A SHORT HISTORY
ENGLISH MUSIC
ERNEST FORD
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A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH
MUSIC
Henry Pukceee.
Front is [ tece.
A
SHORT HISTORY
OF
ENGLISH MUSIC
BY
ERNEST FORD
F.R.A.M.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
M c BRIDE, NAST & COMPANY
1912
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PREFACE
This book is not, in any sense, technical.
It is an attempt to give a simple and rational,
though in a volume of this size, necessarily
incomplete, account of events that have led to
the complex state of music existing in England
at the present time.
Should it offer nothing to the musician or
historian, I hope it will be found of interest to
the general reader.
The desire to make each chapter as complete,
on the subject with which it deals, as space would
permit, has necessitated a certain amount of
repetition, but I trust that the object will con-
done the fault.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Music Before and During the
Reformation ....
II. Music Before and During the
Reformation — (continued)
III. Early English Composers
IV. The Decline of English Music
V. Musical Education in England
VI. Progress of Orchestral Music
VII. Oratorio in England
VIII. Opera in England
IX. Distinguished Musicians in England
during the Nineteenth Century
X. General Survey ....
20
47
67
93
125
150
176
201
244
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Henry Purcell .
Frontispiece
PAGE
Queen Elizabeth
32
Calvin ....
. . . 76
G. F. Handel, by Hudson .
• 154
Sir Arthur Sullivan .
. 228
Sir Edward Elgar
246
SHORT HISTORY OF
MUSIC IN ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
MUSIC BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION
England at one time musical and " merrie " — England before the
Reformation — Out-door life — Natural dramatic instincts —
Isolation of country districts in early days — Performances of
itinerant minstrels — Ban of the Church — Gradual improvement
— Effect of the wars of the Roses — Early perfection of sacred
music — Difficult times after repudiation of Rome by Henry VIII.
— His policy and that of Queen Elizabeth — Edward VI. and
his sisters — Popular anger against the monks — Dissolution of
monasteries natural result amongst uneducated people — Tallis
entrusted to write music for reformed services — Orlando Gibbons
and Henry Purcell — Early secular music — Old-time music
occasionally traceable now in country districts — Ancient instru-
ments — Effect on English music by those returning from the
Crusades — Effect on criminal population — The status of the
musical composer compared with that of the " musician " —
Conclusion.
England was musical — once upon a time.*
At least, if it be not too great a strain on our
credulity, we must believe so.
England was " merrie "f — once upon a time.
At least, we read so.
* A country that has taken its music at the hands of the
foreigner for three centuries can scarcely be called musical.
t In its original meaning, the term implied a cheerful
and righteously joyful sense of living. Its popular signi-
ficance after three centuries of Puritanism, rather inclines
to alcoholic elation.
2 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
It must have been long ago, and the art long
lost.
* * * *
And yet there was, undoubtedly, a time when
England was both musical and " merrie." Yes.
When music and " dauncing " were as essential
to the life of the people as ranting and canting
apparently became in those dismal days after
the Reformation, when the spirit of Calvinism
stalked abroad, strangling all the rational joys
of life. Yes. Those were, indeed, the merrie
days of England.
The pageants and plays, which arrived at
such a pitch of splendour and magnificence in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth, were but the suc-
cessors of more primitive ones whose history
is lost in the long and silent past.
It is, however, quite clear that, like nearly
everything else of healthy vitality, we must
look to the Church, if not for their origin, at
least for the shape and form they came to
assume during the Christian era.
Throughout human history there have ever
been men gifted with a dramatic temperament
who, through sheer natural instinct, not only
dramatise their own experiences when they
would relate them, but dramatise with equal
avidity, any material which may come to their
hands for the entertainment of others and
the relief of their own exuberant vitality.
A combination of such gifted, congenial
spirits would be, not so much probable as
inevitable. Hence the bodies of strolling
players, regarded by the guardians of the law,
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 3
doubtless with much excuse, as rogues and
vagabonds, who toured the country districts,
and were to all appearance, in a state of constant
conflict with the " Dogberrys " of the day.
It is difficult, if not impossible, for us to
realise the isolation of small communities in
mediaeval times, but it is not difficult to imagine
the excitement that a visit from one of these
troupes would arouse ; not only on account
of the amusement they would afford, but for the
news they would bring of that outside world
which was, probably, at once a source of
curiosity and dread.
It must be recorded that the kind of
entertainment given by these itinerant players,
was frequently of such a nature as to give a
shock to the simple countrymen it was designed
to amuse.
Coming directly from the coarse amusements
and excitements of London, that included about
every possible species of vicious depravity,
most of which cannot be written about, and
the more innocent, including bear-baiting,
drinking contests and cock-fighting, it is not to
be wondered at that their displays caused some-
thing akin to amazement.
One result was inevitable.
The Church stepped in, banned the perform-
ances, and threatened to exclude all who were
engaged in them from her sacraments.
However, with the wonderful intuition which
seems so clearly to eliminate the purely human
theory, she seized upon this elementary instinct
to purify it and dedicate it to the highest ends.
4 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
From that time through many ages the per-
formances were given with the direct sanction
of the Church, and were not infrequently utilised
on festival occasions, in the precincts of her
sacred buildings.
- It must not be assumed, however, that in the
early stages of the cleansing process any very
high standard could be insisted upon. Such
an attitude would have put the clergy out of
touch with the primitive people, and wholly
destroyed the possibility of effecting any lasting
good.
Biblical subjects of a simple kind were
chosen for portrayal, the story of Adam and
Eve being a particularly popular one, and
presented with a crude exactitude that would
cause considerable astonishment to a modern
spectator.
But gradually subjects of a more elevating
character were introduced, and at last the most
moving incidents in the life of Christ were
represented. Thus it is obvious that the Church
had no desire to stifle the dramatic instinct ;
she simply used her power and authority to
direct it to a nobler plane of thought, and help
it to become a source of healthy education,
instead of a form of moral degradation. Indeed,
the most sacred and inspiring service in her
liturgy, the Mass, is a dramatisation of the
fundamental truths of Christianity.
The Englishman of the Middle Ages was
coarse in speech and manner, but he was
eminently susceptible to the call of art in what
soever guise it came, religious or secular.
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 5
The beauty of the cathedrals with their noble
altars and gloriously coloured windows and,
perhaps most of all, the call of the music which
played so large a part in all the functions, would,
at least, help to combat the gross spirit of the
outer world, and tend to an amelioration of the
prevailing tone of the age.
There had been, however, many companies of
players who had defied the Church's ban, and
continued their performances of unbridled
licence, trusting to the general lawlessness
of the times to evade the consequences ; but
with the passing of the Wars of the Roses and
their attendant misery, bloodshed and abroga-
tion of civil law, a period of brutality, rapine,
and all the consequent horrors of a fratricidal
conflict came to an end, and the power of the
law, both ecclesiastic and civil, was once more
able to actively assert itself. A reign of peace
and the confirmed power of the Crown began
to inspire a general sense of security. Such
wealth as the country possessed, instead of being
squandered on the machinery of war, could be
spent to ensure the blessings of peace.
Education, even the most elementary, was a
boon to a man who, beside the manual work
necessary to enable him to feed himself, had
hitherto learnt nothing but the use of the pike
or some such weapon of warfare.
Thus a better state of things was being in-
augurated, and by the beginning of the sixteenth
century, was in full progress and the results
already apparent. The appearance in the
dramatic firmament of that immortal group of
6 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
writers, of which Shakespeare was the Sun,
marked the glorious opening of a new era.
Through all these centuries the art of sacred
music had been slowly, it is true, but gradually
developed, mainly by the monks, but wholly
in the service of the Church.
It had arrived at such a pitch of perfection
by the middle of the sixteenth century, that
then began the short era that was afterwards to
be known as " The Golden Age of Ecclesiastical
Music." It was the time of Palestrina in Italy,
and Tallis, Byrd and Orlando Gibbons in
England.
The Mass for five voices, written by William •
Byrd about the year 1588, is one of the most
beautiful productions of that extraordinary
period, and is sufficient in itself to prove that
music in England, like her literature, could then
challenge comparison with that of any country
whatever, either for beauty or originality.
It may be mentioned here that Byrd never
swerved from his allegiance to the Roman
Catholic Church. It has been said that there
is no proof that Tallis changed his faith, but the
fact that he was requisitioned to set music for
the new services to English words seems to me
perfectly conclusive that he did acquiesce in the
new order of things.
In those troublous days there were compara-
tively few who dared openly to adhere to the
Catholic Church — that is to say, to the Church
as it was before Henry VIII. repudiated
allegiance to the Pope — the many submitted
to the behests of the day and declared themselves
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 7
definitely on the side they thought would
eventually become ascendant, always, however,
endeavouring to secure a loophole of escape in
case they should find that they had, to use the
famous Marquis of Salisbury's well-known
phrase, " put their money on the wrong horse."
These words may suggest a more sinister
idea than they are intended to convey, but their
significance will soon be made clear. It must
be remembered that when Henry cast off the
supremacy of Rome — for reasons it is not
necessary to enter upon here — with one or two
exceptions, no repudiation of the general tenets
of the Catholic Church was insisted upon. In
fact, like his wonderful daughter, Queen Eliza-
beth, he was averse, with characteristic Tudor
caution, to cataclysmic changes which might
once more divide his kingdom into two great
opposing camps, such as it had only recently
escaped from.
On the contrary, having achieved the personal
ends he had in view, he desired nothing better
than that things should calm down and proceed
on the same lines, as nearly as possible, as they
had before, without the masses of the people
recognising or understanding the true import of
what had taken place. Had he been succeeded
by Elizabeth, this policy might have been
successful, and many a disastrous page of history
would probably never have had to be written.
His dominating personality sufficed to avert
any open rebellion to bis will, but on his death
the succession to the throne of a sickly boy,
whose fanatical spirit had been fired by still
8 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
more fanatical advisers, was the signal for an
outburst of Puritanical frenzy.
Dominated as the young King, Edward VI.,
was by hatred of his elder sister and deep distrust
of her actions when she should be called to the
throne (an event which he knew full well to be
a matter of only a few years), he lost no time
in doing whatever lay in him to further the
cause of Protestantism, and render it impossible
for her to obliterate and make nugatory the
work he had so much at heart. Edicts were
issued ordering the clergy to abstain from
priestly functions which hitherto had not been
inhibited, and everything possible was done
to instil into the minds of the common
people a distrust of them that centuries of
devotion to their interests were unable to
dispel.
A possible explanation of the success of these
tactics may be found in the undoubted distress
among the peasantry at this time.
With the suppression of the monasteries
came the resultant loss of the succour they had
for so long been accustomed to rely on at the
hands of the monks, in case of illness or other
trouble. To them they had looked to supply,
when in need, the necessities of life, and so, on
the sudden cessation of these benefits they, in
their ignorance, visited their astonished anger
not on those who were the cause of it, but on
the victims who were no longer in a position
to continue their benevolent offices.
During this reign the services of the Church
were in a constant state of change and confusion,
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 9
and no cause suffered more than the cause of
music.
Its use in the new liturgy was sparingly
permitted, and the little that was tolerated
soon lapsed into desuetude in the great majority
of churches.
To Tallis was entrusted the writing of such
music as was to be allowed, and all musicians
owe him a debt of gratitude for the beauty of his
work, which remains to-day, as the highest type
of Church music, of which he has often been
called the father, so far as relates to that of
England.
Of Bryd we have written.
With Orlando Gibbons we come to the third
of that great trio of Church composers whose
work may be termed the Apotheosis of Catholic
music, so far as England is concerned. Although
when Gibbons began to compose, the I^atin
language had been superseded by English in the
Church liturgy, his music retains absolutely
all the essential characteristics of the ancient
Ecclesiastical style, and is as pure from outside
influence as that of Byrd himself, who doubtless
lent him aid and encouragement, being as he
was, a comparatively young man when the latter
died in a green old age.
Gibbons was a copious writer, and his works
are one of the greatest treasures of English
sacred music.
With him the glorious school of Catholic
music may be said to have become extinct in
England.
Henry Purcell, the last and greatest of the
io MUSIC IN ENGLAND
old school of English musicians, was born in
1658. At the time of his birth the Reforma-
tion had long been an accomplished fact,
and the country had accepted it, perhaps not
entirely realising in all its bearings, the full
extent of the consequences. Orlando Gibbons
had only been dead about thirty years, so,
happily for music, sufficient time had not elapsed
to allow of the entire suppression of the ancient
spirit of Catholic music.
Hence Purcell, whose early training came
from those who were born and nurtured in its
atmosphere, was fully equipped, on arriving at
manhood, to deal with the position as he found
it : that is to say, a firmly established body of
foreign musicians basking in the favours, and
enjoying the protection of a largely foreign
Court.
With the assimilative power of genius, he
was quick to seize upon anything he thought
politic. But whatever he borrowed he soon
turned into gold. He was a veritable alchemist.
It is only necessary to say here that for
many centuries he has been universally accepted
as the greatest of all English musicians, and
that he was the last of that original school of
English music whose origin goes back to the
dark ages, and can only be sought for in the
solitude and seclusion of the cells of ancient
and long forgotten monasteries.
We must now retrace our steps and endeavour
to follow, as far as scanty records allow, the
progress of secular music along those bygone
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION n
ages. Something at least is known of the
ancient music of the East, and the probability is
that Greek music, from which that of the I,atin
Church descends, is but the offspring of the
far older art of Egypt.
The question, however, is one for the anti-
quarian. It may with safety be affirmed that
such music as existed among the people of
England at the time of the Norman Conquest
was not only considerably affected by that
event, but still more, probably, by the Crusades
not long after.
The music of the French Troubadours shews
undoubted Eastern influences, and it does not
require any great effort of imagination to realise,
to some extent at least, the result of the constant
influx: of returned soldiers and camp followers
after years of travel and residence in the East,
not only on the music, but the morals of a
comparatively primitive people.
So far as music is concerned, it is natural
to assume that whatever was brought from the
East, whether in the shape of novel rhythms
and melodic features, or strange (probably
percussion) instruments, was speedily absorbed
by or brought into the service of, the native
musician, and doubtless proved an incentive
to renewed creation.
English music would appear to have an
ancestry as complex: as that of the people
themselves.
The earliest specimens go to confirm this, for
whereas some of them are extremely bucolic and
uncouth, others are refined and even sensuous
12 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
in character. Alternating in grave and gay,
the music suggests diverse origin. Musical
notation, as we know it to-day, is a com-
paratively modern invention. It is the result
of centuries of research and experiment. It is
doubtful if the music that Gurth, the swineherd
of Cedric the Saxon, may have hummed to
himself in his long and solitary vigils could
indeed be expressed in it. The scales then in
popular use were different in essential respects
from ours, and that there are even yet vestiges
of the old peasant music still remaining I feel
persuaded. For instance, many years ago in an
outlying district of Sussex I heard an old man
singing a folk song to a roomful of approving
companions.
I listened with the interest of curiosity, but
beyond the fact that it seemed to be in a minor
key I gained little.
Of the language I failed to understand one
word. One thing, however, struck me, and
this was that even in the final cadence there
was no leading note*, and that the style of note-
succession reminded me of Scotch music.
As nearly as I could approximate it, the key
suggested G minor, and the final notes sounded
like the following : —
# ^5..'*-u e
This, of course, may have been the idiosyn-
* The leading note is a semi-tone lower than the keynote,
and is essential to the modern scales, both major and minor.
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 13
cracy of the singer, but each verse, as I heard it,
was consistent one with the other.
Doubtless such an authority as Mr. Cecil
Sharp would be able to give an explanation of
so interesting an experience.
It should be borne in mind that music, for
long ages, was transmitted from one individual
to another through the ear alone. The invention
of a musical notation, even of the most primitive
kind, being comparatively recent. The art of
reading from it, in the Middle Ages, was practi-
cally restricted to the monks, whose creation it
was.
Even to this day musical sight-reading is only
mastered by comparatively few of a large
population.
On this important point, the majority of the
people of England are certainly not musical.
We shall later on deal with the earliest known
examples of English vocal and instrumental
music. For the moment we will consider the
means at the disposal of the music-minded
in mediaeval days.
To the human voice we need not refer, since
it is little susceptible of change from age to age.
Musical instruments were few in number
and of a crude order in general. The bagpipe,
hornpipe and others of a similar kind, together
with stringed instruments in the earliest stage
of development, being in most general use.
The viols, lute, virginals, recorders, and many
others, belong to a much later period. The
violin, as we know it, only arrived at perfection
in the seventeenth century, when Stradivarius,
14 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
Amati and Guanarius were making their
marvellous instruments. But that they had
instruments and even used them in combination
is shewn by the following lines from Chaucer : —
" Cornemuse and shalmyes,
And many a maner pipe,"
and again,
" Both ye Dowced and ye Rede."
" Cornemuse " is generally accepted to mean
a hornpipe.
" Shalmyes"* was probably a reed instrument
of the character of an oboe.
With regard to "ye Dowced " and " ye
Rede," numerous controversies have failed to
establish any definite conviction.
The poet, however, in another line mentions
an instrument, of which there is no doubt
possible : —
" A baggepipe coude wel he blowe and soune."
It is natural to suppose that progress in the
art of making instruments would correspond
to that in the art of music itself, and the ever-
increasing intercourse with the Continent since
the Conquest would bring knowledge of many
before unknown ; both France and Italy being
far in advance of England in this respect.
References to them in Shakespeare's works
are numerous.
To cite only a few.
In the first part of " Henry IV." :—
* More familiarly known as shawn.
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 15
" Falstaff : S'blood ! I am as melancholy as a gibcat
or a lugged bear.
" Prince Henry : Or an old lion ; or a lover's lute.
" Falstaff : Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe."
In *' Hamlet " :—
"Hamlet: . . . Will you play upon this pipe ?
" Guildenstem : My lord, I cannot.
" Guildenstem : I know no touch of it, my lord.
" Hamlet : 'Tis as easy as lying : govern these ventages
with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. I,ook
you, these are the stops."
We will content ourselves with one more
quotation. It consists of some lines of incom-
parable beauty from the sonnets : —
" How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st,
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand."
By the time of Queen Elizabeth the number
and variety of instruments had greatly increased
as the following lines by the poet, Michael
Drayton, shew. It may be mentioned in
explanation of the words, "the viol best in
setts," that it was customary in those days to
enclose in one case a set of these instruments,
treble, tenor and bass, the last-named being
probably the viol da gamba, the predecessor
of the modern violoncello.
" The English that repined to be delayed so long,
All quickly at the hint, as with one free consent,
Strook up at once and sang each to the instrument ;
16 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
(Of Sundry sorts there were, as the musician likes)
On which the practiced hand with perfect'st fingering
strikes,
Whereby their right of skill might liveliest be expressed.
The trembling lute some touch, some strain the violl best,
In setts which there were seene,the music wondrous choice,
Some likewise there affect the Gamba with the voice,
To shew that England could varietie afforde.
Some that delight to touch the sterner wyerie chord,
The Cithron, the Pandore, and the Theorbo strike ;
The Gittern and the Kit the wandering fidlers like.
So there were some againe, in this their learned strife,
I/Oud instruments that loved, the Cornet and the Phife,
The Hoboy, Sagbut deepe, Recorder and the Flute,
Even from the shrillest Shawn unto the Cornemute,
Some blow the Bagpie up, that plaies the country 'round,
The Tabor and the Pipe, some take delight to sound."
As some of the above-mentioned instruments
are probably unknown to the majority of readers,
I will select for explanation a few that seem
least likely to be familiar : —
Cithron — An instrument with wire strings, like
a German zither.
Pandore — A variety of the foregoing.
Theorbo — A large double-necked instrument of
the lute family. It somewhat resembles,
on a larger scale, the modern mandoline.
Gittern — Resembles the guitar. Chaucer refers
to it more than once.
Kit — Diminutive violin.
Sagbut — Akin to the slide trombone.
Recorder — A wind instrument of the clarinet
family.
Tabor — A small drum. In olden times used as
an accompaniment to the pipe.
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 17
We have alluded to the possible effect on
music of the return of numbers of men from
the wars of the Crusades. We pass now to the
probable effect on the morals of the people, with
special reference to the musicians of the period.
One of the first results would be to swell the
numbers of itinerant musicians and players who
were already a source of trouble not only to
the custodians of the law, but to the average
law-abiding citizen.
It is not to be supposed that the restless
spirit of these wanderers through Europe and
the East, with all the concomitant experiences,
would permit them to again settle down to the
life of quietude and practical isolation of the
tiller of the soil, from which, no doubt, many of
them had sprung.
No, the roving life of the itinerant " minstrel "
or the riotous Hfe of the city roysterer would
be more likely to attract them.
Certain it is, from the diseases they acquired
in the East and disseminated in Europe, one
may justifiably argue that their presence was
not likely to raise the moral tone of any company
they might be pleased to join.
To whatever cause it may be assigned, it has
to be admitted that musicians in those days had
a most unenviable reputation, and were looked
upon with the greatest contempt.
One qualification of this statement may be
made, as there is little doubt that a great
distinction was made between the composer
and the " musician."
