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Lead book review

Music & Monarchy, by David Starkey - review

Music has always been integral to the image and power of monarchy. Our present Royal family should take note, says <em>Jonathan Keate</em>

6 July 2013

9:00 AM

6 July 2013

9:00 AM

Music & Monarchy: A History of Britain in Four Movements David Starkey and Katie Greening

BBC Books, pp.378, £20

British royalty, considered from a purely mechanistic angle, cannot function adequately without music. Deprived of marching bands, trumpeters and choristers or even of those ever so well-mannered regimental ensembles which dispense selections from favourite musicals at an investiture or a garden party, the royal performance would lose much of its authenticity.

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Jonathan Keates is the author of Handel: The Man and his Music and Purcell.

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