboration with Paul Harris, Malcolm Arnold, Rogue Genius: The Life and Music of Britain's Most Misunderstood Composer [Norwich, Norfolk: Thames/Elkin, 2004]). Moreover, it is the second involving Meredith and similarly registers at over five hundred pages. Why the need for this latest tome? What does it offer that the others did not? The clue lies in its subtitle, "Inside Story." Now that Arnold's longtime caretaker, Anthony Day, has passed away (2019), Meredith wants to "set the record straight" about the composer's later years. He claims to advocate for Arnold's living daughter, Katherine, and the injustices she was forced to endure at the hands of those responsible for her aged father's welfare. This is a sad account, primarily concerned with the exploitation of an astonishingly talented composer whose chronic mental illness nonetheless colored his career, ruined his two marriages, hampered relationships with his children, and finally left him an enfeebled shell of his former self. Boiled down to essentials, it is a story that needed to be told. Unfortunately, Meredith's narrative is marred by questionable musical judgments, loose documentation, and especially a vindictiveness which undermines his message. The publication gives the impression of a frustrating paradox: the author seems one of a very few who are privy to his information, but he is too close to the subject for the delicacy it demands. Meredith's earlier book is a life-and-works account that, by his own description, substantially ends in 1996, with only glimpses into Arnold's later life. By contrast, the bulk of Malcolm Arnold: The Inside Story concerns itself with events following the dissolution of the composer's second marriage in 1975 and the mental episodes in the late 1970s that profoundly affected the rest of his life. Roughly the first three chapters concern earlier times (with occasional discussion of relevant music). But the heart of the book concentrates on four successive stages in Arnold's remaining years, with the last being by far the longest. They are his move to London (from Dublin) and hospitalization following psychotic episodes; his time at St. Andrew's Hospital in Northampton for further care; his stint with tavern owner Brian Charlton; and finally, the roughly two decades as Anthony Day's charge. In the latter three periods especially, Meredith focuses on a distinctive pattern: questionable choices made for Arnold's well-being by those responsible for him and their frequent failure to involve Katherine and other family members in the decision-making. Meredith brings a wealth of biographical detail to back up some incriminating questions. What were the medical treatments Arnold received at St. Andrew's? Why did the staff there allow Arnold to frequently stray from the premises and [End Page 637] eventually into the arms of the unscrupulous, inheritance-seeking Charltons? Even more pointedly, how could the Great Britain Court of Protection have sanctioned this change of custody? The reader comes away convinced that the mentally fragile Arnold did indeed suffer neglect, exploitation, and even abuse in these circumstances. With his account of the long Anthony Day era, Meredith's narrative becomes contentious. The stage is set for this in the preface, where he blames Day for the "myths and legends, fictions and fantasies" that have persistently characterized Arnold's later years (p. ix). He admits to having relied heavily on Day for information found in Malcolm Arnold, Rogue Genius, but that he became troubled by factual weaknesses and indelicacies he had taken on trust (p. x). Consequently...