Every rogue and vagabond who scoured the
18 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
country giving crude and generally offensive
performances styled himself musician, so the
public, having no greater genius for fine dis-
crimination then than now, came to regard
all persons who were engaged in the performance
of music, if not with active aversion, at any rate
with passive contempt.
It is in these early times that the foundation
of the feeling was laid, only to be strengthened
later on when Puritanism came with fanatic
intensity to still further deepen it. How en-
grained in the spirit of the people this sentiment
became is evident, even to this day.
That the composer of music was regarded in
a different light, we shall be able to prove.
He obtained degrees at the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, where he proceeded to
the high position of Professor of the University
in the Chair of Music.
leases of Crown lands were made to him,
with grants of armorial bearings in some cases ;
indeed, there are evidences of many kinds to
show that his calling was held in high esteem.
With the " musicians," as they were called, or
" minstrels," as they called^ themselves, things
went from bad to worse. Doubtless reinforced
again by cast-off camp-followers from the
armies of the Wars of the Roses, they became,
by the reign of Queen Elizabeth, not only a
source of terror to the countryside, but a
nuisance and a pest to the towns. Gosson
writes, about 1580: "Iyondon is so full of un-
profitable pipers and fiddlers that a man can no
sooner enter a tavern, than two or three cast of
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 19
them hang at his heels, to give him a dance
before he depart."*
In 1597 a law was passed in which they were
classed as " rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy
beggars," and were threatened with severe
penalties.
The War of the Rebellion probably brought
them still another accession to their ranks,
as, so far from being harmed by this threat,
things must have got even worse, to judge by the
following edict issued by Cromwell only a few
years later : —
" Any persons commonly called fidlers or
minstrels who shall at any time be taken playing,
fidling, and making music in any inn, ale-house,
or tavern, or shall be taken proffering them-
selves, or desiring, or intreating any to hear
them play or make music in any of the places
aforesaid, shall be adjudged and declared to be
rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars."
It may be at once assumed that if they were
able to evade the hands of Elizabeth, they were
little likely to escape those of Cromwell, who
may be said to have, at last, cleared the country
of what had become a positive menace to the
security of life, since under the guise of wander-
ing minstrels, highwaymen and other criminals
had long been wont to carry on their occupations
with comparative immunity.
The age of Queen Elizabeth was one of
transition, the Commonwealth marked the birth
of the new era, and with it the final disappear-
ance of the picturesque, even if somewhat
depraved, English troubadour.
* " Short Apologies of the School of Abuse," Iyondoh.
CHAPTER II
MUSIC BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION —
(continued)
Secular music dating from the thirteenth century — Origin lost in anti-
quity — Earliest specimens, dance music — Morris dance traced to
Saxon times — Dancing always associated with singing — Gradual
independence — Popularity of the month of May — -The ballad
and its antiquity — Popular specimens — " Parthenia," a collec-
tion of pieces for virginals — Life in England during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth — Its happiness — Authority of Professor
Thorold Rogers — Great men living at the time — Pageantry and
the Queen — Her love of dancing and music — Her sympathy
with the joys of her people — Queen Elizabeth as a musician —
Sir James Melvil and his adventure — The masque — Its origin —
Popularity — James I. and art — Masque forerunner of opera —
The madrigal, catch, round and glee— Shakespeare and the
catch — " Sumer is icumen in," a wonderful specimen of ancient
skill and genius — The " canon " — Instrumental music — Ex
planation of its late development — Purcell — Conclusion.
Authentic examples of secular music in Eng-
land date from the thirteenth century. It is not
from this fact, though, one must suppose that
it did not exist prior to that period. On the
contrary, music of some kind or other has,
doubtless, been a source of solace as well as
amusement for untold years.
For antiquity, vocal music stands pre-eminent.
Ages must have passed before instrumental
music came to any position of efficacy at all
correlative with it.
It must be remembered that music as we
know it, is the gift that the ancient Church gave
20
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 21
us centuries ago, and that the pangs of its birth
were suffered in days of which all sense of record
is lost.
That there were seculars, even in those remote
days, whose ideas of musical progress would
not be bound by the ties of ecclesiastical gravity
may be taken for granted, and as the art pro-
gressed in the Church they would naturally
take advantage of it to further their skill in the
direction of a lighter and less serious type.
To seek for the earliest examples of dance
music is simply to grope in the dark. As to its
progress, all that can be suggested is that it
fairly synchronises with that of sacred character.
This need be no matter for surprise, since
seeing that the Church never did other than
encourage the healthy outdoor life of the people,
it may be assumed that the monks, who were
responsible for the music in the Church, were as
willing as able, to help in the advancement
outside of it.
Research makes it certain that the first efforts
at dancing were accompanied by singing, and
only in its latest stages of advancement was it
strong enough to dispense with this, and rely
on the attraction of the rhythmic movements of
the dancer.
From this it will be reasonably inferred that
for countless centuries the two arts remained
in combination, before the incentive genius of
either proved too strong to longer brook the
artificial ties that had bound them together.
It is said that the Morris dance can be traced
to Saxon times, and that it is the one that has
22 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
remained with the least variation from its
original form. It must be admitted, however,
that the difficulty of absolutely proving these
assertions is almost insuperable, notwithstand-
ing the amount of research that has been
directed to the subject.
It can be traced definitely as far back as the
reign of Edward III., and in its most popular
form, is known as the may-pole dance.
It was particularly associated with May Day,
and was danced round a may-pole to a lively
and capering step.
Reminiscences of these old " round " dances
may be traced in games played by children
to-day, such as " Kiss in the ring," " Hunt the
slipper," " Here we go round the mulberry
bush," and others of a similar type.
The onlookers sang and marked the rhythm
by the clapping of hands.
With increasing skill in the making of
musical instruments, and increasing art in
playing on them, the dance gradually became
independent, as is manifestly shown by music
that is still extant, and while being evidently
intended for dancing, is quite unsingable. Once
then separated, the art naturally developed on
bolder and more original lines. As the human
voice was the first medium of expression in
music, all lines necessarily radiated from it.
Singing induced dancing ; dancing required a
more certain rhythmic force than the voice could
supply ; hence artificial aid by means of instru-
ments, the first, doubtless, being those of
percussion.
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 23
With the arrival of instruments of a more
advanced character and capable of more varied
expression, the progress of the art would natur-
ally proceed with greater rapidity, and on lines
displaying greater variety.
England, in those days, was avid of pleasure.
It is little to be wondered at.
We speak of the people, not of the nobles,
whose wealth enabled them to combat the
ordinary existing conditions.
Their day depended, in a very special sense,
on the sun, in a manner surprising to those
of us living in the twentieth century. It
began with the rising, and ended with the
setting.
Artificial light, except of the most primitive
description, was a luxury entirely out of their
reach.
If we, in modern times, remembering its fickle
climate, wonder at the popularity of the month
of May, and the adulation it received at the
hands of the early poets, a little consideration
will soon supply the cause. The long, weary
months of winter, with its darkness and cold,
had been endured ; the bitter winds of March
and April were over, and the long days and
tempered breezes came to the people with a
relief, the intensity of which is difficult to realise,
with all the means of comfort that modern
civilisation has placed at our disposal.
The ballad, as distinguished^from the song, is
peculiarly typical of the Northern races, and
was, up to the time of Queen Elizabeth, a
favourite feature of English music. As its
24 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
name implies,* it was danced as well as sang ;
later on the dance was dispensed with.
Its antiquity is unquestionable, but it is,
as is so often the case, impossible to assign
any definite date to it.
The early part of the eleventh century certainly
knew it in England, as the following stanza
proves.f It tells of a visit paid to the city by
King Canute : —
" Mery sungen the muneches binnen Ely.
Tha Cnut cbing reu therby :
Roweth, cnites, noer the land,
An here we thes muneches saeng."
This may be translated for the modern reader
as follows : —
" Merry sang the monks of Ely,
As King Canute rowed by.
Row knights, near the land
And hear we these monks sing."
The music is, unfortunately, lost.
In Roman times a popular feature of the
processions organised in honour of some newly-
arrived conquering soldier was a band of dancers
who, while gyrating in graceful movement, sang
poems, reciting his heroic deeds.
The praise of heroes was, from the earliest,
the dominant feature of the ballad, and,
although far removed, as it must be from any-
thing resembling even mediaeval methods, the
Greek and Roman form of it is most probably
the real source from which it is derived.
* The word ballad comes from Ballare, to dance,
t " Shakespeare in Music." I^ouis C. Elson. L. C. Page
& Co., Boston.
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 25
There are many kinds of ballad known to
England, but they are narrative, as a rule, such
as " Chevy Chase," and many others of a similar
style. Some are sad, some are gay ; none are
sentimental. One that can be seen in the
Sloane Collection in the British Museum, " Joly
Yankyn," is probably not much later than the
one previously quoted. The name will recall
Friar Tuck to the readers of Scott's " Ivanhoe."
A ballad that is believed to be of Eastern
origin is the following : —
" There were three ravens sat on a tree.
$
im
-1 — - ~
EEIZE^EE—
-0 — ■ 1-
m
There were three ra
$
-P=r-
vens
-0-
Downe-hay, downe-hay, downe-hay-downe. They were as black as
^
3=
r£r£
w
:t
they might be, With a downe, downe-hay, downe- hay-downe. Then
*EEE:
ifc^i
one of them said to bis mate, " Where shall we our
-t*=
=f=ac
^
=P
m
break-fast take?" With a downe, downe-hay, downe • hay-downe.
We are on safer ground, however, when we
come to such a one as " To-morrow the Fox
will come to Town," with the refrain, " I must
desire you neighbours all, to hallo the fox out
of the hall." This is altogether more English
26
MUSIC IN ENGLAND
in character, and is filled with the spirit of open
air life.
Other examples that seem inevitable of
quotation, are those that Shakespeare has made
immortal, by putting them into the mouth of
Ophelia, in the tragic scene from Hamlet.
The music that we quote here is that which,
there is every reason to believe, was sung at the
original production.
The style accords with Shakespeare's time.
Unfortunately when Drury I^ane Theatre
was burnt down in 1812, the music library was
destroyed. Happily, however, Mrs. Jordan,
the celebrated actress with whose fame the
part of Ophelia is for ever associated, was alive,
and was able to sing to Dr. Arnold, a famous
musician of the time, the melodies, as they
had been rendered in the theatre in her time,
and probably for centuries past.
i
HOW SHOULD I YOUR TRUE I£>VE KNOW ? '
Sadly- . A rrs
*
^E
T-
^#*
And how should I your true love know From ma-ny an - o - ther
-1-
±
:#*-
one?
if
by his coc - kle hat and staff,* And
-4-1 1 . , r-
P3T'
3-
W
■*
do, de«.
by his san - dal shoon. Twang, lang, dil
* Cockle hat and staff were distinguishing marks of a pilgrim.
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 27
" And wiu, he not come again ? "
Sadly.
r£E
m
And
will
he not come
gain?..
And
=3K=ft^qss=
£
353:
l=pq
1*-. ■*- '
will he not come a.
gain?
No, he is dead ; Gone
3E3
35=
--P
ESEE
=^
=#■
3=9:
to his death-bed. And he nev - er will come a - gain..
" St. Valentine's Day." *
I
Lively.
PES
-i-
©
r=P=nt
^
:=|-
Good mor - row, 'tis St. Val - en - tine's Day,
i
P» IS N I =3
fe^
\^j * 1 rjj^ z
All in the motn-ing be - time;.... And
a maid at
I
s*
-:.?• r
your win-dow, To be your val • en
In " Parthenia," a collection of pieces for the
virginals (an instrument that may be described
as the ancestor of the piano), which was pub-
lished in 1611, it is shewn to what a high point
of development the composition of dance music
had arrived.
The music was composed by the three most
celebrated English musicians then living,
* It may be mentioned that there are numerous varia-
tions of these, as of all traditional melodies.
28 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
William Byrd, John Bull, and Orlando Gibbons
— Tallis had been dead over twenty years.
The pieces are of the most stately kind, in
general, and would scarcely realise the modern
conception of dance music, but they are
beautiful specimens of the art of those days, and
cannot but command our admiration.
Of the more lively and frivolous dances the
one known as Trenchmore was the most popular.
"Be we young or old ... we must dance
Trenchmore over table, chairs and stools."*
Selden, in his "Table Talk," " Then all the
company dances, lord and groom, lady and
kitchen maid, no distinction."
The more one comes to learn of life in the
England of those days, the. more one becomes
convinced that, taken as a whole, life was both
happy and joyous. No less an authority than
Professor Thorold Rogers, after profound
research into the social conditions of the Middle
Ages, says they show that a state of happiness
and content prevailed, f
Dancing was advised, too, as "a goodly
regimen against the fever pestilence."
The fact that there is comparatively little of
old-time music extant is due to the late invention
of music printing and the slow progress of
musical notation. " Parthenia " was, as the
title page tells, the first music for the virginals
ever printed, and yet appeared as late as 1611.
From that time, naturally, records of every-
thing written of any importance, exist.
* Burton : " Anatomy of Melancholy," 1621.
t William ChappelTs " Music of the Olden Time."
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 29
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the typical
life of the England of old, is shown at its best,
and in its most characteristic state of develop-
ment.
Soon afterwards, foreign influence, aided by a
foreign Court, added to the depressing element of
Puritanism, was to shake to its foundations this
character and to mould it into that type which
for centuries it retained.
The Wars of the Roses had long been over, and
economic conditions greatly modified and im-
proved. The genius of the people seemed
to burst out as if relieved from intolerable
repression.
The absence of the unceasing scares and
horrors of war gave them the opportunity that
had so long been denied.
To think that such men as Shakespeare,
Bacon, Burleigh, Drake, Raleigh, Tallis, Byrd,
and Orlando Gibbons were living at the same
time, and may have often passed each other
in the streets of I/jndon !
There can be little doubt that the reign of
Queen Elizabeth was the happiest the people
had ever experienced, and it may be truly said
that the Queen was the very incarnation of the
spirit of the age.
Her love of pageantry and display was an
unfailing source of joy to them, all the more,
since they were frequently called upon to assist
at many of the great functions that were
organised in her honour by the great nobles.
Her frequent progresses through the country
were occasions, not only of gratification
30 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
to herself, but excitement to them, relieving
as they did the monotony of toil and the sense
of isolation incidental to country communities
in those days of difficult communications. The
Reformation had not been sufficiently long in
progress to affect the spirit of the people. It
had not really reached them. If England ever
deserved the appellation of " merrie," those were
the days.
The sports were, if rough and coarse, joyous
and frank-
To the Englishman of to-day their amuse-
ments may seem childish enough, but education
was then, it must be remembered, entirely
confined to the few, and the amenities of life,
such as we know, were practically absent. A
favourite feature was a procession of musicians
and dancers dressed to represent such popular
characters as Robin Hood and Friar Tuck, and
bedecked with bells on elbow and knee that
jingled as they danced.
The badinage that passed between the per-
formers and onlookers was of a kind, it must
be confessed, that would fall strangely on the
ear at the present day, but still, there is every
evidence that although the manners were rough
and the language guileless of restraint, the
heart of the people was sound at the core, and
the deep-seated sense of religion in the Anglo-
Saston race was as present then as at any time
in its history. The exuberant spirit is ever
evidenced by the wealth of drinking songs.
These seem to have been as much in vogue in
those days as the monotonous frequency of
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 31
love songs, from which we suffer, is in
these.
Shakespeare makes good-humoured fun of
the propensity in " Twelfth Night : or What
you Will." In the famous drinking scene be-
tween Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek
he satirises their foibles, it is true, but in the
most delightful and even sympathetic manner,
and certainly gives Sir Toby a telling rejoinder
to the upbraiding of the sober-minded Malvolio,
who had come with the intention of putting an
end to the carousal : " Dost thou think that
because thou art virtuous, there shall be no
more cakes and ale ? "
Music was everywhere apparent. Wherever
the monarch went, it was made a special
feature at all functions. Whatever entertain-
ments were devised by her courtiers, it ever
had a principal place. Of the most gorgeous
and notorious of them, the one given by the
Earl of Iyeicester in her honour at Kenilworth
Castle takes the first rank. Bishop Creighton,
in his " I/ife of Queen Elizabeth," gives so
vivid a description of it that, as one reads,
the imagination seems, as it were, to become
vitalised.
The Queen especially enjoyed these pageants,
as they seemed to symbolise at once the greatness
of her position and her personal dignity.
Those who entertained her, well knew both her
haughty Tudor temper and intense femininity.
To evade the one and satisfy the cravings of the
other was the end ever held in view.
Hence, all kinds of contrivances were devised
32 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
to glorify her person in allegory. In one, Triton
is represented as rising from the water and
imploring her to deliver an enchanted lady from
the wiles of a cruel knight; upon which the
lady straightway appears accompanied by a
band of nymphs, Proteus following, riding on a
dolphin. Suddenly, from the heart of the
dolphin springs a choir of ocean gods, who sing
the praises of the beautiful and all-powerful
Queen !
Now Elizabeth was neither beautiful in
person or character, but she possessed the very
genius of sovereignty.
The imperious Tudor temper to which she
constantly yielded, certainly detracted from
her womanly qualities, but what she lacked as
woman, it is only just to say, she more than
made up for as Queen.
On this occasion, besides the great pageant,
rustic sports of every kind, including bull
baiting, were indulged in, and " a play was
acted by the men of Coventry."
That she shared her people's love of dancing
is again shewn by the following : " We are in
frolic here at Court," writes l^ord Worcester in
1602, " much dancing of country dances in the
Privy Chamber before the Queen's Majesty,
Who is exceedingly pleased therewith."
In fact, her sympathy with the amusements
of the people, and her encouragement of every
healthy enjoyment, are certainly great factors
in the hold her -memory has retained in the
minds of the English race.
There are other reasons, of course, of graver
Queen Elizabeth.
Face 32
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 33
import, but they do not enter into our immediate
consideration.
All the Tudor monarchs were essentially
musical, as being Welsh they well might be.
Henry VIII. was a composer of both sacred and
secular music. I well remember that the first
of an old volume of anthems in the library of
Salisbury Cathedral was by no less a personage
than that monarch himself. It was not, how-
ever, so far as my experience went, ever sung.
Queen Elizabeth was also an accomplished
musician and an expert performer on the vir-
ginals, as the following quotation goes to prove.
Its interest is peculiarly striking as it shows yet
another side of the character of this many-sided,
wonderful woman. It is from the memoirs
of Sir James Melvil, at the time Scottish
Ambassador : —
" The same day after dinner, my Lord of
Hunsden drew me up to a quiet gallery that I
might hear some music (but he said he durst not
avow it), where I might hear the Queen play
upon the virginals. After I had harkened
awhile I took by the tapestry that hung by the
door of the chamber, and seeing her back was
toward the door, I entered within the chamber
and stood a pretty space, hearing her play
excellently well ; but she left off immediately
so soon as she turned her about and saw me.
She appeared to be surprised to see me, and
came forward, seeming to strike me with her
hand, alleging she was not used to play before
men, but when she was solitary, to shun melan-
choly. She asked me how I came there ? I
D
34 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
answered, as I was walking with my I^ord
Hunsden, as we passed by the chamber door,
I heard such a melody as ravished me, whereby
I was drawn in ere I knew how ; excusing my
fault of homeliness as being brought up in the
Court of France, where such freedom was
allowed ; declaring myself willing to endure
what kind of punishment her Majesty should be
pleased to inflict upon me for so great offence.
Then she sate down low upon a cushion, and I
upon my knees by her ; but with her own hand
she gave me a cushion to lay under my knee ;
which at first I refused, but she compelled me to
take it. She enquired whether my Queen or
she played best. In that I found myself
obliged to give her the praise."
Perhaps the most important form of musical
and dramatic art that came into prominence
during the Tudor period was the masque.
It was a combination of the various arts of
music, acting, dancing and mimicry. Simple and
unpretentious in its primitive form, it became
subsequently, an entertainment of the most
elaborate and gorgeous kind, and one that was
conspicuously encouraged and patronised by
Royalty. It attained to the highest pitch of
artistic splendour and efficiency in the reign
of James I.
From nearly every point of view it may be
reasonably described as the forerunner of modern
opera.
Its origin, like all that has to do with music
in England, is obscure and dates back to
centuries of which we have little or no record.
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 35
In all probability it was the outcome of the
early performances encouraged by the Church,
of representations of biblical subjects, to which
we refer in another chapter.
By the time of Henry VIII. it had become as
popular a feature in the life of the people as
cricket or football is to-day.
Not only did the simple people take part
in the performances, but the principal characters
were frequently performed by members of the
nobility and of the Court, Royalty itself not
having altogether resisted their fascination.
The explanation of the vogue to which they
attained in the reign of James I. is probably
that the monarch was much less in touch
generally with art, and particularly that akin
to the Shakespearean drama, than was his more
enlightened and intellectual predecessor. In
fact, the drama proper was altogether beyond
his region of intelligence, and since the masque,
while making sufficient appeal to the senses,
made less demand on his mental capacity, it
suited him and enjoyed his particular favour.
His tastes were, it must be said, so far as
appertaining to art, of a peculiarly low order.
