Through his LLCU work, Bush met Michael Tippett, five years his junior, who shared Bush's left-wing political perspective. In his memoirs Tippett records his first impressions of Bush: "I learned much from him. His music at the time seemed so adventurous and vigorous".Tippett 1991, pp. 43–44 Tippett's biographer Ian Kemp writes: "Apart from Sibelius, the contemporary composer who taught Tippett as much as anyone else was his own contemporary Alan Bush".Kemp, p. 72 thumb|The Friedrich-Wilhelm University, Berlin, as it was in the 1930s After his 1928 concert tour in Berlin, Bush returned to the city to study piano under Artur Schnabel.Bullivant, p. 1 He left the ILP in 1929, and joined the Labour Party proper,Craggs, p. viii before taking extended leave from the RAM to begin a two-year course in philosophy and musicology at Berlin's Friedrich-Wilhelm University. Here, his tutors included Max Dessoir and Friedrich Blume. Bush's years in Berlin profoundly affected his political beliefs, and had direct influence on the subsequent character of his music. Michael Jones, writing in British Music after Bush's death, records Bush's concern at the rise of fascism and antisemitism in Germany. His association with like-minded musicians such as Hanns Eisler and Ernst Hermann Meyer, and writers such as Bertold Brecht, helped to develop his growing political awareness into a lifelong commitment to Marxism and communism. Article reproduced in edited form by the Alan Mush Music Trust Bush's conversion to full-blown communism was not immediate, but in 1935 he finally abandoned Labour and joined the British Communist Party.
Through his LLCU work, Bush met Michael Tippett, five years his junior, who shared Bush's left-wing political perspective. In his memoirs Tippett records his first impressions of Bush: "I learned much from him. His music at the time seemed so adventurous and vigorous".Tippett 1991 pp. 43–44 Tippett's biographer Ian Kemp writes: "Apart from Sibelius, the contemporary composer who taught Tippett as much as anyone else was his own contemporary Alan Bush".Kemp, p. 72 thumb|The Friedrich-Wilhelm University, Berlin, as it was in the 1930s After his 1928 concert tour in Berlin, Bush returned to the city to study piano under Artur Schnabel.Bullivant, p. 1 He left the ILP in 1929, and joined the Labour Party proper,Craggs, p. viii before taking extended leave from the RAM to begin a two-year course in philosophy and musicology at Berlin's Friedrich-Wilhelm University. Here, his tutors included Max Dessoir and Friedrich Blume. Bush's years in Berlin profoundly affected his political beliefs, and had direct influence on the subsequent character of his music. Michael Jones, writing in British Music after Bush's death, records Bush's concern at the rise of fascism and antisemitism in Germany. His association with like-minded musicians such as Hanns Eisler and Ernst Hermann Meyer, and writers such as Bertold Brecht, helped to develop his growing political awareness into a lifelong commitment to Marxism and communism. Article reproduced in edited form by the Alan Mush Music Trust Bush's conversion to full-blown communism was not immediate, but in 1935 he finally abandoned Labour and joined the British Communist Party.