Ben Jonson, who supplied the literary part
of the most famous of these plays, was, for a
man of his genius and learning, extraordinarily
coarse in his language even for those days,
and his comedy, " Bartholomew Fair," which
was about the worst in this respect that even he
perpetrated, was King James' special favourite.
Of music the King knew little and cared less,
and it had come, probably in consequence, to
36 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
play a secondary or even lower part in the
productions of this time. In proportion as
they increased in splendour they lost in artistic
value, and, similarly as they came to be the
exclusive amusement of the wealthy, so they
lost their hold on the people.
In the year 1616 the splendour and extrava-
gance of these displays culminated in the
representation of the masque entitled, " The
Golden Age Restored." It was played by the
ladies and gentlemen of the Court. George
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, so pleasing his
Majesty that the latter cried out in ecstasy,
" By my soul, mon, thou hast done it full weel."
The King is said to have contributed £1000 on
the occasion. There is little need for obvious
comment on this fact.
It is worthy of remark that for some years
before this, most of the performances of which
there is any record were given at Whitehall,
or in such buildings as the Inns of Court. They
had grown out of the simplicity characterising
primitive popular spectacles, and had become
rather a medium for the idle pastimes of the
rich.
The high tide of joyousness and gaiety in the
life of the people had been reached in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth, and was fast receding.
The spirit of the Reformation was getting hold
of them and, perhaps, in its most fanatical
aspect.
However, the masque had served its purpose.
It had been in earlier days a source of harmless
vent to the exuberant spirit of the people, and
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 37
it was later to become the source of inspiration
from which, the primitive opera, as represented
by PurcelTs " Dido and ^neas," drew breath.
Of secular music, demanding more skill in
invention and more proficiency in performance
than the ballad, were the madrigal, catch,
round, glee, and similar forms of expression.
Being concerted pieces demanding the simul-
taneous singing of various parts, a technical
training was, of course, necessary to enable one
to join in them.
Their great popularity in all classes of society
is sufficient proof, however, of the general
training in the art that then existed. In fact,
it was considered an essential thing in a gentle-
man's education, and the ability to take part
in a " catch " or " round " was as natural to
him in those days as it is to shoot or play cricket
in these.
We cannot give the reader a better means to
realise this than by quoting Shakespeare again,
in whose words every feature in that wonderful
age is held up to the mirror.
In "Twelfth Night" the following will be
found : —
Sir Toby : Shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch, that
will draw three souls out of one weaver* ? Shall we do
that?
* " That will draw three souls out of one weaver " is a
line of peculiar interest.
Although it shows a distinct lack of reverence, it is quite
typical of the spirit of the time. The " weavers " were
mostly Calvinist refugees settled on the East Coast, whose
austere manners and mode of life made them a constant
38 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
" Sir Andrew : An you love me, let's do it : I am a
dog at a catch. .
" Clown : By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.
" Sir Andrew : Most certain : let our catch be ' Thou
knave.'
" Clown : ' Hold thy peace, thou knave,' knight ?
I shall be constrained in't to call thee knave, knight.
" Sir Andrew : Tis not the first time I have constrain'd
one to call me knave. Begin, fool ; it begins, ' Hold thy
peace.'
" Clown : I shall never begin, if I hold my peace.
" Sir Andrew : Good i' faith ! Come, begin."
(They sing a catch.)
The " catch " was a melody started by one
singer and followed by another at an interval
of one or more bars, singing identical notes, who
would be succeeded by yet another in a similar
manner. It depended upon the dexterity with
which the performers would catch up their notes
at the right moment as to whether harmony or
chaos resulted.
It was a popular form of amusement, but we
source of ridicule to the people among whom they had
taken shelter.
The imperious will of the Tudor monarchs had, hitherto,
prevented the dissemination of Calvinism in England, and
so, to the boisterous, happy-go-lucky temperament of the
Elizabethan Englishman, the ostentation of religious
phraseology, added, probably, to their quaint pronunciation
of the language, made them at once a butt of scorn and
contempt.
The expression used, too, by the clown " By'r lady "
shows that Protestantism had as yet made little inroad on
the life of the people.
It is worthy of note that it was from this part of England
sailed the first batch of emigrants to the new world in the
" Mayflower," now immortalised in history.
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 39
are hardly surprised when Malvolio appears on
the scene and addresses the singers thus : —
" My masters, are you mad ? or what are you ? Have
you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like
tinkers at this time of night ? Do you make an ale-house
of my lady's house, that ye squeak out your cozier' s
catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice ? Is
there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you ? "
To all of which Sir Toby, treating it as an
aspersion on his skill in music, replies, " We did
keep time, sir, in our catches."
The madrigal was an altogether more serious
form of art, and, except for the words, might be
identified with the best specimens of ecclesias-
tical music. It was polyphonic in treatment,
and generally grave in character. Indeed, to
judge by some of the most celebrated examples,
it seems almost savouring of jest to describe
it as secular.
Of English composers, perhaps those who
most excelled in this class of composition were
Byrd, Dowland, and Orlando Gibbons. The
most splendid example being that entitled, " The
Silver Swan," by the last-named.
The glee, although less serious in character,
as its name implies, was a truly artistic type
of concerted music, and there are numerous
specimens of early date of great beauty and
contrapuntal skill, but they are characterised
by comparative simplicity.
The transition from one to the other would
seem natural, seeing the extreme elaboration
that rendered the madrigal difficult of inter-
pretation to any but highly-skilled singers.
40 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
The beautiful " Since First I Saw your Face,"
by Thomas Ford, can hardly be described by
either title, for while it is removed in tone from
the glee it lacks the atmosphere of the schools
that the madrigal suggests. The glee, as it is
popularly known to-day, is of a later date, and
came to perfection about the middle of the
eighteenth century.
It is a remarkable fact that perhaps the most
beautiful and certainly one of the most skilfully
written specimens of mediaeval music, is also
one of the most ancient. The date of it must
be purely conjectural, although the scholar may
to some extent be guided by the words as to the
actual century of its origin.
The opening words, " Sumer is icumen in,"
are probably familiar to most readers, since they
are ever in evidence when the question of old
English music is under consideration. Indeed,
it would take many volumes to record what has
been written about this extraordinary com-
position.
From whatever point of view it is judged it
commands admiration and wonder.
It demonstrates that in the art of music
England was then not only abreast of foreign
nations, but probably in advance of them.
It shows that polyphonic writing must have
reached to a high point of development even
so far back as the thirteenth century, and there
is every reason to believe, even long before then.
It seems to me to be only a very obvious
deduction. Just as there must have been many
great poets before Homer, so this work must
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 41
be the fortunate survivor of a long-lost school
that, unhappily for us, had no enduring medium
for transmission of its genius to later ages.
It exhibits, apart from the skill that character-
ised ancient ecclesiastical music, from which it
indubitably sprang, a rare genius in interpreting
the spirit and feeling of the words. In this
respect it may be said to have anticipated
centuries to come. With every appreciation,
sincere and even reverend, of the ancient music
of the Church, it must be acknowledged that
in spirit it was rigid, severe and formal. In
other words, it appealed to the religious and
intellectual sense rather than that of beauty.
" Sumer is icumen in," on the contrary, seems
to be the work of one who is able to leap over
the centuries and speak in the tones of ages
unborn, to be, in fact, a forerunner, a teacher
of the ages then in the womb of Time.
It has, in perfection, three great qualities of
the highest art — perfect skill in execution, com-
manding appeal to the purest emotions, and the
power to leave the mind in a state of ecstatic
rest or emotional contentment that makes one
oblivious of the world while listening or watching.
It was the outcome of an age of great religious
enthusiasm. The monks had great dreams, and
with them came the energy that inspired their
brains to the utmost fulfilment.
The dream that led to the Crusades is the one
that has most appealed to the imagination of
the world ; but it was only one of many.
" Sumer is icumen in " was written in a form
that seems to have especially appealed to those
42
MUSIC IN ENGLAND
early composers, for the canon* was a constant
medium of musical expression in mediaeval
times.
That the reader may the more readily under-
stand, I quote here a specimen that is at once
beautiful and familiar to all, and is known as
the " Morning Hymn." Its simplicity will
make it intelligible to the least technically
instructed of musical readers : —
i
*5
*
-pj a
Jdz
E^s
£=t
£*2E=
=p:
^ar
=pc=p:
i=t
i
^=t
^—=t=i
ri rJ
ZJ&l
J& —.CL
^g
=jo:
q=c
1 1
1
« ri
zct
p p
?2=
:p=
I
t=t
=&
S
It will be observed that the last four notes
in the treble clef indicate the repetition of the
melody, which can continue indefinitely as here
represented.
* A canon is a form of composition in which a melody is
started by one voice and followed by another, one or more
bars later (or even less) in strict imitation of it.
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 43
When we come to the consideration of instru-
mental music of olden times, we have little to
guide us in the formation of any clear conception
of its value or importance.
It is evident, however, that up to the time
of Purcell or that immediately preceding it,
the state of development was altogether inferior
to that of vocal music.
For many centuries, except as regards its use
in the Church, it occupied the humble position
of handmaiden to the sister art of dancing.
Such of it as still exists is, practically, all
written in dance measure. The dances were,
it is true, in varied forms and rhythms. Some
were stately and even serious in character, and
offered the composer an opportunity to display
his skill in a more thankful task than in furnish-
ing accompaniments to the lighter and more
frivolous ones.
Beautiful specimens of these are found in the
compositions of William Byrd, John Ball, Or-
lando Gibbons, and others of the same period ;
they were mostly written for the virginals.
To those living in this age of stupendous
achievement in the art, the comparative sim-
plicity and ineffectiveness of instrumentation
may well seem strange, seeing to what a point of
splendour vocal music had attained.
The explanation is, I think, to be found in the
defective nature of the instrument on which
the composer had to rely to provide the sounds
that his consciousness urged him to produce.
The violin had yet to be brought to perfection
through the genius of a Stradivarius, and time
44 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
was needed to show its full capacities in the
hands of a Paganini.
The wind instruments, too, of the modern
orchestra are of incomparable possibilities to
those in use in the sixteenth century.
However, with the improvement and perfect-
ing in their manufacture came a decided step
towards a higher and independent form of art,
and that this advance was not slowly taken
advantage of is shown in the most extraordinary
way in the works of Purcell.
Again, the very imperfect forms of musical
notation must have always proved a stumbling-
block to those early musicians. Even to-day,
with its advanced methods, the act of putting
on paper a modern orchestral composition is
a work of enormous labour. The reader will
understand this, when I say that music which
takes but merely a few minutes in performance
may easily take the composer as many hours to
translate on to the pages of his score.
That this obstacle to musical progress was
signally true as applied to organ music, I am
convinced.
An organ is known to have been used in a
French cathedral as early as the sixth century.
Primitive in its structure as it must have
been, it probably had sufficient pipes to aid the
congregation in the singing of the plain-song.
As time advanced, the monks, ever restless
in their desire to add glory to the Church, made
unceasing efforts to improve this great adjunct
to her service, and by the fifteenth century an
instrument had been constructed that was
BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION 45
secure in the promise of untold possibilities, and
had already become a verification of their early-
dreams.
The sixteenth century saw the organ come
into general use, and in the early days of the
seventeenth it arrived at maturity. The
immense advance in the structural appliances in
modern times are, it would seem, simply scientific
application to ancient ideas.
One cannot help thinking how many must
have been the inspired strains that rang through
cathedral aisles in those early days as the
hands of the monks wandered over the organ
keys, the double incentives of religious fervour
and love of art urging them on to higher achieve-
ment : a strange and yet fascinating figure
of saint and artist.
By the time of Purcell instrumental music
had advanced beyond the dance measure,
and arrived at a state of independence. It
could stand by itself without the aid of singer
or dancer to sustain it. The process of emerging
from the parasitic stage' of clinging to these arts
for sustenance was completed, and it had
struck its roots so deep down that future ages
might well, with wondering amazement at its
magnificent growth, find it difficult to grasp
the idea of its humble origin. The compositions
left, in this kind, by Purcell, such as the fan-
tasias, sonatas, incidental music to plays,
harpischord and organ music, indicate only, it
is true, the first offshoots of the wonderful tree
that was destined to so fascinate the world,
but they gave birth to many noble branches
46 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
that helped to invigorate the initial life in its
struggles for existence, and were the most
prolific of the tendrils that make for healthy
growth.
In conjunction with his sacred music, these
amply justify the claim made for Purcell that
he was, from whatever point of view he may
be judged, the greatest of all English composers.
CHAPTER III
EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS
THOMAS TALUS (OR TALLYS)
Most of the pre-Refonnation music destroyed — Tallis, the oldest
English musician of which anything certain is known — Organist
of Waltham Abbey at time of the suppression of the monas-
teries — Date of his birth unknown — Favourite of King Henry
VIII. and Queen Elizabeth — State of difficulty and danger in
intervening reigns — Chaotic state of things in the Church —
Queen Elizabeth's policy — View of it taken by the present Dean
of St. Paul's Cathedral — Greatness of Tallis as a composer —
His death.
WE are, unfortunately, not able to write of the
earliest English composers, as much of their
work (and with their work their very names)
perished at the time of the destruction of the
monasteries by King Henry VIII. in 1540, and
what was left of it was destroyed by fire during
the sacking of the cathedrals by the Puritans
in the Commonwealth period. We are, then,
obliged to begin with the early English com-
posers, who date no further back than the
sixteenth century and the Reformation.
In dealing with these and their music, it is
impossible to think without emotion of the
terrible sacrifice of treasures of art caused by
the veritable holocaust made of them by the
Puritans, for, of the work of centuries, there is,
practically, little or no trace left. What we do
47
48 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
know of the works of those composers who lived
before and during the early Reformation period,
shews that ecclesiastical music had arrived at
a point of great splendour, and if Tallis may be
considered as the descendant of a great school
of composers, which he undoubtedly was, it can
help us to realize the extent of our loss.
He was, fortunately, able to protect his own
work, or, doubtless, that would have perished
with the rest, since all of his early music (and
some of the noblest specimens) was written for
the monastery at Waltham Abbey.
Tallis stands out pre-eminent among the
early Church composers, and, indeed, has been
generally called the father of English music.
The date of his birth is not known, but as he
was organist and composer to an important
monastery at the time of its dissolution in 1540,
it is not only evident that he must have been
born early in the century, but that his genius
was decidedly precocious. Some authorities give
the date as about 1529 ; Grove's Dictionary,
on the other hand, as supposedly in the second
decade of the century : this seems more
probable, as the former would have found him
holding such a conspicuous appointment at the
age of eleven. It is a fact of much significance
that he was a prominent composer before the
Reformation, and thus a descendant of the
ancient school of English Church music, pure
and unalloyed.
His earliest compositions were, of course,
written to I^atin words, and the publication of
his motets in that language in 1575, more than
EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS 49
thirty years after its suppression, suggests that
the call of his early training and associations
was greater than he could resist, for it must be
borne in mind that those were days of fierce
bigotry, and many had been undone for acts
much less provocative of " suspicion."
Indeed, of all the immediate changes in the
Church services effected under Henry VIII.,
perhaps the most important, after those assert-
ing severance from Rome, was the substitution
of English in place of Latin in their administra-
tion, and on no point were the reformers more
jealous, since it implied complete freedom from
outside interference and, above all, that of the
Pope.
That Tallis escaped trouble on this occasion
shews that he was a decidedly fortunate, or
as some unkind critics suggest, a decidedly
adroit being. They even go to the length of
comparing him to the " Vicar of Bray," because
of the continuity of his employment in the
Church during four reigns, in which such diverg-
ing views were inculcated and, outwardly at least,
demanded of acceptance. Thus Henry VIII.,
who broke the Roman connection, but generally
upheld its doctrines; Edward VI., who repudi-
ated them ; Mary, who not only enforced them,
but restored, as far as she was able, the status
quo before the act of separation from Rome;
and Elizabeth, who reverted, practically, to the
position as it was at the death of her father,
additional alterations in the liturgy excepted.
The " Vicar of Bray " theory seems to me
to be quite easy of demolition. With regard
50 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
to King Henry and Queen Elizabeth, they were,
both, skilled musicians and perfectly capable
to appreciate the genius of Tallis in its highest
aspects, and were, therefore, little likely to rid
the Church of so brilliant an ornament.
In the intervening reigns, it seems only natural
to suppose that many who still adhered to their
Catholic principles, while bowing to the in-
evitable for the time being, and, knowing the
precarious state of the health of the young
Prince, foresaw the probable accession of Queen
Mary and the consequent restoration of the
ancient Church. Of these, Tallis may have
been one.
On the actual accession their hopes seemed
justified to the fullest extent, and only the fact
of the Queen proving childless rendered them
futile.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to say with
any approach to exactitude what were, pre-
cisely, the immediate changes in the forms of
the Church services insisted on at the moment of
King Henry's rebellion against Papal supremacy.
It is, however, only natural to assume that
all reference to that supremacy would be
eliminated, and that the use of the English
language would be insisted upon, so as to mark,
once and for all time, the absolutely irrevocable
nature of the act.
The state of affairs in the Church must have
been absolutely chaotic, what with those who,
while remaining Catholic in principle, were
willing to accept such changes as were not
inconsistent with their faith, and others who
EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS 51
were anti-Catholic by conviction and desirous
of banishing all traces of the past, so far as it
might be possible.
It was to these that the young King extended
his sympathy and help, on his accession to the
throne.
His death after a short reign and the con-
sequent accession of Queen Mary, simply made
" confusion worse confounded." Although
strenuous in her methods, she had not time to
achieve what she had at heart, and her death
put an end for ever to the hopes of the extreme
Catholic party. However much had been
carried out that Queen Elizabeth at once
settled herself to undo, and thus prolonged,
perhaps inevitably, the crisis through which
the Church was passing.
It is not difficult to imagine the delicate
position in which musicians found themselves
at various times during this crucial period. Let
me quote Mr. Myles B. Foster in his interesting
book, " Anthems and Anthem Composers " * :
" Can we not picture the puzzled state of these
poor composers, never knowing whether, by
setting their music to the new English words,
they would be burned alive, or, by using the old
Iyatin ones, they would be hanged ! "
With the accession of Queen Elizabeth these
critical times may be said to have become a
thing of the past — at least for the musician.
The policy of the wonderful Queen was based
on compromise, by which she endeavoured to
so broaden the lines of the Church as to make it
* Novello & Co.
52 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
possible for the two factions to remain within
its boundaries. So far as the extremists on
either side are concerned, the idea was doomed
to failure, but while she lived she pursued
the policy with characteristic pertinacity, and
unenviable was the fate of the too-reforming
Bishop who encountered her displeasure. The
state of the Church of England to-day seems, at
once, a tribute to her genius and foresight, for
while the trend of feeling and opinion certainly
continued to move in the direction of Protes-
tantism, the opposing principles never became
quite extinct.*
It was, undoubtedly, under circumstances of
great uncertainty that Tallis was called upon to
write music for a reformed liturgy that was at
once novel and, probably, seeing his early
training, distasteful to him. How he met the
emergency is evident to-day, for bis " Preces
and Responses " not only remain in use, but are a
priceless possession of the English Church. On
the greatness of Tallis as a composer it is needless
* Since the above was written I read in the Evening
News, November 24, 1911, the following words from a
lecture delivered by the Dean of St. Paul's :
" In its present state " (the Church of England) " it was
the product of a political compromise, which was so framed
as to include Catholics who would renounce the Pope, and
Puritans who were not anarchistic on principle. It was
officially Protestant and disliked the name. Ever since the
Reformation the reformed churches had been in a state of
uncertainty, like a Dotheboys Hall after it had expelled
its Squeers, full of earnestness and deep conviction, but
undecided as to what kind of church they wanted, how it
ought to be governed, what the conditions of membership
ought to be and where the seat of authority should reside."
EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS 53
to insist, for it has been universally acknow-
ledged. His contrapuntal skill was amazing,
his fertility and orginality equally so, and every-
thing he wrote bears the impress of a nobility
of mind difficult of description. That he
remained in high favour with the Queen until
his death, is shewn by the grants of land and
other proofs of her regard that she bestowed
on him. A complete list of his compositions
(so far as can be known) is given in Grove's
"Dictionary of Music and Musicians," and is
a striking proof of his immense activity.
To secular music he seems to have been quite
indifferent, for, to all appearances, he wrote
little or none.
He died in 1585 when, probably, about
seventy years of age, and was buried in the parish
church of Greenwich. We have other of the
early English musicians to deal with, but none,
I think, of such unique interest, as he was the
first of whom we have any reliable record, the
works of his predecessors having been literally
burnt out of existence.
WILLIAM BYKD
Date of Byrd's birth unknown — Pupil of Tallis — Strict Catholic,
yet employed in the English Church — Explanation — Queen
Elizabeth's protection — Organist of Lincoln Cathedral — Member
of the Chapel Royal — Granted sole privilege of publishing music
in conjunction with Tallis — Greatness as composer, both sacred
F and secular music — HisJWsses — His character — His death.
The date of the birth of this composer is quite
unknown. Many speculations have been made
on the subject, but they are purely conjectural.
54 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
It seems certain, however, that he was bom late in
the first half of the sixteenth century, and thus
at the time of the highest development of the
ancient English ecclesiastical school of music.
He had the inestimable privilege of being a pupil
of Tallis, and remained his friend and colleague
until the death of the latter dissolved the connec-
tion in 1585.
Unlike most of his contemporaries, he sturdily
refused to change his religious views at the
capricious behests of any monarch, and, strange
to say, he does not seem to have suffered for
his constancy materially, for he continued in
official employment and the favour of Elizabeth
as long as the Queen lived.
This fact has often evoked expression of
astonishment, and has been cited as a proof, not
only of the unstable position in the Church itself,
but of instability in the character of its rulers.
It seems to me to be simply one more proof
of the extraordinary tenacity with which Queen
Elizabeth held to her policy of trusting to the
influence of time to gradually moderate opposing
views, and ultimately cement them in one creed
which should embody the essential beliefs of
both.
In any case, two things are known, that his
services were retained, and that he adhered to
the use of I,atin for his sacred music. This, of
course, means that either none of his music was
sung in the Church, or that the occasional use
of Ivatin for singing was permitted. The latter,
I think, extremely probable, at least in the early
years of the Reformation. He was appointed
EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS 55
organist of Iyincoln Cathedral in 1563, and in
1569 became a member of the Chapel Royal.
In 1575 he published, in conjunction with Tallis,
a collection of motets, which was dedicated to
the Queen. It may be noted that it was printed
by one Vautrollier, although the two composers
had recently acquired the right of exclusively
printing music for twenty-one years. It may
be assumed that they sub-let the privilege, for
it is known that after the death of Tallis, Byrd
became sole possessor of the monopoly. This
collection was entitled " Cantiones, quae ab
argumento sacrse vocantar, quinque et sex
partum." Unlike Tallis, he did not confine his
energies to sacred music, but wrote much for
the virginals, as well as some beautiful madrigals.
In 1591 was issued his " I4ber secundus
Sacrarum Cantionum."
By this time Byrd was universally recognised
as the greatest English musician of his time, and
his fame had spread to the Continent. The death
of Tallis had left him absolutely without a rival.
There is plenty of evidence proving Queen
Elizabeth's regard for him. In fact, it was
from a pecuniary point of view, somewhat
embarrassing to him, as it must be admitted that
the great Queen was exacting of service, and
somewhat parsimonious in the paying for it.
The many references to him made by contem-
porary writers, such as " homo memorabilis,"
" the most celebrated musician of the English
nation," and " one of the most famous musicians
that ever were in this land," all go to shew that
his name was held in the highest esteem.
56 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
The year 1607 witnessed the production of the
" Gradualia " ; this contained music for the
complete ecclesiastical year of the Catholic
Church. A striking example of his fearlessness !
The work by which he is best known to the
general public to-day is the ever popular " Non
nobis Domine," which, although written in the
severe style of canon form, is at once beautiful
and touching in its extraordinary expression of
reverence. The highest achievements of William
Byrd were the Masses in three, four and five
parts.
In these works his genius is displayed to its
fullest extent and in its most splendid guise.
The period is declared by so great an authority
as W. S. Rockstro (Grove's Dictionary) to be
the greatest in the history of Mass music, and
Byrd's Mass in five parts is one of the most
splendid that were written during that memor-
able time.
In personal character William Byrd was a de-
cidedly interesting man. At a time when what
may be termed opportunism was the evident
thing that made for success, he refused to be
influenced by it, and steadfastly declined to
abate by jot or tittle his allegiance to the
Catholic Church in its integrity, and it is an
extraordinary proof of the attraction of his force-
ful character that, notwithstanding this fact,
so menacing to his personal safety, he not only
retained the Queen's favour during her lifetime,
but seems to have held a firm grip on all the
benefactions she bestowed on him up to the day
of his death.
EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS 57
That this was not easy to accomplish is shown
by the legal actions in which he became involved,
the principal one being Shelley v. Byrd, upon
whose issue depended his retention of Stondon
Place, a property granted to him by Elizabeth.
It continued for some years, and would seem
to have ended in a form of compromise. It is
not without interest that the plaintiff in the
case was an ancestress of no less a personage
than the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. However,
Byrd remained in possession, and there is reason
to believe that he died there and was buried
in the Parish Church, although there are no
records to bear out the supposition. His death
took place in 1623, when he must have been at
an advanced age.
ORLANDO GIBBONS
Orlando Gibbons, one of a large family of musicians — Born in a time
of transition from rigidity of ancient ecclesiastical music — Instru-
mentation coming into existence — Protest by Byrd — Contrast
of the two composers — The age one in which freedom of thought
springing up in all directions — Gibbons eager to take advantage
of it — The result of the substitution of English for Latin in the
Church — His eminence as writer of secular music — His death.
The youngest son in a family of musicians,
Orlando Gibbons is a particularly interesting
subject for study, not only on account of his
genius, but for the fact that he became the most
distinguished living composer at a time that was,
essentially, one of transition. The old order was
giving place to the new.
The rigid severity of the ancient Catholic
Church music was gradually yielding to the
attractions of greater warmth of feeling, added
58 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
grace of melody and more freedom in expression.
Instrumental music was lifting its head, and
instruments other than the organ, the ever
accepted aid to the rites of the Church, were
invading the sacred precincts. Now, there are
always men who are constitutionally averse to
change, and of these was the great, but not too
amiable, Mr. William Byrd, We can, therefore,
quite appreciate his feelings on this particular
innovation and understand the frame of mind
in which he writes, in a preface to his " Songs of
Sadness," thus : " There is no music of instru-
ments whatever to be compared to the voyces
of men, when they are good, well-sorted and
ordered."
Orlando Gibbons was the impersonator of the
new spirit ; William Byrd was the jealous
guardian of the old. One can, then, easily
imagine the indignation with which such innova-
tions would be met, and the accumulated wrath
that mUst have burnt at his heart as he saw the
repeated and successful attacks on all that he
regarded as sacred. Up to this time all musical
instruments, with the exception of the organ,
had been associated with dancing and the out-
door amusements of the common people, and
since many of these were of a kind far removed
from religious exercise, it is only rational to
suppose that such a man as Byrd would view
with repugnance their introduction into the
Church's service. The fact, too, must be taken
into consideration that at the time of this parti-
cular innovation he was fairly advanced in
years, and, therefore, with a disposition less
EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS 59
adaptable than that of the young and ardent
musician who was destined to leave behind him
an imperishable name in the hierarchy of the
world's greatest musicians.
Born about forty years after the birth of Byrd,
Orlando Gibbons yet but survived him by two,
being one of that long list of composers who
have died young and whose premature death has
robbed the world of who can tell how many
masterpieces ! His music was as distinct an
advance on that of Byrd, as Byrd's was on that
of Tallis.
The age was one in which the bonds, by which
intellectual effort had been tethered, were being
rapidly loosed or broken, and it is only natural
that a young and greatly gifted man like Orlando
Gibbons would revel in the sense of freedom
from which the older one would shrink with
something akin to horror.
He was thus fortunate to be born in such an
era — an era made for ever memorable by the
works of two of the greatest geniuses the world
has possessed, William Shakespeare and Francis
Bacon — and endowed with faculties that enabled
him to grasp the opportunities it held out to him.
The substitution of English for I^atin in the
Church was, in itself, an event of striking
importance to the composer, but, above all, the
translation of the Bible into the vulgar tongue
placed at his disposition the sources of limitless
inspiration.
That Orlando Gibbons was quick to take
advantage of the golden opportunity is proved
by the list of superb anthems he bequeathed to
60 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
the English Church. It includes such glorious
examples as those entitled " Hosanna," " O
clap your hands " and " This is the record of
John." Of other forms of sacred music, the
service in the key of F is perhaps his most
notable achievement.
He was also eminent as a composer of secu-
lar music, and was equalled by few and excelled
by none as a writer of madrigals. His music
for the viols and virginals not only emphasises
the scope of his genius, but marks a veritable
epoch in the history of instrumental music.
So far did his originality carry him, that some
of it might even be attributed to Bach or Handel,
without violence to our sense of proportion. He
died at Canterbury in 1625, the forty-second year
of his age.
HENRY PURCEU,
Purcell, the last of the great early English musicians — His genius —
Supremacy of the foreign musicians in England- — His short life
— His originality — His power of invention — A pioneer — His
harmony — His precocity — Handel — An irrepressible conjecture
— A comparison — Purcell enters the Chapel Royal — Becomes
Organist of Westminster Abbey — Dr. John Blow — Purcell as
composer of dramatic music — Te Deum and Jubilate for St.
Cecilia's Day — His death and epitaph.
With Henry Purcell we come to the last and
greatest of the early English composers.
Born before the traditions and influence of
the ancient school of ecclesiastical music had
actually died out, and yet after other and
conflicting influences had become supreme, he
had the extraordinary power that enabled him
to seize on what was best in either and blend
them in a style that, had there been successors
EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS 61
of sufficient genius and independence of thought,
might have proved the foundation of a school
of English music sufficiently elastic to encourage
every possible development and yet remaining
absolutely national in character.
Unfortunately, he had no such successors,
and foreign musicians soon asserted that
supremacy in the country they have held ever
since, until the memorable events of the last
decade sounded its death knell.
The Writing on the Wall has appeared.
Many think they have read it.
Purcell was one more of that large number of
men of genius who have died in early manhood.
This fate seems to have been peculiarly con-
spicuous among musicians and poets. To cite
only a few : Purcell, Mozart and Mendelssohn ;
Shelley, Keats and Chatterton. The list could,
alas, be largely extended.
It may be truly said that, seeing how short his
life was, his achievements were amazing, both
in extent and significance. He advanced the art
of music in-.every direction, to such a degree
indeed, that one can only regard his latest
works with astonishment at their modernity.
Such combinations of voices and instruments
as had hitherto been tried were quite primitive
in character, and were simply confined to the
support of the voice parts. The illuminating
genius of Purcell, however, enabled him to see,
even if dimly, the infinite possibilities the
combination held out to the composer, and
he set himself to give effect to it. The crude
efforts of his predecessors became in his hands
62 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
a tremendous artistic force, and when he died
the way had been paved for Handel and other of
his illustrious successors. The same originality
is displayed in his harmonies. He cast off all
the shackles of convention and indulged in
progressions and discords that would, doubt-
less, have shocked the earlier writers. Many
of his cadences * are altogether too discordant
for modern ears. In fact, the extreme harsh-
ness of some of them is rather calculated to
make one doubt their authenticity. But it is,
nevertheless, perhaps in his harmony and its
extraordinary beauty that his genius is most
conspicuously displayed, f
His melodies were bold and unconventional
to the point, as regards rhythm, of seeming
wilfulness on occasion. Yet many were lovely
and full of intense feeling, and all characterised
by a genius at once independent and conscious
of its power.
His precocity was amazing, even in the
history of an art that has produced so many
extraordinary specimens of this particular
gift.
Some of his anthems were written while still
a chorister boy, and his earliest essays in
dramatic music at the age of fourteen.
That in some of his later works in which voices
were combined with organ and orchestra, he
anticipated Handelian effects is undoubted, and
* A cadence is the end of a musical phrase.
fA tablet to his memory in Westminster records, in
touching language, that he " has gone to that Blessed Place,
where only his harmony can be exceeded."
EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS 63
that the great German master was influenced
by them, I think, equally so.
If an account of the orchestra with which he
had to deal would read strangely at the present
time, it is at least not without interest to think
that, even so tremendous a genius as Handel
made little advance on it. It has been shewn
elsewhere that the genesis of the modern
orchestra is of a later date.
Handel was only ten years of age when Purcell
died.
It is an irrepressible conjecture of what might
have been, if the latter had lived thirty years
longer. He then would have failed to reach the
age at which the former died. The acting and
re-acting of the genius of each one on the other
might have produced results of profound im-
portance to English music — might, indeed, have
saved it.
Fate, however, on this occasion, probably
displayed more kindness than is usually attri-
buted to her. The contest would have proved
unequal.
The great German genius, giant in body,
overwhelming in energy and ever thirsting for
new worlds to conquer (and succeeding), would
have been no fitting opponent to the other,
frail in physique and already a prey to the terrible
disease that has cut off, prematurely, the lives
of such countless thousands of men whose possi-
bilities of attainment were barely given time
to indicate.*
Purcell entered the choir of the Chapel Royal
* He died of consumption.
64 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
at the age of six, and while there became
acquainted, in the best of all possible ways,
with such of the masterpieces of the ancient
English school as had escaped destruction, by
taking part in their performance. At the age of
eighteen f he became organist of Westminster
Abbey, by the voluntary act of Dr. John Blow,
who relinquished the post in favour of his
illustrious pupil. This fact is immensely sugges-
tive. It shews that not only was his genius
universally recognised, but that his personality
was already sufficiently developed to justify
his appointment to the most important position
to which any musician could attain.
Many theories have been ventilated as to Dr.
Blow's action on this occasion, some suggesting
that, so far from being a voluntary act, he was
dismissed. This seems to me to be without the
least justification, seeing that he was re-appointed
after Purcell's death. At this early age, too,
Purcell seems to have been attracted by the
influence of the theatre, as records shew that
he was constantly writing music for the
stage.
That his genius for this class of composition
was, in every respect, equal to that he displayed
in any other field open to him, is shewn by his
music to "Dido and ^Eneas," which was not
only masterly, but as much in advance of
anything that had preceded it, as most of his
other work proved to be. The same can be said
■f There is a conflict of authorities on this point, but it
may be taken for granted that he was but little, if any,
older at the time.
EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS 65
of his music to " King Arthur," in which he
collaborated with Dryden.
If the word " opera," in its modern signifi-
cance, can scarcely be applied to it, there is not
the slightest doubt that the genius was there
to give inspiration and guidance to those who
were to come after him.
He wrote upwards of twenty works of this
kind. For some years he was a "composer
to their Majesties," and in fulfilment of his
duties in this connection wrote many odes
for use on official occasions. These do not
count among his best works. He was a
voluminous writer of instrumental music, and
his sonatas are in advance of any previously
written. He wrote, practically for all instru-
ments then extant, but that by which he
is principally known as an instrumental com-
poser is his harpsichord music, this instru-
ment having by this time superseded the
virginals.
One of his last, and perhaps the greatest of
his works, was the magnificent " Te Deum and
Jubilate " for St. Cecilia's Day.
This was for many years sung at the annual
Festival of the Sons of the Clergy, but was for
some reason or other relinquished in favour of
Handel's Dettingen Te Deum. Purcell died
when his genius was at the highest point of
power and splendour, leaving behind him
a name of imperishable memory and a fame
that has seldom been eclipsed.
His death took place in 1695, the 37th year
of his age. He was buried in Westminster
66 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
Abbey. Over his grave was inscribed the
following epitaph :
Plaudite, felices, superi, tanto hospite, nostris
Prsefuerat, vestris addite ilia choris :
Invida nee vobis Purcellum terra reproscat.
Questa decus sech, deUciasque breves.
Tam cito decessisse, modo cui singula debet
Musa, prophana suos religiosa suos.
Vivat so vivat, dum vicina organa spirant,
Dumque colet numeris turba canora Deum.
CHAPTER IV
THE DECIJNE OF ENGLISH MUSIC
Three principal causes leading to decline — Reformation the principal
one — The plain-song and the people — Gradual transition in mode
of living — Effect of Calvanistic teaching — Excesses of the Com-
monwealth soldiery — Facts as to life of Calvin — Effects of change
of dynasty — The Stuarts and music — The Restoration and result-
ing excitement — England rid of the Stuarts — Jonathan Swift
a Church dignitary — First appearance of opera in England —
Handel and Italian opera — He leaves England — Returns and
devotes himself to oratorio — Effect on the people — Its influence
on native composers — Ill-effects of imitation — Necessity of
relying on native inspiration — Vincent Novello— Novello and
Company— Services to English music — Revival — The Wesleys,
Samuel and Samuel Sebastian — Conclusion.
T he three principal causes t hat led to the decline
arid practical extinction of English music were
the Reformation, the indifference of a foreign
Court, and the settlement in England of large
numbers of foreign musicians, among whom
was one of the greatest musical geniuses of all
time, the German, George Frederick Handel.
The two latter causes may be said to be the
complement one of the other.
Of these three hostile influences, the Reforma-
tion and all that it involved was, overwhelm-
ingly, the most fatal in its effect, for it struck
at the root foundation ; it killed the very soil
that gave birth to the plant. The first blow it
inflicted on music — and in those days that
meant* English music, not as now — and it was a
67
68 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
deadly one, was its suppression in the services
of the Church. To grasp to the full the signifi-
cance of this act, one must recall some of the
salient features of national life that had existed
for centuries.
We have seen how intimately bound together
were the lives of the Church and the people ;
how the very existence of either seemed depend-
ent on the solidity of their union ; or, at least,
how inseparable a part the services of the Church
were from the daily life and occupations of the
common tillers of the soil, who formed the
majority of the population.
Music, in the early days to which we now
refer, was a living force and a vital attraction
to the peasantry, who, although perhaps unable
to understand the significance of the elaborate
ceremonial that characterised mediaeval forms
of worship, were able to join in the singing of
the plain-song that was ever, as far as research
can guide us, an essential element in the rites
of the ancient Church.
Here let me say, we must utterly discard from
our minds any thought of the noble and ornate
music of the Mass, the product of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. These works were
written for performance by highly trained singers
in the employ of bishops or abbots governing the
cathedrals or monasteries, possessing sufficient
wealth to command their services, and were
listened to by a class of people far removed from
those under our present consideration. Such
music would, indeed, be far more remote from
their understanding than that sung at St.
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 69
Paul's Cathedral to the ordinary agricultural
labourer to-day.
No, it was the simple strains of the plain-song
that they knew, understood and loved.
To them, religion and musi c were as one,
and happy were those who drew their last breath
before the new and fantastic doctrines that were
destined to change the whole life and spirit of the
people came into actual effect.
The transition from the old life to the new
was a slow one, notwithstanding the authorities,
but once brought about and accepted by the
people, with that tenacity so characteristic
of the English race, they not only absorbed but
put into practice tenets that, a century before,
would have been abhorrent to them. That this
is, unhappily, true, the horrible excesses tolerated
during the Commonwealth period are more than
sufficient proof.
The hideous teaching that music and every
other form of art was devil-worship became
accepted by those who, but not long before,
were the very incarnation of joyous, righteous
life, as a revelation that had only come in the
nick of time for their salvation. To suppress
every longing for it, any memory of it, even, was
considered a duty and the indulgence in it a sin,
though clothed in ecclesiastical garb. The
strength to resist the yearning for that which
for so many ages had been, to say the least, one
of the greatest sources of consolation and happi-
ness to them, they counted a righteousness, and
the more these poor people suffered, the greater
was their assurance of ultimate safety. The loss
70 MUSIC IN ENGLAND ttJA^V^
of music to the English in those early Calvanistic
times must have been one of the most bitter of
the many miseries they had to endure.
It is impossible to think without pity of the
transition from the gay, exuberant and, pos-
sibly, irresponsible life that had been theirs for
centuries, to the fearful search after the salvation
that their days and nights were mostly spent
in dread of losing.
Should this appear exaggerated, let us turn to
the writings of the poet, William Cowper : we
shall find ample confirmation.
It may be said, " Why cite a man who is
known to have had fits of temporary insanity ? "
The answer is simple. The melancholia from
which he suffered and which led him, on more
than one occasion, to attempt to commit suicide,
was the outcome of his belief in the terrible
"doctrine of Pre-destination, and the ever-present
fear that he was among those destined to
eternal doom.
This is how he writes :
" Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion,
Scarce can endure delay of execution —
Wait with impatient readiness to seize my
Soul in a moment.
Damn'd below Judas ; more abhorr'd than he was,
Who for a few pence sold his holy Master !
Twice betray'd, Jesus me, the last delinquent
Deems the profanest.
Man disavows, and Deity disowns me,
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter ;
Therefore, Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all
Bolted against one.
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 71
Hard lot ! encompassed with a thousand dangers,
Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors,
I'm call'd, if vanquish'd ! to receive a sentence
Worse than Abiram's.
Him, the vindictive rod of angry Justice,
Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong ;
I, fed with judgment, in a fleshy tomb, am
Buried above ground."
Cowper was born a little more than a hundred
years after the death of Shakespeare, and about
seventy after that of Cromwell. In Shakespeare's
time it is certain that Puritanism had made
little way in England, or there would have
been far more reference to it than is suggested
in his works. He mirrored the spirit of his age
and country, and it mattered little whether he
placed the scenes of his plays in an Italian city
or " on the coast of Bohemia," the life depicted
in them is that of England and the spirit
embodied that of the robust Elizabethan age.
Such reform as had taken place in the Church
was little calculated to affect the character or
temperament of the people, and although it
is quite within ordinary knowledge that there
were a considerable number of people already
who had accepted the extreme doctrines that
were later to so terribly transform the national
character, they had then no more influence in the
country than the Spiritualists have to-day, in
the twentieth century. Once, however, they had
taken root they spread with appalling rapidity,
until by Cowper' s time they had gained an
ascendency over the minds of the people that
the verses just quoted do but fairly indicate.
72 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
It was in the reign of James I. that Puritanism
began to assert itself in a manner that at all
foreshadowed what was to come, and it is a
gratifying thought that Shakespeare did not
live to see the England, that he had loved and
so glorified by his genius, bend under the burden
of the foreign intrusion that was to completely
alter the aspects of her life as he had known
them. A vital aid doubtless accrued to the
movement through the constant influx of
Calvanist refugees from the North of Europe,
mainly Scandinavians, who were warmly
welcomed and aided by Anne of Denmark, wife
of the King.
It is curious to note how many movements
of anti-national character that have taken
place in England since the time of the Tudors
have had the support of the reigning house.
Happily such days are past. It must be
granted, however, that it was as natural on the
part of Anne to grant shelter to her own country
people, whether in Scotland or England, as it
was on their part to seek it at her hands.
To whatever causes the spread of Calvanism
may be due, its effect on the nation generally
was deplorable, and on music, particularly,
absolutely fatal.
The gloomy fanaticism that its teaching
engendered not only prompted the entire
suppression of music of every kind, wherever
possible, but made it become an object of loath-
ing and contempt, and what was found impossible
to achieve by legislation was effected by local
tyranny. In the conventicles that sprung up
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 73
all over the country, music was pointed to as
the ally of godlessness in its worst and most
reprehensible form, and its use a thing that
put the offender outside the pale of religious life.
It needs little consideration to appreciate
the result such teaching must necessarily have
had on people who had come to accept these
views as a revelation of Divine will.
Its effect was, simply, not only to deaden, but
to obliterate the very sense of the art among the
masses — that, art, too, that had been, formerly,
one of the glories of England.
In other directions, the results of this fanatic
spirit are more concretely shewn, and the
terrible evidence that the ancient churches of
the country supply is sufficient to cause a
shudder to the more tempered spirit of later ages.
Practically, every one of these standing build-
ings affords evidence of the ruthless and
destructive spirit that animated the authorities,
and encouraged the common people and soldiery
of the rnnunori wealth p^tioii to the utmost
license in church desecration. The shocking
and stupid brutality of the excesses perpetrated
is, at once, a proof of the ferocious spirit that
had been aroused, and the unappeasable hatred
towards everything that could, in any way,
suggest Catholic teaching or influence. When
one reads of these atrocities, cold-blooded and
calculated, they bring to the mind rather the
sacking of ancient Rome by the Huns than the
acts of civilised Englishmen living after the age
of Shakespeare and Bacon.
The noblest ornaments that the nameless
74 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
monk-architects had raised to the glory of God,
and the unceasing call to the piety of those
living after, became a special mark for vengeance.
To break down the altars, smash to fragments
the sculptured representations of the Saviour,
the Holy Virgin or the saints, was a source of
gratification, and the occasion of licentious
jest.
For the destruction of musical instruments
and the burning of manuscript music, we owe
them — not gratitude.
To make a bonfire of vestments, and everything
that was capable of absolute extinction by the
agency of fire, was an occasion of ribald mirth
and revelry.
To put the glorious cathedrals, the undying
evidence of the splendour of Catholic devotion
and enthusiasm, to the basest uses was their
common habitude.
The turning of the noble cloisters, that had
been the pious and unceasing work of so many
years to build, into stables for the horses of
Cromwell's cavalry was only one feature of
many other and even more hideous acts of
vileness that were not only accomplished, but
approved of.
On these one would rather not dwell. The
words horror and indignation seem infantile
to express the emotions called forth by the
contemplation of such things.
After all this, the smashing of the old and
beautiful stained glass windows, sorrowful as it
may make us, seems of comparatively little
consequence, unique and of priceless value as
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 75
they were. It is, nevertheless, inevitable to
think with wondering awe of the awful waste of
the inspired work of centuries.
There are yet, and we may well be thankful
for it, a few remains of the extraordinary beauty
of the artistic work of the monks of old. The
Iyady Chapel of Gloucester Cathedral is a
striking example. It was finished only a few
years before the Reformation, and was more
fortunate than the majority of such buildings,
inasmuch as, although the traces of mutilation
are evident, the beauty of the work of the monk-
artist can yet be seen and appreciated.
That the work of destruction was carried out
to the fullest extent of their means by these
iconoclasts is proved by the general absence of
remains. It is only an occasional chance, such
as the digging of foundations of a building on
the outskirts of a cathedral city, as happened
not long ago, that leads to the discovery of
mutilated fragments of statues, broken arteries
of altars of untold age, and powdered remains
of stained glass, that even modern skill admits
its inability to equal, which can give us real
and tangible evidence of the wealth of beauty
and pious effort that must have been stored up
in those marvellous old buildings.
The spirit that could guide to the destruction
not only of such things as the eye alone could
perceive and appreciate, but of so intangible
and defenceless a thing as music, must indeed
have been insatiable. The majestic strength
of those venerable fanes, that seem to defy the
flight of ages, was theirs to successfully resist
76 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
such enemies as they then had to encounter,
and though they were, to some extent, destined
to suffer in the conflict, yet such wounds as they
received were not altogether incapable of healing.
The point we have to arrive at is the complete
realisation that whatever was beautiful in art
was hateful to the Puritans, and it was only
when every vestige of it was uprooted, they
ceased their work of violent and wanton
destruction.
So far as music is concerned, their work may
be said to have been complete.
Some facts concerning the life of the extra-
ordinary man who was destined, through the
instrumentality of his teaching, to so vitally
affect English life may be of interest to the
reader.
Jean Calvin, or Jean Chauvin, as his birth-
name was, was a native of Picardy, and born at
Noyon in 1509. He was originally destined
for the Church, and commenced his early studies
with that object in view. At an early age
he was sent to Paris, where he soon exhibited
remarkable intellectual powers. It was not
long, however, before he began to evince a
distinct spirit of rebellion against the course of
study pursued there, and, with his father's
sanction, abandoned theology and, turning his
attention to law, proceeded to Orleans with the
intention to qualify himself as an advocate.
After a short stay in that city he went on to
Bourges, where he entered the University.
This period was destined to be a momentous
one, not only for himself, but in the history of the
Cai.vin.
Face 76.
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 77
civilised world. He here came under influences
that, aided by his early misgivings in Paris,
impelled him to take that step which was
to prove of such immense significance, his
severance from the Catholic Church.
In the reading of history one happens upon
reformers countless, men of genius many, but
men who, added to genius, have the extraordin-
ary personal magnetism that compels, few.
Alexander, Caesar, Shakespeare, Napoleon, are
striking examples, and of such was John Calvin.
After a wandering life in France, during which
time he both wrote and preached in the interests
of the reformed faith, he, for personal safety,
finally left the country and took refuge in
Switzerland. Eventually he settled in Geneva,
and thence propagated those extreme doctrines
that were to become known as Calvinism.
On the rapidity with which they spread, and
the hold they took upon the northern races of
Europe, it is not necessary to dwell ; their
influence for so long in England is all that it is,
here, incumbent to recall. Of the man himself,
in view of so much that is contradictory having
been written, it is difficult to speak, but it
would seem that he retained to the end the
aesthetic habits acquired in his early training as
a seminarist, and was always more capable of
inspiring awe than affection.
The change from an English to a foreign line
of Sovereigns was one of far-reaching import.
It is certain that when Queen Mary caused
the execution of I^ady Jane Grey, she little
realised how disastrous to the country the event
78 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
would prove. Not only had this interesting
and unfortunate girl an ability probably equal
to that of her cousin Elizabeth, but she was
possessed of a character that was infinitely
superior.
The act, however, was destined to have
fateful results.
The Stuarts, descended from a race that had
been in deadly conflict with the English for
centuries, and allied by blood and intimate
intercourse with her enemies, succeeded to an
inheritance that immediately placed them in a
position of supremacy in the very country that
had for so long been an object of hatred and
fear.
Had I^ady Jane Grey succeeded to the throne
after the death of Elizabeth, the line of Sovereigns
of English descent might have been perpetuated.
It is easy to see how such an event might have
affected English music.
It must not be lost sight of that the doctrines
of the Reformation, and in their extreme form,
took root in Scotland long before they had
made any visible impression on the ordinary
life in England.
Mainly owing to the efforts of John Knox,
a follower and friend of Calvin, the new teaching
had taken a complete hold over that country,
and been almost universally accepted as the
most expedient medium of religious exposition.
The King, James' VI., by his marriage with
Anne of Denmark, signified his acceptance of
the new creed.
With his accession, as James I., to the
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 79
throne of England therefore, an influence, if not
of active hostility, at least of indifference to
music, came into existence, with results that
could not be otherwise than formidable.
In the reign of Charles I., the Queen invited
large numbers of French musicians to settle
in I^ondon, and gave them all the patronage
that her position enabled her to extend. Their
influence on the current music of the day is
easily traced.
All this time Calvinist teaching, like the
growth of a noxious weed, was spreading far
and wide, so that English music was being
assailed by two fatal influences at the same time.
This condition of things lasted through the
entire reign.
With the Commonwealth the voice of music
was altogether silenced.
It needs no keen discernment to see the
infinite possibilities of harm to the musical
instincts of the country such a state of things
opens out.
Imagine the thousands or millions of children
born and brought up bereft of the happiness
that music might have brought them.
We are told by the biologist that the continued
disuse of muscles first renders them ineffective,
and eventually leads to their extinction.
Similarly, completely severed from music
as many were, they first became indifferent to
it, and eventually lost all ear for it. Insistence
upon the immense number of people in England
to-day, of all classes, who are so situated, is
unnecessary.
80 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
f ' *
The Restoration ushered in a period of
delirious excitement,* such as had never been
known in the history of this country. Un-
happily, it was accompanied by an equally
unprecedented display of license, in which the
common people seemed to vie with the Court
for supremacy. To account for this latter
fact, one need only recall the policy pursued
under the Commonwealth, that drove the
whilom vagrant " musician " to take refuge
in the cities, and thus materially go to swell
the more turbulent portion of the population.
Music was again heard in the churches, but
it was not such as the people remembered.
It was, at once, novel and unliked. largely of
foreign origin, foreign musicians were engaged
to perform it. For such innovations, the wives
of Charles I. and Charles II. were doubtless
largely responsible, one being French and the
other Portuguese, but the Continental wander-
ings of the latter King had made him familiar
with such music, and, being of a much lighter
kind than that of the old English church, would,
naturally, be more congenial to such a character.
One can easily imagine how the sight of
swarthy foreigners, playing such strange sound-
ing music on the viols and other instruments,
would astonish the common people. In the
diaries, Pepys is frankly condemnatory, saying
that it all appeared to him to be more suitable
to the theatre than to the church.
* It may be noted here that the excitement caused, during
the South African war, by the relief of Mafeking, was not so
unprecedented in our history as was generally supposed.
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 81
It is astonishing to think how soon the
national rejoicing at the re-establishment of the
monarchy was to change to national dejection
and disgust, caused not only by the policy, but,
perhaps, still more by the personal life of the
King.
The former brought the country to a state of
bankruptcy, both financial and political, the
latter to a sense of shame and humiliation that
was entirely new to it.
The open and unabashed profligacy of the
King and Court, and the absolutely con-
temptuous disregard, not only of national
religious feeling, but of the merest elements of
ordinary decency, were bound to bring about
a tremendous re-action.
It came, and with irresistible effect.
Thousands who had hitherto shunned the
severities of Puritan life and teaching, now fled
to them for protection against infection by the
wave of immorality which was flooding the
country. To the people, kingship became once
more not the symbol of national glory, but
of national abasement.
Every sense, honourable in man, was outraged,
and as each year passed in the reign of this
wretched monarch, so did it go to further
intensify the ever-growing force of Calvinistic
conviction, with all its concomitant results,
not only on art, but the very character of the
people in general.
With the memory of the execution of Charles I.
ever present in their memory, they bore with
a patience, both exemplary and undeserved,
82 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
the terrible incubus, but once relieved from it
by the death of his successor, they rose as one
man and threw off the yoke of a dynasty, the
most worthless, perhaps, that any nation in
modern history has been burdened with.
Once rid of the Stuarts, England entered
upon a period in which Calvinism was the most
vital and dominating force. Its sombre tenets
left little room for other than religious exercise,
and so far as music is concerned, beyond the
lugubrious chanting of psalmody — well, there
was none. Indeed, judging by the writings of
the age of Queen Anne, it would appear that
not only music, but even Christianity itself was
at a low ebb. ( vr**-- \ M s .
An age that could witness without protest
the appointment of Jonathan Swift, the author
of " The Tale of a Tub," to the position of a
dignitary of the Church, must surely have been
one in which, at least among the ruling classes,
the moral sense must have sunk low. At any
rate, it may be said that the extreme liberty of
thought, encouraged by the then prevalent
doctrines, and the utter disregard of ceremonial
in the services of the Church, are far removed
from the thought and customs of to-day.
After a Scottish a Dutch, after a Dutch,
with an interval, a German reigning house.
It is impossible, when the consideration of
English music is under discussion, to shut one's
eyes to the extreme significance of such facts.
Opera, even in its most primitive state, had
not been known in England before the Stuart
times, and, though the genius of Purcell was
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 83
fascinated by it, yet even he was unable to
imbue his countrymen with any taste for it.
The masque they could understand, since it
was a natural outcome of the kind of play that
had been popular in the country for centuries,
but this was a foreign institution for which
they had no predilection.
So far as England is concerned, it was a hot-
house plant fostered principally by a foreign
Court and an aristocracy who had acquired their
taste for it abroad. Such operatic work, as
Purcell was responsible for, was given in English,
but it was not long before an Italian company
was invited to London for the purpose of
presenting Italian opera, which by that time
had arrived at a point of much greater advance-
ment, and a permanent home made for it.
With the company came Buononcini, the
most celebrated composer of this form of art
that his country possessed.
The arrival in this country of Handel, who
had not only made a complete study of it, but
whose genius had enabled him to carry it
to a state of development hitherto undreamt
of, was the signal of war between the rival
composers, and led to the establishment of
another theatre for its exploitation, at the
head of which was the great German master.
It may be mentioned that at this period of
its expansion and introduction to the various
countries of Europe, the liberty was granted
to the individual exponent of the different
parts to sing in his native language, a
diplomatic concession that will be readily
84 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
appreciated ; hence two or three, or even
more, languages might be heard in the course
of a single representation.
To Handel, however, who was always most
exacting as to the rendering of his music, such
an anomaly would be, naturally, intolerable.
And so it proved. His operas were written
in Italian, and in that language they had to be
sung. That was what he required, and no
less would he accept. In this connection, it is
strange to observe that, notwithstanding his
long residence in England, he not only never
mastered the intricacies of the pronunciation
of English, but never learnt to appreciate the
relative importance of the words of a sentence:
Of this, the early editions of his works afford
ample proof. In fact, it is known that his
struggles with his librettist were frequent
and stormy, ending, however, as one would
naturally imagine, in the complete collapse of
the latter. Fancy Wagner with a librettist.
It is unthinkable.
The continued importation of foreien singers
who were alone qualified to meet the demands of
fashionable society, which was then the only
source from which money was to be earned,
naturally relegated the English singer to a
position of comparative neglect. His energies
were confined either to the modest demands
made upon him by the then Church services,
or devoted to occupations upon which it is
unnecessary to dwell.
Similarly, native composers, such as were
left, who were, neither by training nor instinct,
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 85
capable of competing with the foreign musician
in this new and strange form of art, found
themselves in a position that offered little
opportunity of making the barest provision
for existence, and, naturally, abandoned a
calling that appeared so hopeless. This state
of things lasted for a considerable period.
An event, however, was to take place that,
at least, had some effect in the amelioration of
existing conditions.
Handel, after a long struggle, during which he
had gained and lost a considerable fortune,
abandoned the conflict and, forsaking Italian
opera, left the country for a time to seek a
restoration of his health, which had become
seriously threatened. Upon his return he
decided to jnak^«ac-red--musi£_thfi,. medium by
which he should regain both the fame and
fortune which he had previously acquired.
This decision, momentous as it was for the
whole world, was peculiarly so for England.
It had two results that may be said to be
diametrically opposed, for while he soon began
to make converts to music by presenting it
in a religious guise, among thousands who had
for long eschewed it as being anti-Christ, he,
at the same time, by the sheer weight of his
colossal genius, not only overwhelmed the
native composer and rendered him distrustful
of his powers, but imbued the people of the
country with the conviction that music was not
a natural English gift, and that for all serious
effort in the art, it must be sought from the
foreigner.
86 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
That this impression became deeply engrained
in the minds of Englishmen is as evident
to-day as it ever was, and it is a common-place
among those who cater for public entertain-
ment, that the production of serious works by
English composers spells financial loss, with
one single exception.
To what other cause than the lack of in-
dividuality or national genius can such a state of
things be attributed ?
It cannot be seriously contemplated for a
moment that because the composer is an
Englishman his countrymen will not listen to
him.
The case of Arthur Sullivan proves the very
contrary. His music, if not great, had English
characteristics, and the public were not slow
to recognise the fact. At any rate, they came
to believe in him, and the reception accorded to
his " Golden legend " proved that they were
not only willing, but eager to readjust previous
convictions so soon as anything appeared that
seemed to warrant it.
Unfortunately, this work had not sufficient
strength, originality, or nationality to stand
the stress of time, but it disproved once and for
ever the absurd contention that the English
people would not accept any serious effort
in music because it had been written by an
Englishman.
Its lack of staying power seems to be attri-
butable to the want of sufficient national
character, redolent of the soil, which appears
to be so essential to lasting endurance.
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 87
At any rate, one cannot read without being
moved tike following words which appeared in
the Daily Telegraph after a recent performance
at the Norwich Festival, 1911. They were
contained in an article, not only brilliantly, but
even sympathetically written, yet this is what
it says : —
" Time was when this work was appraised as a world's
masterpiece for ever. As a fact, it affords but one more
example of the many that go to prove the rule as to the
absurdity of prophesying unless one knows. I would not
go so far as some one was heard to go yesterday, who
vouchsafed the opinion that even the singers seemed
somewhat abashed. That is a gross exaggeration. But it
is no exaggeration to say that none of them . . .
seemed very deeply moved by the extreme placidity and
suavity of the phrases once deemed to be of purest gold.
Nor, for that matter, did the chorus themselves. The
truth is that time has not dealt over kindly with this work."
Yet this very work, let it be remembered,
was not only the most popular, but practically
the single one of its kind written by an English-
man that had ever touched the imagination of
the English people. To go still further, it
may be said with absolute truth, that it was the
most successful sacred work produced in
England up to the time of Sir Edward Elgar,
since Mendelssohn introduced the " Elijah," at
Birmingham in 1846.
The inference, which seems to me obvious, is
that no work that is not typical of the country
from which it eminates possesses those qualities
that make for permanence.
The amelioration in the position of the
native composer, to which we alluded just now,
88 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
was due to the fact that he had not lost belief
in his own powers so far as sacred music was
concerned ; hence the revival of public interest
in this form of art was, naturally, a source of
gratification. Unhappily, however, the fact
cannot be ignored that instead of pursuing their
way on their old lines and traditions, even the
most gifted among the English composers
gave way to the fatal temptation to try and
write on the lines of such a colossal genius as
Handel.
The power to hurl the thunderbolts of Jove is
given to few, and at the time of which we write,
there were certainly no Englishmen among that
select company.
We need but cite one example.
William Boyce, one of the most gifted of
English composers of the eighteenth century, was
born in 1710, and was, therefore, about twenty-
eight years of age when the oratorio "Saul"
was produced. That he completely fell under
the new influence is quite apparent, as little
examination of his music, dating from that
time, is sufficient to shew. Not only did he
allow it to affect his own work, but it carried
him to the absolutely indefensible point of taking
one of Purcell's greatest compositions, and revis-
ing and adding to it, in order to bring it into
conformity with the great school which had
arisen. There are two kinds of imitation,
conscious and unconscious. Such an act as this
can only belong to the former. From this date
may be said to have commenced that system of
imitation of foreign music that has been the
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 89
bane of English musicians ever since. How-
ever unconscious it may have, and doubtless
has been, its effect has been equally disastrous.
Imitation never made art and never will. The
imitator may arrive at temporary distinction,
but future generations will not recognise him.
He will be, merely, a painted figure in a painted
sepulchre of plagiarism. Happily there were
yet composers, chiefly cathedral organists, who
clung to English Church tradition, and among
whose work occasional glimpses of its genius
can be found.
This fact did not escape the eyes of so keen
and accomplished an observer as Vincent
Novello, and to this remarkable man the country
is under a great debt of recognition.
An Italian by blood, he was born in England,
and spent the greater part of his life here. He
was organist in turn of several I/mdon churches,
and thus gained the opportunity to learn and
appreciate such music of the early English
school as he found in use.
So interested did he become, that he visited
various cathedral libraries and, with the per-
mission of the authorities, copied much of the
ancient music of which they were the repositories.
This he carefully edited and published, after
transposing the parts written in clefs, with
which the public are generally unacquainted.
He thus furnished the means of bringing into
general use much of the splendid music that
had hitherto been confined to the services of the
cathedral, for which it had been originally
written.
90 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
He was, practically, the founder of the world-
famed publishing house of Novello and Co., and
it is an interesting fact that this great firm has
never deviated from its early traditions, since
it is at the present day as emphatically as it
ever was at any period of its existence, the
home of all that is best in English Church
music.
The founding of the firm, if an event of
moment to the public at large, was one of still
greater import to the musician, for it caused
a commercial value to be attached to his
work that, previously, had little more than a
sentimental one.
It is not difficult to imagine, in those days of
stage-coach travelling, the anxious feelings of
the composer about to undertake a long journey
to London, his manuscript carefully folded in
his pocket and intent on this new and even
amazing idea of selling it for actual gold ; not,
perhaps, simply on account of the happiness
that it might bring to his home, but of the fame
that might accrue to his name. Nor is it
otherwise than quite easy to imagine with what
different feelings he would start on his home-
ward course after a "Successful issue to his
venture. At any rate, it would be difficult to
over-estimate the services that the historic firm
has rendered to the country and the musical
profession during the hundred years of its
existence.
The decline of English music had been
continuous. It culminated in the productions
of such composers as Kent and William Jackson,
THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 91
and of these it need only be said that they were
lamentable. Yet, amazing as it may seem now,
they became not only popular, but perhaps the
most notorious of them, once known familiarly
as " Jackson in F," retained its hold on the
affections of the people until well into the
nineteenth century. Happily, the revival was
near at hand, and, as densest darkness heralds
the dawn, so the birth of Samuel Wesley, in
this worst period, proved to be the event that
signalised its coming. English Church music
was to be restored, if not in the splendour of its
ancient originality, at least in a form that was
at once dignified and worthy of its mission.
A profound student of the works of Bach, he
brought enthusiasm, tempered by deep learning,
to bear upon everything he wrote.
The impress, not only of the great German
master, but of the still earlier writers of the
English school at its most glorious period, was
stamped on it, and it is an interesting fact that
the Mass he wrote, when entering the Roman
Communion, bears every evidence of its illus-
trious descent. With the birth of his son, this
memorable revival was not only to become
assured of permanence, but was destined to be
an epoch of profound significance in the history
of English Church music.
The works by which Samuel Sebastian Wesley
enriched the world, and restored England to its
kingdom in sacred music again, including the
noble anthems, " Ascribe unto the I^ord,"
" Blessed be the God and Father," and, perhaps
above all, " The Wilderness," seem as if secure
92 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
of lasting as long as the Christian religion is
the dominant factor in human life. It only
remains to be said that many noble works of
later origin make for the assurance that English
music, as represented in the Church to-day, will
never again look back.
CHAPTER V
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGI,AND
The early Church, origin of present development of modern music —
Antiphon, precursor of harmony and counterpoint — The in-
vention of the organ and its importance — Tallis, the link between
pre and post Reformation music — Purcell and the Augustan age
of English music — Acts of Reformation period — Present system
of musical education — Principal schools of music — Lack [of
national character in English music — Suggested explanation —
Influence of foreign resident composers — Rival Italian opera com-
panies — Return of Handel and effect of his oratorios — English
music festivals and foreign conductors — Sterndale Bennett's
" Woman of Samaria " — Sir Edward Elgar's violin concerto-
Foreign teachers and their influence — Costa and the high pitch —
Recognition of great foreign musicians — The new school of
British composers — Mendelssohn on Italian methods of singing
for northern races.
PAST
It is to the Catholic Church that modern art
must look for the origin of its present develop-
ment. To the monks of mediaeval times must
be ascribed the glory of the greatest achieve-
ments in Gothic architecture, the art of fresco-
painting, and the foundations of modern music.
Not only were the monasteries the repository
of every kind of learning, but it is interesting to
think that the impress of religion, which music
received in those long-ago days, and in those
gone and forgotten buildings, is as alive to-day
as it ever was.
Notwithstanding the degrading uses to which
a beautiful art has been so constantly put, a
93
94 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
degradation greater, perhaps, than that to
which any sister art has had to submit, it is
still triumphantly evident, in works so otherwise
dissimilar as Elgar's " Dream of Gerontius "
and Wagner's " Parsifal."
In fact, it is safe to say that the greatest
creations in music have either been dedicated
to the services of Christianity or have largely
received inspiration from its illimitable resources.
Though many an aching heart may have
throbbed out its existence in the seclusion of
those cloistered cells, still, many must have
been the joyful emotions evoked in the minds
of other of their occupants, bythe^achievement
of some long worked-for discovery that has had
untold influence on ages then unborn.
What, for instance, must have been their
feeling of ecstacy when the first harmonious
triad fell upon the ears of the amazed
monks ?
To them, long accustomed as they were to
the barbaric sound of sequences of bare fourths
and fifths, it must have seemed like a revelation
of Heaven itself, and we may fain hope that
many a Nunc dimittis, all the happier in con-
sequence, came from their grateful hearts as the
passing hour arrived.
It is to the antiphon that we may look as the
precursor of harmony and counterpoint, and
thus the origin of modern music.
Antiphony was the ancient mode of rendering
music, in which two sets of voices sang alternate-
ly. They were placed on opposite sides of the
choir, as may be seen in Catholic and Anglican
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 95
churches to-day, and were respectively entitled
" Decani " and " Cantoris."
For long they recited on the same note, then
came a change in which one side varied it,
probably by a perfect fourth or fifth above or
below. Afterwards, the chanting of them to-
gether indicated the first advance towards
harmony — that is to say, a combination of notes
sounded simultaneously. The undulations of
the voices of priest and choir signalled the
advance towards melody.
The next and most decisive step was the
advent of counterpoint ; that is the pointing of one
note or series of notes against another. Thus
while one side would be chanting a series of long
notes, the other would be singing quicker ones,
which were either momentarily discordant or
subsequently in harmony with them.
With the birth of this new development may
be associated the origin of music, as we know it
to-day.
The process of each was, however, gradual,
and it is difficult to suggest, with any conviction,
their respective periods of evolution.
To come to later times, with the invention of
the organ and its entry into the service of the
church, we are well within sight of historical
accuracy. It is easy to realise what a stimulus
to musical invention this must have proved,
and from that time, about the middle of the
eighth century, the progress has been con-
tinuous if not rapid.
The monks, being the first musicians, were
the first teachers, and thus we arrive at the
q6 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
beginning of musical education in England.
During the long centuries in which the people,
mostly serfs as they were, looked to the monas-
teries for such amenities of life as were possible
in those days, the progress in music was confined
to those employed in the service of the ritual
of their chapels, but with the increase of popu-
lation and the building of churches outside, the
conditions became materially changed.
The monks, who had hitherto jealously
guarded the secret of the manipulation of the
keys, began to teach others, and thus came
into existence that body of organists and com-
posers who for many centuries upheld the
standard of English music, and who, until
the days of the Reformation, kept England in
the forefront of musical art.
Iyet it be well borne in mind that up to this
time England owed its music to England alone.
Till then Thomas Tallis was the greatest
exponent of the art who had lived in this coun-
try, and, if anything were wanting to prove the
extraordinary genius the monks had exhibited
in teaching the profoundest mysteries of music,
the mastery displayed by Tallis in his Song of
Forty Parts would be sufficient to supply it.
He was the link that united English pre-
Reformation and post-Reformation music.
In the reigns of Henry VIII. and Queen Mary,
he was a gentleman of the Chapel-Royal,
subsequently becoming organist in Queen Eliza-
beth's time.
It was during this period that he set to music
that part of the English liturgy that is now sung.
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 97
As regards Henry and Elizabeth, the feelings
of both these monarchs towards the Reformation
were, doubtless, more political than religious,
and to this cause may be attributed the reten-
tion of his post by Tallis, since there is no proof
that he ever embraced the reformed faith.
Then came an epoch that may well be called
the Augustan age of English music, seeing that
to the genius of Tallis was added that of Byrd
and Orlando Gibbons, culminating in the arrival
of Purcell, when it attained its zenith.
With the death of Purcell began the long
decline that resulted in the practical decay of
English music.
Everything tended to that end.
The suppression of the monasteries, the home
of art and literature ; the degradation of public
worship, including the prohibition of music
in such perfunctory ceremonies as were per-
mitted, and the abolition of everything pertain-
ing to art or beauty in its performance ; the
ruthless destruction of all that could appeal to
the sense of the beautiful in the minds of the
people, of the altars with their gorgeous adorn-
ments, or the stained windows with their
picturesque representations of moving incidents
in the life of Christ; the covering with stucco
or the whitewashing of the marble pillars
that supported the decorated roofs : all these
monstrosities were calculated to deaden any
artistic sense the common people might have
had within them, and such was, unhappily, the
effect.
Music came to be looked upon as a frivolous
98 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
or contemptible thing, and the practice of it as
only fit for people who had no aptitude for
anything better, and who were treated by the
average person of any consequence, accordingly.
The teaching of it naturally became a matter of
small importance, and thus, outside the cathe-
dral cities which sheltered the few remaining
educated English musicians, such teaching as
could be procured was supplied by persons
supplementing their earnings in other directions,
or foreigners who had come to the country at
the call of the few influential individuals in
whom the love for music was not actually dead.
This was the state of affairs at the beginning
of the nineteenth century.
PRESENT
The present system of musical education in
this country may be said to commence with the
establishment of the Royal Academy of Music
in the year 1822. The advantages offered by
an institution of this kind are so obvious that
one need only specify a choice of subjects
with an expert to teach each, a permanent
orchestra for the practice and interpretation of
the classics, and the atmosphere engendered by
an association of individuals guided by the
aspiration to acquire knowledge and stimulated
by the generous rivalry of their comrades.
The Academy, Royal and National, as it is
entitled, is the oldest of the three principal
music schools in England. The prefix " Royal "
used in common with many and various kinds
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 99
of societies, has no very precise significance,
while the term " national " is somewhat difficult
of application to an institution whose principal
teachers and managers are foreigners.
Although flourishing to-day, the school ex-
perienced many years of fluctuating fortune,
and it was not until the principalship of Sir
Sterndale Bennett that it was at last placed on
a firm and sure foundation.
To that distinguished man the Academy for
many years owed its sole prestige.
He was succeeded by Sir George Macfarren,
an able and learned musician, who would doubt-
less have proved a successful administrator
had he not suffered from the terrible affliction
of blindness.
As it was, however, the school came practically
under a direction that had little educational
force at its disposal, and the results were, as
might be expected — otherwise than satisfactory.
This era has, happily, long passed away, and
since Sir A. C. Mackenzie became principal, the
school has prospered continuously.
The Royal College of Music, that happiest
of English musical institutions, was established
on the foundations of the National Training
School of Music, which had come into existence
largely through the exertions of the Duke of
Edinburgh in 1876, and may be said to have
been the outcome of a protest against the then
existing state of things at the Academy.
Later, the Duke leaving for Coburg, and the
resignation of Sir Arthur Sullivan of the post of
principal, furnished the occasion to found the
ioo MUSIC IN ENGLAND
larger and more important college, and this
being eventually done, it was opened by the
Prince of Wales in 1883.
The new scheme was large and comprehensive,
including as it did the creation of scholarships
in the leading towns of the United Kingdom
and the Dominions beyond the seas. The
realisation of such a project would have been
impossible, had it not been for the extraordinary
influence exercised by the late King Edward,
and the enthusiasm he extended towards its
accomplishment .
The possession of these scholarships, attract-
ing as it does the flower of musical talent
throughout the Empire, puts an enormous
power for good in the hands of the authorities,
and although it is premature to speak with any
assurance on the point yet, it may well be hoped
that the results in the furthering of the forma-
tion of a truly British school of music will be
commensurate with the great possibilities. If a
happy choice in the appointment of Directors
is a good omen, the names of (the late) Sir
George Grove and Sir Hubert Parry should
supply it.
Ird
Mayor, the I^ady Mayoress, the Sheriffs and
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 101
other dignitaries, for the encouragement of the
students.
When first instituted, the main object was to
place the best instruction within the reach of
those unable to meet the requirements of the
older schools either in time or expense.
The entrance fee was made nominal, the choice
of subjects for study left to the student, and
no conditions insisted upon, other than those
necessary for the well-being of any public
institution.
The popularity the school instantaneously
attained must have been gratifying, even to
that eminent body with whom so many philan-
thropic efforts have been identified.
Recently, however, an important change has
been made since Mr. I^andon Ronald became
principal, in that a curriculum has been designed
for students studying professionally, but although
under this the learning of certain subjects is made
compulsory, and a skilfully-planned course of
study laid down, it does not in the least modify
the original intentions of the Corporation, since
the adoption of it is purely voluntary on
the part of the scholar. This development
may prove of far-reaching importance, and
under the guiding influence of so skilful and
versatile a musician as Mr. Ronald, may have
unlooked-for results.
As with the other two schools, the teaching
staff is a large one, with a strong foreign element
in it.
With regard to the other schools of music
throughout the kingdom, it may be said that they
102 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
fairly conform to the types already described,
the only difference being the varying pro-
portions of native to foreign teachers.
Now, with all these facilities for acquiring
musical education, how can it be explained that
these schools have so utterly failed in the
direction of fostering a national tone, a mode
of expression which, while capable of infinite
variety, is as redolent of the country it emanates
from as that of France or Russia ? Why is it
that until the recent uprising of the new English
school of composers headed by Sir Edward
Elgar, owing nothing to foreign teaching either
at home or abroad, in spite of the enormous
amount of music written by British composers
during the preceding fifty years, nothing
appeared that was in any sense characteristi-
cally English or imbued with sufficient vitality
to live ?
It may be safely said that with the exception
of Sir Hubert Parry's " Blest Pair of Sirens,"
it is doubtful whether there is a single work
in all the vast output that will not be
absolutely forgotten by the end of the first
half of this century. In fact, most of the
oratorios, cantatas, and symphonies produced
during that period have never been heard
again since their first and two or three sub-
sequent performances. They may, with truth,
be said to have died of their own drear lifeless-
ness. The explanation seems to be perfectly
simple. Underlying it all would appear to be
the belief that imitation, however skilful, cannot
equal the thing imitated or possess any lasting
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 103
qualities. The music of the German speaking
race has, until the new epoch that has just
dawned, absolutely possessed the minds of our
composers and public alike.
Not only have all or nearly all the most
influential British musicians been educated in
Germany, spending the most impressionable
years of their lives there, but they have come
back imbued with the spirit and technique of its
music and, with the zeal of converts, anxious to
impart the same ideals to their pupils. The
result has been just what would naturally be
anticipated.
Music produced on such a basis could only
lack the vital characteristics necessary to take
any hold on the people, who, having heard the
originals, shewed themselves perfectly indifferent
to the imitations, however well disguised they
proved to be. They came to the conclusion that
their country was not sufficiently endowed with
music to produce composers of original gifts and,
as a natural consequence, turned to the foreigner
to look for all serious musical effort.
This belief has become so deeply seated in the
mind of the average Englishman, that he not
only long ago ceased to expect any original
effort from the native composer, but went a
step further, a natural one perhaps, and argued
that if he were inferior to the foreigner as a
writer of music, he must necessarily be equally
so as a teacher.
Hence the extraordinary condition of things
that has prevailed so long.
Foreign teachers are numbered by thousands,
104 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
many of them holding foremost positions in the
leading institutions. They bring with them
their own national instincts and characteristics,
and, obviously, the greater their gifts the more
powerfully must their influence operate against
the ideal of a national school of British
music.
Sir Edward Elgar, speaking at Birmingham,
urged the young English composers " to draw
their inspiration from their own country, their
own literature, and their own climate. Only
by doing so could they arrive at an English
art."
If this be true, and I doubt not that most
thinking people will agree, the present state of
things is unceasingly working towards making
the idea impossible of realisation. It must be
borne in mind that there are hundreds, even
thousands, of students taught by perhaps three
masters of different nationalities, leaving our
schools yearly, and who consequently spread
broad-cast the mixed impressions they have
received. Not only is the influence undesirable,
but this constant augmentation of the already
congested state of the profession makes it more
and more difficult for the young native to earn
a living wage, and compels him to direct his
thoughts and energies rather to this end than
the development of his artistic capabilities.
The more one thinks on this practical point, the
more serious it seems.
That it has not escaped the attention of the
resident foreign musicians is shewn by an
illuminating story told in a pamphlet published
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 105
a little while since, in which one of them advises
young Englishmen to emigrate (emigrate) !
To properly explain the attitude in the past,
of the people generally, towards music and
musicians, it is necessary to go back some
centuries and examine the causes which led up
to it.
One of the first effects of the wave of Puri-
tanism which swept over the country after the
Reformation, was a contempt for everything
that savoured of frivolity, and to the minds of
the Puritans, the practice of music was regarded
more as a prostitution of mental effort than a
calling which could be treated as serious or
even moral. Its use was banished from the
churches, and it is recorded of Cromwell that
on one occasion he entered a cathedral with a
squad of soldiers while a service was being held,
and ordered the clergy to " stop this fooling."
Although this extreme state of affairs was not
of long duration, it lasted long enough to instil
into the very marrow and bones of the population
a prejudice that centuries have not been able
to altogether eradicate.
A reaction was, however, inevitable, and
with the Restoration it came, accompanied,
unhappily, by excesses that rendered the results
almost nugatory.
After a period, during which the genius of
Purcell shed an undying glory on English music,
the people, having finally rid the country of the
Stuart dynasty, settled down to a period if of less
fanatacism, a not less fatal indifference to and
contempt for musical art. It was left to the
io6 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
scornful genius of Dean Swift to express this
feeling in words at once typical of him, and
unforgetable.
At the time he wrote them, a foreign Court
had attracted a large number of musicians
from the Continent, amongst whom was
Handel.
For the distractions of a dissipated nobility
and a large cosmopolitan element, the Metropolis
needed the means of gratification. It is evident
that the native musician, whose training had
been mainly directed to essentially different
objects, was unable to supply them. The
foreigner, however, then as now, was quick to
meet the deficiency.
Two companies were formed for the exploita-
tion of Italian opera, which had long been
the vogue in France and Germany, their head-
quarters being respectively the Haymarket
and Covent Garden Theatres, the one headed
by Handel, the other by Buononcini.
Strange as it may appear to us at this day,
their rivalry soon became a source of serious
trouble to the authorities. Their adherents
formed themselves into factions headed by
young nobles, and occasional collisions between
them led to scenes of rioting and even bloodshed,
reminiscent of the ancient feuds between the
houses of Montague and Capulet. It was then
that Swift wrote the words in which he not only
voiced his own savage disdain, but the sentiments
of the average Englishman :
" Strange such difference there should be
'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee."
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 107
After some years of success, during which
Handel amassed a fortune, the tide of affairs
turned against him, and in broken health and
with impoverished means he retired to a Con-
tinental health resort. This, however, was but
the prelude to events not only of vital conse-
quence to bim, but of momentous significance
to the art of music.
On returning to England with restored vigour,
he cast about him to find the means of regaining
his former ascendency, and, happily for the
world at large, he decided to devote his energies
to the writing of sacred music.
With the production of the oratorio " Saul "
in 1739, Handel initiated that series of works
which not only had an untold influence on the
musical instinct of the English people, but was
destined to write his name in the book of the
Immortals. Everything tended to his success.
His genius, colossal as it was, might have
proved in vain, but for an unseen element that
was to come to his aid and enable him to crown
his career in a blaze of glory. This proved to
be a resurgence of the old-time love of music
amongst the masses, that their Puritan up-
bringing had long tended to suppress, but which,
under a religious guise, was ready to spring to
life again.
Thus, crowds of people who would not go to
hear music under ordinary conditions, would
eagerly seize an opportunity to do so when
presented to them under the aegis of Religion.
The spirit of the " Messiah " penetrated their
hearts, and helped to exorcise the sullen dis-
108 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
position towards anything approaching art that
had become so characteristic of them.
Splendid as was the result of Handel's work
not only in England but the world over, it
must be admitted that the immediate effect on
the English musician was disastrous.
He had long found it difficult to hold his
own against foreign competition, with the in-
fluence of the Court continously exercised in its
favour, but this overwhelming display of genius
in a field in which he had hitherto regarded
himself as unassailable in his own country,
seemed to be the one thing wanting to complete
his discomforture and bring about his abdication.
This accomplished, it is unnecessary to insist
upon the humiliations that were in store for him
during, the next hundred years. Suffice it to
say that the ascendency of the foreigner was
complete, and was exercised with an intoler-
ance of native effort that seems inconceivable
to us to-day. Not only did he occupy the
principal official posts, but nearly every other
of importance outside the Church, and even the
festivals, which were, in most cases, originally
organised in connection with one or other of the
cathedrals, before long came under his sway.
To cite two examples, those of Birmingham
and Norwich. The former has been conducted
for over forty years, since the period of its
inception, by Costa and Dr. Richter; whilst
the latter has been directed for over half a
century by musicians who were not only not
Englishmen, but not even Christians. This
grotesque situation was put an end to as
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 109
recently as 1908, when Sir Henry Wood was
appointed. This ascendency, encouraged by
the wealthy classes and contemptuously ignored
by the general public, could but have a withering
effect on native talent, and its parasitical influ-
ence undoubtedly hastened the decay of the
once flourishing tree of English music. Handel
had many successors here, but no equals.
However, so numbed had English musicians
become, that nearly any foreigner with sufficient
advertising ingenuity, could inspire them with a
sense not far removed from awe.
For instance, without wishing to be unjust to
such claims on posterity as Spohr may have,
we may well express astonishment at the great
influence he undoubtedly wielded whilst living
in London. His great ability as a performer
on the violin, together with his skill as a writer
for the instrument, first brought him prominently
into publicity, but it was the production of his
oratorio, " The I^ast Judgment," that made him
a power in the land.
What chiefly contributed to the fascination
his music exercised was a new feature in it that
appealed to natures the stern sublimity of
Handel's could not touch. This consisted of a
dexterous use of chromatic harmony, combined
with melody of ballad-like simplicity, which was
well calculated to please the untutored ear.
Even so robust a personality as Samuel Sebas-
tian Wesley temporarily fell under the spell,
though not for long, and afterwards, as if it were
an act of expiation, wrote a Church service in
which he reverted to the style of Orlando
no MUSIC IN ENGLAND
Gibbons. Spohr, however, was a genius, if not
of an exalted order, but what are we to say
when we take into consideration the position
attained to by Costa in this country ?
Surely English musical intelligence must have
reached its nadir.
He was allowed for thirty years to exercise
absolute sway over the festivals at Birmingham,
and there produced, with every accessory of
pomp and circumstance, his oratorios, " Eli "
and " Naaman," works in which you may seek
for and fail to find a redeeming feature. Com-
monplace in idea, blatant in orchestration,
theatrical in melody and primitive in contra-
puntal effort, these things were, nevertheless,
by the artifice of unscrupulous puffing, foisted
upon the public as works of genius.
Yet at this very time there was living an
English writer of great endowment, lofty
character and true genius, whose music was
comparatively neglected. Without making ex-
travagant claims for Sterndale Bennett, it
may be said, without hesitation, that his cantata,
" The Woman of Samaria," contains music
with which nothing that Costa and many others
similarly exploited, wrote, could for a moment
compare. To what extent indifference to
English music and musicians was carried may
be illustrated by the fact that he was suffered to
submit on an occasion to the insult of Costa's
refusal to conduct one of his compositions, and
this, without redress !
The day is coming when English composers
will have to endure as much adulation as their
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND in
predecessors did neglect. When that day arrives
I hope they will show some consideration for the
memory of William Sterndale Bennett. It was
with sincere pleasure that many observed the
inclusion of one of his overtures on the historic
occasion of the production at the Queen's Hall
in London of Sir Edward Elgar's first violin
concerto.
This was a tribute payed to him by his
greatest successor, and was worthy of the man
who did it and the occasion which prompted it.
Enough has been said to shew how complete
foreign supremacy had become. Its days are
now numbered, it is true, but the effect remains.
It is idle to suppose that the work of a few
men, however gifted they may be, can undo
in a decade what has taken two hundred years
to accomplish. Only by patience and sustained
effort in the direction of making students
endeavour to think English music rather
than German, can any national character be
developed.
This can be done by English masters only.
It is evident that there is a spirit of revolt
abroad against the position as it stands to-day.
That a nation with four or five hundred years'
musical history behind it should yet be in
foreign leading-strings is as absurd as it is
uncalled for, and national respect alone should
insist on its suppression.
English musicians have recently shewn in
manner absolutely convincing, that they can
hold their own in any department of music,
either as creators or exponents.
112 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
The north of England and the Midlands teem
with men erudite and enthusiastic.
In Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and
other towns they are ever in evidence, and it is
mainly from these parts of England that the
most striking of recent developments have come,
and which give the greatest hope for the future.
The fascination of a capital city and the appar-
ently limitless opportunities for advancement
naturally attract the consciously gifted young
musician. He expects to be greeted on arrival
with sympathy and encouragement, at least
by people of his own race. He probably
knows something of the history of music in
Iyondon, but even that does not stay him.
His first experience is one of disillusion. He
finds himself in an atmosphere of cosmopolitan-
ism where the dominating influences are largely
foreign, and if he enters one of the principal
schools, he finds himself in a centre whence
those influences largely radiate. If he elects
to stay there, he will eventually emerge from it
as an added unit to that vast army of foreign-
taught Englishmen whose work has hitherto
proved so abortive.
I would like to say here that there is not the
least intention to cast reflections on the capa-
bilities of these foreign teachers. Indeed, it
would be a work of supererogation to insist upon
the individual excellencies of many of them.
What words, for instance, could adequately
portray the work of such men as Oscar Beringer
or Johannes Wolff ? to mention only two of
them.
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 113
But that is beside the point.
What we have to consider is the wisdom or
unwisdom of continuing a system that has
obtained for a hundred years or so, and is still
encouraged by the leading authorities. We
may assume, or we ought to be able to assume,
that what gave rise to it was a dearth of suf-
ficiently competent Englishmen, and that the
mission entrusted to the foreigner was to train
the students up to his own high standard. Well,
has he succeeded after his hundred years'
trial ? It is evident that in the opinion of
these authorities he has not, else, why should
Herr this be made to succeed Herr that, and
Signor this, Signor that, with such monotonous
regularity ?
How much longer then is it intended to
continue on these lines ? If there are still no
native musicians fit to hold these important
posts (and this in the days of Elgar !), what a
commentary on the system !
Such an idea, however, is altogether unten-
able. There is not the slightest doubt that
there are numbers of them fully capable of
sustaining the prestige of any institution, were
once the chance accorded them. One can
only suppose that internal jealousies and
foreign-acquired predilections are responsible
for what seems such an insensate policy.
There is another point of view that deserves
consideration.
Let it be remembered that by all the re-
sources of the latest developments of advertising,
these schools attract thousands of pupils from
114 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
all parts of the kingdom, thus feeding the
already congested state of the musical profession,
and yet at the same time, bolting and barring
the door against their eventually succeeding to
these foreign-held posts, however great their
claims to them or their fitness to fulfil the duties
attached to them may be.
It is like addressing the English student thus :
" Yes. It is true you have paid your fees
for five years, during two of which we have
availed ourselves of your services as an unpaid
teacher, thus acknowledging your capabili-
ties, but we are sorry to be unable to give
you the post you seek as it is reserved for that
inestimable artist Signor , who is so
unaccountably neglected in his own country."
Thus the game goes on and, I suppose, will
go on until the pressure of public opinion or the
determination of the native students forces a
change. The specious argument that the de-
mand justifies the means may be and probably
is adduced. To this, I say that what is appli-
cable to one who has lived long in the country
and justified his position, is totally inappli-
cable to another who is brought here although
absolutely unknown.
Now, there cannot possibly be a demand for
an unknown quantity . What I would urge is that
upon the honourable retirement of the foreign
master, an Englishman should be appointed in
his place, and be given a chance equal to that
of his predecessor in the quality of the students
placed under him.
Of the average foreign musician scattered
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 115
broadcast over the country, it may be said
that if he has done no particular good,
he "has done- no particular harm, except in a
collectivist sense. This, however, cannot be
said of at least one of the most successful of
them.
To Sir Michael Costa is due the official adop-
tion of the high pitch, and what that conveys
can only be properly appreciated by the trained
musician. The British Government, finding
themselves under the necessity of supplying
instruments for the Army bands, and being
informed that these must be tuned alike to a
definite pitch — a question to them, probably,
of the " tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee " order —
characteristically called in a foreigner to advise
them on the subject, doubtless thinking he
would be the most competent to whom they
could appeal.
It may be casually mentioned that among the
prominent British musicians at this period, were
such men as Sir Sterndale Bennett, Sir George
Macfarren, and Sir John Goss.
Now, it is universally recognised that an
accurate sense of pitch is of the highest import-
ance to the musician, and seeing that many of
the most prominent singers — among them Sims
Reeves — refused to sing to it, and some of the
leading conductors declined to use it, the
confusion that has resulted may be easily
realised. Its adoption, however, by the Italian
Opera and Philharmonic Society in I^ondon,
the Birmingham Festival, and all the other
institutions where Costa's influence was para-
n6 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
mount, brought it into general use, and until
quite recently, it has so remained.
Yet the protests against it were never silenced,
and, constantly increasing in volume, resulted
in its abandonment by one after the other of the
leading orchestras in the country,* thus isolating
the numerous choral societies in the provinces,
who are necessitated to seek the aid of military
band players to supplement the local ones in
forming a band for their performances, and are
forced accordingly to continue its use.
The effects of this discordance have been,
and continue to be positively incalculable.
Happily for England there are few men who
have had similar opportunities for doing mis-
chief ; he has had imitators, it is true, but none
possessed of his talent or force of character.
Indeed, it may be said that he has had few
equals among foreign resident musicians, the
majority of whom are men of just average
ability, who have made such reputations as
they possess in this country, and are, in most
cases, quite unknown in their own, except
perhaps in the immediate neighbourhood of
their birthplaces, f
In order to explain their presence in thous-
ands, it will be necessary to touch on a subject
that cannot be altogether avoided. I do not
* The lead taken by Sir Henry Wood in this matter is
one of his many claims to the gratitude of the country.
His adoption of the French pitch, known as the " diapason
normale," was an act of supreme importance, as tending to
bring England in line with the rest of Europe.
t " Music in London : Impressions of a Stranger " (p. 11).
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 117
think, for a moment, that English opinion on
the relative merits of the native and foreign
musician as teacher is so decidedly in favour
of the latter as figures would suggest. I look,
rather, in other directions for a solution of the
problem.
In the first place, I cannot but think that
internal differences, rivalries and jealousies
among prominent British musicians have af-
forded opportunities that he has not been slow
to take advantage of. It would not be difficult
to refer to many remarkable appointments of
foreign masters that one could only explain on
these grounds, so utterly unjustifiable do they
seem.
Again, in the art of advertisement which
appears so essential to-day, there can be no
question that Englishmen are not a match for
the foreigner, who uses it with surprising effect
on the unsuspecting public. It is certainly one
of the secrets of the astounding position they
have gained in musical education in this
country.
If one may compare teaching with public
performance, the point becomes clearer.
Whilst recognising with frankness and spon-
taneity the genius of such giants as Halle,
Joachim, Piatti, Norman Neruda, Pachmann,
Kreisler, and Paderewski, I absolutely fail to
see equal merit in the many foreign artists who
are so extravagantly advertised at the present
time. It seems to me that in many cases the
agent displays more skill in his art than the
artist advertised.
n8 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
One may surely be permitted, without being
invidious, to contrast the performances of an
Englishman like Mr. W. H. Squire with those
of such exponents of their respective schools as
Setior Casals and M. Gerardy, and express a
preference for the northern virility and dignity
of the Englishman.
Granted that many foreign artists who appear
here display great ability, there are many more
who do nothing of the kind, and the day should
be past when every alien musician endowed
with long hair and a pallid complexion is to
be accepted by the British public as the highest
type of musical genius. This delusion has lasted
long enough.
Had England shown herself barren in produc-
ing sons possessing great musical gifts, the
position to-day would at least be explicable,
but this is not the case. There has been no
time in the centuries since PurcelTs death
destitute of some living representative of the
old English genius, although, perhaps, living
in the comparative obscurity of a cathedral
town, and far removed from the garish lights
of the Metropolis.
Certain it is that of native composers who
have shown any English characteristics in their
music, the majority of them have been reared
in our cathedral cities, and have imbibed their
earliest impressions in cathedral choirs.
To go no further back than the Wesleys,
Samuel and his son, Samuel Sebastian, we need
only cite a few of them : Atwood, Pierson,
Goss, Sterndale Bennett, Arthur Sullivan, Sir
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 119
Frederick Bridge, Sir Walter Parratt— and
crowds of others, both living and dead.
Removed from the centralised cosmopolitan-
ism of Iyondon, many of them had a chance of
giving expression to their thoughts in music
not characterised by foreign idiom.
If the fine work of such men as Hubert Parry,
Edward Elgar, Granville Bantock, Walford
Davies, William Wallace, Joseph Holbrook, and
others of the new British school does not con-
vince the country of the fatuity of perpetuating
the state of things existing at present, nothing
will, and we must accept the fact that the idea of
foreign supremacy in every branch of musical
work, is so engrained in the blood of the " man
in the street " as to be absolutely ineradicable.
But I do not believe it.
One hardly dares to question the sanity of a
nation, even on so elusive a subject as music.
To-day, even, we can see the Dawn : the
Penumbra is vanishing.
Not long ago it was considered essential
that a singer of any exceptional merit should
go to Italy to " finish " — or be finished, as the
case might be. Not only so, but it was often
thought necessary to Italianise the Anglo-Saxon
name, and this was occasionally done with
grotesque result !
In some cases the possessor of so characteristic
a name, say, as Smith (Miss Smith might be a
" discovery " by some knowing person and
promptly packed off to the " land of song ") —
after a stay of a year or two in Italy, emerges
from that country, having adopted, with a
120 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
profound sense of the genius of I^atin languages,
the name of Smith-owa.
The fact that such great singers as Sims
Reeves and Charles Santley went to Italy and
achieved great success there, has, no doubt, been
a fruitful source of attraction to the country;
but of the many thousands who have followed
their example, how many have returned with
the least promise of emulating in ever so faint
a degree their illustrious careers ?
No Englishmen, assuredly.
A few years ago I had thVpkasure to spend a
day in the company of that great singer, the
late Signor Tamagno,
In the course of conversation he expressed
the opinion that the old school of Italian singing
which had produced so many artists of such
extraordinary merit, was practically dead, and
that he was the only living exponent to carry on
its traditions. As he was speaking in French, I
give his actual words in a foot-note.*
Without venturing to subscribe to such a
pronouncement, I think it is worth while
recording. Whilst admitting that Italy occa-
sionally produces singers that electrify the
world, such as Madame Tettrazzini and Signor
Caruso, I think that a little consideration will
convince anyone that the majority of great
singers in modern times has emanated from the
northern races, f
*I/ancienne ecole de chant Italienne est une chose du
pass6, dont je suis le seul et dernier representant.
fTo cite a few names that come most readily to the
mind — Jenny Iyind, Christine Nilsson, Madame Patey
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 121
In a memorable address given recently by
Madame Melba to the students of the Guildhall
School of Music, on which occasion I was fortun-
ate enough to be present, that great singer
insisted on the importance of diction, and ex-
pressed the opinion that in this respect young
English singers had much to learn. One is
obliged to recognise the justice of the rebuke,
but I think that, at least, a partial explanation
may be ventured.
In illustration Madame Melba instanced
many words that were constantly maltreated,
and among them was that of love.
This irresistibly brought to my mind an incident
that occurred many years ago. When I was,
as a boy, acting as accompanist in the studio of
a celebrated foreign singing master, an English
lady was having a lesson and was singing an
English song in which she had to articulate this
very word. Suddenly there came a clapping of
hands and a voice called out, "No, no, dat
will not do. Ze word is — " and I give the pro-
nunciation as nearly as letters will permit —
" ' loaf.' "
As soon as the lady had gone and we were
left alone, I said, " But, maestro, that lady sang
the word as it is pronounced in English."
The retort came instantly : " Dat is so ? Den
it ought to be as / say it."
This aspersion on the intellectual intelligence
Sims Reeves, Jean de Reszk6, Charles Santley and Edouard
de Reszk6. Added to these, the great German singers,
inseparably associated with the works of Wagner — all
give colour to the idea.
122 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
of the Anglo-Saxon race struck me as decidedly
amusing.
On a quite different occasion I was present
at a function in the course of which another
foreign singing master was called upon to make
a speech. I was, it is true, seated at a consider-
able distance from him, could not see him, and
had not the slightest idea who he was. After
listening carefully for some time, I turned to
my table companion and said, " Could you tell
me who is speaking, and what the language
is ? " He shrugged his shoulders and replied :
" Upon my word I can't." We afterwards
learnt that the language spoken was — English !
I think that the most unsophisticated of
my readers, if I have any, will be able to draw
his own deductions.
It is at least reasonable to ask why the more
virile northerner should subjugate his person-
ality and national characteristics to those of a
southern race of different climate, different
morals, and different physique. I^et us con-
sider for a moment the sister art of
painting.
It is quite unnecessary to extol the glories of
the British school.
Can you possibly imagine Turner, Hogarth,
Gainsborough and Reynolds sitting down and
quietly acquiescing, when a set of foreign painters
came over to England and addressed them in
such terms as these : " You English have lost,
if you ever possessed ft, the art of painting.
We are going to stay over here and shew that
we are your superiors, and you will have to
MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 123
submit quietly while we are taking time to
do it ? "
I, at least, would not like to have been a
member of that deputation in case Turner and
Hogarth were present. Yet this is not an
unfair illustration of what English musicians
have submitted to.
l^et us see what Mendelssohn thought on the
subject.
In a letter to Edward Devrient, dated Milan,
July 13, 1831, he writes:
" You can have no conception of an Italian
chorus. As I was supposed to be in the land
of music, I thought I would try and recognise
one good voice among it, but they are all vile
and roar like quacks at a fair. . . . No
German can have an idea of what it is here —
that is to say, no real German ; for such
a one as I met here is as much a real German as
cheese and beer.
" Fancy, Devrient, the fellow's expenses are
paid for two years by the Ministry, in order that
he may study Italian music, and on his return
teach the Italian method of singing. . . .
" Alas, you have no conception of these
horrors. . . . The great fault is seeking to
Italianise themselves, whilst what our northern
nature has given them is the best and only good
they have."
Enough of the subject.
I,et us simply recall again the words of Sir
Edward Elgar, spoken at Birmingham : "To
draw their inspiration from their own country,
their own literature and their own climate.
124 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
Only by doing so could they arrive at an
English art."
CONCLUSION
Everything points to the fact that in all
branches of musical art, the time has come
when England should work out her own
salvation.
The result of a hundred and fifty years of
foreign tutelage is not one of which any nation
need be proud.
CHAPTER VI
PROGRESS OP ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
Former indifference to orchestral music in England — Handel and his
orchestra — Difference in character to the modern — Haydn's visit
— Its great influence — Philharmonic Society — Great services to
England — Celebrated foreign composers identified with its
history — Mendelssohn and Wagner — Richter! and Wagner
festival at Royal Albert Hall — Richter Concerts — Influence
on public taste — August Manns and Crystal Palace Concerts
— Sir George Grove and the programmes — Sir Charles
Halle and Manchester — The Manchester (afterwards Halle)
Concerts — Influence on music in the North and Midlands —
Sir Henry J. Wood and Promenade Concerts — Reformation
in character — His establishment of Symphony Concerts — Unique
service to British music — London Symphony Orchestra —
Mr. Landon Ronald and the New Symphony Orchestra — The
Royal Amateur and other amateur orchestral societies — The
good work done.
One of the most striking features in the recent
development of musical progress in England is
the somewhat sudden rise into popularity of
orchestral music. One might almost say that
as regards this form of art, the vast majority of
English people were at one time as dead to any
appreciation of it, as their descendants to-day,
are alive to its value, and eager to take every
opportunity to extend their knowledge of it.
Until the Philharmonic Society was founded
by a few enthusiasts in 1813, there was no
permanent orchestra devoted to the perform-
ances of abstract music in the country. Such
bands as there were, consisted of small bodies of
125
126 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
performers whose duties were principally con-
fined to the playing of accompaniments, and
were generally found in the theatre.
For especial occasions, such as the appearance
of a celebrated foreign Composer, singer or
player, an orchestra would be temporarily
formed, and many of the best musicians of the
day would gladly volunteer their services to do
honour to the distinguished visitor.
I forbear to speak of Handel in this connection,
since the band he required bore little or no
approximation to the modern orchestra, and
was used, generally, in conjunction with the
organ, in the production of his operas or
oratorios. The orchestra, as we know it to-day,
is of altogether a later date. However, the
popularity and frequent performances of his
oratorios doubtless proved a great factor in
arousing interest in the instrumental playing
connected with them, and thus laid the seed
that was to bear such golden fruit in the near
future.
Handel died in 1759, and there is little to
record of special interest, until the arrival of
Haydn in 1791. With this event may be
associated the birth of the modern orchestra, in
this country. That which Handel had employed
seems amazing to modern ideas. To think of a
band that contains as many oboes as violins
is enough to take one's breath away, without
insisting on other quaint details; yet up to
Haydn's visit this was what musical people
were accustomed to.
The revolution he brought about, the great
PROGRESS OF ORCHESTRAL MUSIC 127
increase in the number of stringed instruments,
the limitation of the number of oboes to two,
and the many other changes of a like nature,
may seem at first rather startling ; a little
consideration, however, may perhaps suggest a
quite simple explanation. In those days it was
customary for the great nobles of central
Europe to keep a resident band in their palaces,
and it is only reasonable to think that instru-
ments of less piercing tone than that of the
oboe, would be preferred for salon performances.
Haydn had been in the service of Prince
Ksterhazy for thirty years, had written most
of his music for performance in the palace, and
thus when he came to I/>ndon at the instigation
of Saloman, a Jewish concert agent, he naturally
introduced this new type of orchestra which,
with the occasional addition of novel instru-
ments, has remained to the present day.
Haydn's visit constituted an epoch in the
history of music in England, for it served to
stimulate and give impetus to the interest in
abstract orchestral music, which was hitherto
either absolutely wanting or quite latent. This
interest was, happily, either created or aroused,
and soon culminated in the founding of the
Philharmonic Society.
To this Society England owes a debt she can
never repay, for it is only through the unselfish
devotion of its members, that the regular pre-
sentation of classical orchestral, music was,
for very many years rendered possible. In the
first place the reasonable supposition must be
borne in mind that only a limited number of
128 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
people would be found sufficiently interested in
the subject to give it financial support, and thus
the inevitable question of ways and means
would be ever present and, indeed, even to this
day it still confronts the directors who are, and
have been from the first, entirely unpaid. In
fact, if the truth were told it would reveal many
sacrifices, sometimes no mean ones either,
made by musicians in order to keep the lamp
of orchestral music burning in this country.
A high ideal was aimed at, and nothing mere-
tricious or unworthy was suffered to detract
from the dignity of the performances.
At the beginning it must be admitted, the
directors found it necessary to " temper the
wind to the shorn lamb " by offering to their
patrons other attractions beside the purely
orchestral, so they engaged instrumentalists
to play chamber music, while one or two singers
also helped to vary the programmes. It was
not long, however, before chamber music was
discarded. From that day to this, the concerts
have never changed in character. Under all
circumstances, whether of success or depression,
nothing but the cult of the great classics was
regarded as the essential feature of the aims of
the Society. Its history is, assuredly, a fascin-
ating one, not only on account of the intimate
association with the greatest composers of the
nineteenth century and the wonderful galaxy of
genius which has made offerings at its shrine,
but of the record of courage and determination
which illumines it.
In order to appreciate at its true significance
PROGRESS OF ORCHESTRAL MUSIC 129
the present popularity of orchestral music, it
must be remembered that only a comparatively
short time ago, there were but few performances
given, and that even these did not attract suffi-
cient people to pay the expenses, unless under
special and occasional circumstances.
It was then, under such disheartening con-
ditions, that the Philharmonic continued to live
and carry on its work in the highest interests of
art, and although its light may have been at
times somewhat obscured by contemporary
brilliancy, its story is one of which not only the
Society, but the nation at large may be justifiably
proud.
As an interesting commentary on the change
that has come over musical taste in England,
it may be mentioned that Mendelssohn con-
ducted one season and Wagner another : the
former was the most successful in the history of
the Society, and the latter the most disastrous.
Cherubini, Spohr, Weber, Mendelssohn and
Gounod, amongst many others, wrote works
especially for it, and, above all, Beethoven's
colossal and immortal Ninth Symphony is
denoted by an asterisk in Grove's dictionary, as
having been similarly composed.
In recent years one of the greatest events not
only in its own history, but in the history of
British music, was the first performance at the
Queen's Hall in I^ondon, of Sir Edward Elgar's
first Violin Concerto on the 10th of November,
in the year 1910.
Played by Herr Kreisler and conducted by the
composer, it achieved an instantaneous success
K
130 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
with which nothing can compare since the
first performance of the similar work of
Mendelssohn's in 1844.
Its appearance was, indeed, epoch-making.
It is gratifying to think that it aroused, among
the general public, an interest in the Society and
its history that had long been wanting, and
with the arrival of its centenary year, 1912,
together with the many new works promised, it
may be confidently hoped that new life and vigour
will be instilled into this admirable institution.
For Mendelssohn, the Society cherishes a
special regard, and no wonder, since his interest
in it and affection for it were so constantly in
evidence, and were of such practical value in
raising its artistic and financial status. In each
visit that he payed to this country, in 1829,
1842, 1844, and the last in 1847, he either
conducted or played for the Society and, indeed,
retained to the end of his fife the keenest and
most unselfish wishes for its welfare
Of the distinguished British musicians whose
names are indelibly associated with the history
of the Society must be mentioned, among
others, Sir Sterndale Bennett (conductor), Sir
Arthur Sullivan (conductor), Sir Hubert Parry,
Sir Alexander Mackenzie (conductor), Sir Charles
Stanford, and Sir Frederick Cowen (conductor).
During the past two decades or longer, the
Society has been fortunate enough to have as its
leading Officials Mr. Francesco Berger,* a dis-
* Mr. Berger has retired since this was written, and has
been succeeded by the eminent British composer, Mr.
William Wallace.
PROGRESS OF ORCHESTRAL MUSIC 131
tinguished musician whose whole life has been
devoted to high ideals, and Dr. W. H. Cummings,
without whose valuable assistance it is doubtful
whether the Society could have successfully
resisted certain years of trial and stress.
It is unnecessary to further insist on the
great services rendered to the country by the
Philharmonic Society.
If we wish to find the cause or causes which
brought about the change amongst the masses,
from absolute indifference to orchestral music
to the present enthusiasm for it, I think we may
begin by noting the gradual growth of an
appreciation of the music of Wagner, especially
among those whose means had enabled them
to attend presentations of his works in Germany.
It was, I think, to a number of these fortunate
individuals, aided by the enthusiastic Schultz-
Curtius, that we owe the appearance of Wagner
and the memorable Wagner Festival at the
Royal Albert Hall, which, he, in conjunction
with Herr Richter, conducted in the year 1877.
The enthusiasm aroused by the marvellous
music and the revelatioL of the wonderful
powers of Richter as a conductor, soon led to
the establishment of the Richter Concerts, and
we may, I believe, regard this as an epoch,
as the birth of the new spirit that was so speedily
to alter the whole aspect of things musical in
this country.
Not only the enthralling fascination of the
music, but the striking personality of the con-
ductor, who seemed to inspire the orchestra
with his own genius, cast such a spell over the
132 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
audiences and aroused such frantic enthusiasm,
that no one who attended the early concerts
can ever forget the sensations they inspired.
The success achieved in I^ondon naturally
resulted in a call to the great provincial cities,
and thus Richter had the gratification not only
of doing great service to his idolised master,
but also to England, that had so quickly learnt
to appreciate him.
If anyone could doubt the extraordinary
fascination that Wagner's music wields over
the masses, a single visit to a Promenade Concert
on a Wagner night should easily dispel it.
For over forty years the Philharmonic Society
stood practically alone in any serious efforts
on behalf of orchestral music. Eventually,
however, another champion entered the lists,
and valiantly did he bear himself. This was
no other than the late Herr August (afterwards
Sir August) Manns, who in 1855 was ap-
pointed director of the music at the Crystal
Palace.
To appreciate the difficulties he had to
encounter, one must know that when he ap-
peared on the scene, he found a wretched brass
band installed there ; no concert room, no proper
platform for the performers, and the music,
such as it was, had to be played to the accom-
paniment of popping corks, shrieking engines,
and all the multitudinous noises one can
imagine in such a vast place of entertainment.
However, he was no ordinary man.* He was
* See H. Saxe Wyndham's interesting and instructive
" August Manns and the Crystal Palace Concerts."
PROGRESS OF ORCHESTRAL MUSIC 133
energetic, determined, and courageous, and
whilst being generally genial and even per-
suasive in manner, he was also undoubtedly
of a somewhat combative nature. This was
shown some years later when he took exception
to a criticism of Mr. Bernard Shaw, and drew
from him a characteristic letter in which musical
critics are described as divided into "two
sorts, musicians who are no writers, and writers
who are no musicians," and classes himself
among the latter.
The first thing that Manns set himself to do
was to replace the brass band by an ordinary
orchestra. In this he was ultimately successful,
although only after a severe struggle with the
Palace authorities, who, even including the late
Sir George Grove, inclined to the opinion that
a string orchestra was unsuitable to the building.
Events justified his judgment, and he ultimately
succeeded in evolving, out of an absolute chaos,
the famous band and the celebrated Saturday
Concerts.
That he did an enormous amount of good
during his many years of strenuous work is
unquestionable, but it must be acknowledged
that the position of the Palace, being so far from
I/ondon, made the concerts as an institution
more or less parochial. The majority of those
attending them was mainly composed of local
subscribers and their families, while the Iyondon
element largely consisted of professional musi-
cians or others having business connection with
music in various ways. The free list would
be, therefore, largely in evidence, and not
134 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
calculated to ensure the stability of such an
expensive enterprise.
As communication between London and
Sydenham became more easy, it began to be
observed that the local residents were taking
advantage of it in ever increasing numbers, to
seek the more varied attractions of the Metro-
polis, with the inevitable result of decreasing
subscriptions and gradually diminishing
audiences.
When the collapse came at last it caused
widespread regret, and there was a unanimous
feeling. that Manns had well earned the highest
mark of recognition that could be bestowed on
him. I ,-i
To what, then, must we look for its failure to
retain so honourable a position ?
I am afraid, and I say it with regret, to uncon-
scious imitation. It was, in his case, not only
natural, but, as it seems to me, inevitable. He
had lived for long in France and had become so
saturated with her school of music, that every
bar he wrote proclaimed the fact ; but while
master of the exterior mode of style, his com-
positions failed to show the working of the French
mind, that underlies the extraordinary expres-
sions of that wonderful people's genius.
They were earnest in intention, skilful in
invention, and quite delightful at the first
hearing, but of national virility they were,
unhappily, not possessed.
Carl Rosa deserves the grateful memory of
the English people.
Of the many attempts to establish English
opera in IyOndon on a permanent basis, the most
extraordinary as well as the most disastrous, was
that of the late Mr. D'Oyly Carte in 1891, and
which was dignified by the title of " Royal
English Opera."
The original intention of the founder, as gener-
ally understood, was not only to build a sump-
tuous home for it, but to encourage its cultiva-
tion and development and, by commissioning
distinguished British composers to write works,
make it, in fact, a nursery for native genius.
The idea was, doubtless, a splendid one, but,
unfortunately, the attempt to carry it out was
characterised by features that were more
surprising than convincing. If the design had
igo MUSIC IN ENGLAND
been to discard, obtrusively, all precedent, it
was entirely fulfilled. Certainly, no lack of
courage was in evidence, although prudence
seemed to be wanting.
Every one engaged to carry out the great
scheme was new tojsuch work. Sir Arthur
Sullivan, whose " Ivanhoe " was to inaugurate
the attempt, was writing his first grand opera ;
the artistes chosen for its performance were all
with one or two exceptions, without any previous
experience of it ; the musician selected as musical
director had never previously conducted a grand
opera, and the stage manager had never produced
one.
But perhaps the most extraordinary thing of
all, and the idea was most assuredly new, was
to start such a scheme with only one opera, and
no definite decision as regards a second.
If this were not tempting the Fates, it is
difficult to know what would be. At any rate,
the Fates did not leave the issue long in doubt.
The immense popularity Sir Arthur Sulliyan
enjoyed, not only on account of his dehghtful
comic operas, but of his splendid work in other
and more serious directions, stimulated public
interest, and the production of " Ivanhoe " was
awaited with feverish expectation.
Never, it can be truly said, did the Press greet a
new venture with greater warmth and enthusi-
asm. Columns of anticipatory notices were
devoted to it, many bearing additional weight by
being signed by the writers, and even leading
articles in the foremost journals of the country,
lending encouragement to the enterprise, went to
OPERA IN ENGLAND 191
mark the serious mind in which it was regarded.
At last, the eventful night arrived, and the opera
was produced under conditions that could hardly
have been rendered more favourable.
The reception of the work by the Press and
the public was scarcely identical . By the former
it was generous, although naturally, critical, the
evident uneven merit it exhibited being insisted
on ; but, on the whole, it was decidedly encour-
aging, although not so enthusiastic as its
admirers would have wished. Time, however,
has justified the critics. By the people it was
accepted whole-heartedly, as may be judged by
the fact that its run extended to 168 consecutive
performances. It is true that during the last
two months, financial loss was experienced, but
at the end of the first hundred nights, notwith-
standing the expense of the production, which
was exceptionally heavy, there was a balance
to the good. It may be mentioned that this
constitutes a record in the history of grand opera.
The public were quick to recognise the beauty
of much of the music, and its dramatic power,
while they were delighted, and perhaps surprised,
by the fine acting that accompanied the superb
singing of several of the principals.
The universal acclamation of the splendour of
the production was a tribute, well deserved, to
the genius of Mr. Hugh Moss.
Of the artists who achieved distinction in this
memorable production, the name of the late
Eugene Oudin, stands out pre-eminently. His
rendering of the part of the Templar, being not
only masterly, but instinct with genius.
192 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
Other noteworthy performances were those
of Miss Margaret Macintyre, Miss Esther Pallise^
Miss I^ucille Hill, Mr. Ben DaVies, Mr. Norman
Salmond and Mr. Franklin Clive.
Alas ! that it all should have been so piteously
wasted. There never was a more complete
failure to realise hopes that had been, perhaps
unduly, raised, and which were responded to
with greater generosity by both Press and public
alike. When the " Royal English Opera " was
actually inaugurated, not only was a second
opera by an English composer in anything more
than nebulous contemplation, but not even a
single relief to the constant succession of per-
formances of " Ivanhoe " was in course of pre-
paration. This state of things continued until
the end was reached and the opera house closed.
It was re-opened some months later, for the
production of the " Basoche," an opera by the
distinguished French composer, Andre Messager.
This work, delightful as it is, failed to attract
people in sufficient numbers to make the
continuance of the scheme possible, and it
came to an end, finally, after an existence of
one year's duration. The failure was inglorious
and inevitable. The break-up of the company,
many of whose members had shown evidence
of such high capacity, was a matter of deep
regret ; a regret the more poignant, since many
connected with the enterprise were destined
to suffer severely by its early collapse.
I think it will be generally admitted that
the idea of establishing a school of English opera,
with any chance of permanence pertaining to it,
OPERA IN ENGLAND 193
seems hopeless of accomplishment without State
aid ; and of this, viewing the trend of recent
legislation, there would appear to be little
prospect.
To have the most remote chance of gaining it,
it would be incumbent on those prepared to
make the proposal, to convince legislators that
there was any national demand for it. Of any
evidence of this, I am afraid they would find
themselves absolutely lacking. The tendency,
at the present day, is in the direction of raising
the status of the labourer, socially and in the
matter of education, rather than in the cause
of art, which, after all, mainly appeals to
people who are in the position, more or less, to
pay for the thing they feel any serious need of.
Such I think, would be the nature of the reply
from any government official to those courage-
ous enough to urge so forlorn, yet so good a
cause.
He would, of course, be able to state a much
stronger case if he thought it desirable.
Iyook at the frequent productions in I/mdon
of " musical comedies " or " comic operas," or
whatever designation it is wished they should
be known by.
They are usually on a scale both elaborate
and costly, and sometimes of magnificence, but
they attract people by the thousand, where a
serious opera will fail to draw them by the
hundred.
Here, there is no need of State aid. Why ?
Simply because they provide what the public
want and are willing to pay for. In form, taste
194 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
and atmosphere, they are the very antithesis
of grand opera.
Should any of them show the least signs of
demanding intellectual effort for immediate
appreciation, the modern manager cuts out the
offending matter, without a moment's hesitation,
or the least compunction. The immense popu-
larity these entertainments command is, unques-
tionably, a tribute to the sound judgment of
those who control them. It is an interesting
fact that within quite recent years, there has
been a marked tendency to bring continental
successes to I^ondon, and the music they have
contained has often called forth eulogistic
notices from the critics, on the occasions of
their first performances. A visit to the
theatre a month or so later, would, I fear,
generally reveal the fact that most of it,
which had earned such high praise, had been
ehminated.
So accurate a judge of public taste as Mr.
George Edwardes, is able to run three or four
of such, or similar, pieces, simultaneously, in
the West End of Iyondon, each of which must
fill the house night after night for months
together, before they show a profit, on so sump-
tuous a scale are they presented.
Viewing such facts as these, it is difficult to
see on what grounds, really logical, any demand
for help from the State can be made on behalf
of grand opera, which it would be difficult to
prove that the general public, apart from the
comparatively few enthusiasts, have any desire
for, when it is so abundantly evident that they
OPERA IN ENGLAND 195
are ev,er eager to support any kind of recreation
or relaxation that they do want.
The basis of the plea is, no doubt, musical
education for the masses ; and, while such a
desire must attract the sympathy of every
music lover, it must be granted that the ability
to appreciate Wagner, Elgar or Strauss, is not
a necessary part of a working man's attain-
ments. It might be a very desirable thing, but
we are very evidently at a more utilitarian
stage, the present day being regarded in its
true light. The illustration may appear, at
first sight, to be somewhat strained, but I venture
to think it is not, judging by notices one reads
in the papers, in which Mendelssohn's violin
concerto is written of as, "a hackneyed medium
of expression " ; Gounod's " Faust " as full of
"sickly sentimentality," or Bizet's "Carmen"
as a work of " essential vulgarity." There may
be an element of truth in either of these criticisms,
and judged in the light of the writers' probable
high standard of aesthetic tastes, they are justi-
fied, but they only emphasise the fact of the
veritable abyss that separates the modern cul-
tured musical critic from the musical " man in the
street," in whose interest the proposition is put
forward.
Supposing the government at any time, con-
templated taking action in this direction, the
first thing they would probably do, would be
to appoint a Commission to enquire into the
question.
It is only natural to suppose that among the
first of those whose opinions would be sought,
196 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
the eminent writers on music in the principal
journals of the country, would be conspicuous.
In this case, it may be taken for granted that
unanimity will not be the chief characteristic
of their utterances. For instance, I cannot
bring myself to think of Mr. Joseph Bennett,
whose services to music in the columns of the
"Daily Telegraph," for many years were so
generally recognised, writing in such terms of
Mendelssohn's violin concerto.
The question teems with difficulties.
One school of thought asks for opera given
exclusively in the English language and per-
formed, as far as possible by British artists.
Another, for opera given in the language in which
it was composed, and rendered by singers of the
country it represents, or those competent to sing
adequately in it. Again, some urge that there
should be occasional performances of such simple
works as Balfe's " Bohemian Girl," which the
least musically educated would be able to
appreciate ; while others would bann such operas
altogether, on the grounds that they are out of
the spirit of the age, and that their representation
would be sheer waste of time and opportunity.
As an illustration of the absolutely divergent
views on the subject held by authoritative
opinion, I will make a quotation from the
" Morning Post."*
It was written with regard to the interesting
experiment that Mr. Hammerstein is now making
in his effort to popularise opera in England.
' ' A cry has been raised that the performances
* The date, February the 9th, 1912.
OPERA IN ENGLAND 197
should be in English. It shows a lamentable
ignorance (the italics are mine) of operatic condi-
tions prevailing at the present time. It would
be well-nigh impossible for Mr. Hammerstein
to give his performances in English at an earlier
date than six months from now. There is no
lack of English singers, but those with sufficient
experience of the stage at present available to
carry on a regular series of performances, can be
numbered on the fingers of one hand."
If this opinion be justified, and I hope it is
not, it suggests a sad commentary on the
result of efforts made on behalf of operatic
education in England from the time of Carl Rosa
to that of Dr. Richter.
It seems to me that if opera is to become a
living force in English musical life, as oratorio
has been, there are certain essentials that must
obtain.
In the first place the operas should be given
in the English language, and the performers
should be, as far as possible, of British race ;
the choice of works sufficiently eclectic to appeal
to all classes, and the prices of admission to the
performances, arranged on such a scale as not
to be prohibitive to the average individual of
more or less limited means.
The headquarters of such a company would,
naturally, be in Iyondon, but an " operatic
season " should be arranged for in the principal
cities of the provinces.
The financial question naturally obtrudes
itself, but I believe that a solution of the question
is not beyond the wit of man to devise.
198 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
One thing is very certain, and that is the
impossibility, under such a scheme, to pay the
principal artists inflated salaries such as are
in constant evidence to-day. In this respect it
could not compete either with such an institu-
tion as the Royal Opera, with its exclusive and
wealthy patrons, or the theatres producing light
operas that enjoy runs of two years' or more
duration.
On the other hand, the performances would
have to be, if ultimate success were the sole end
in view, on a higher level of all-round excellence
than any that have been seen in recent years.*
Under some such conditions as these, there would
seem to be nothing irrational in asking for
government aid.
To have any national significance, the people,
generally, must be attracted, and that object
would, naturally, be the main thought of the
officials, should such a desirable state of things
ever come to pass.
The building of a beautiful theatre in Iyondon,
and the establishing therein of an excellent com-
pany of foreign artists, with the view of produc-
ing foreign works in various languages, is, how-
ever interesting to the musical enthusiast, and
courageous of the impresario in making such a
venture with reduced prices of admission to the
performances, of no national significance what-
ever. The experiment will, doubtless, prove
whether a sufficiently numerous body of opera
* This remark does not, of course, apply to such per-
formances as those given by Dr. Richter or Mr. Thomas
Beecham, which were purely temporary in their nature.
OPERA IN ENGLAND 199
lovers, native and foreign, can be found in the
metropolis to permit of its success. That is all.
Thanks, nevertheless, the most cordial and
ungrudging, are due to Mr. Hammerstein for
the boon he has offered to the dwellers in I^ondon.
The thoughts, however, of all Englishmen who
are interested in the music of their country, must
necessarily turn to native product.
So far as opera is concerned, it is clear that
there is much spade work to be done.
There is, however, in reality, no evidence to
show that, granted circumstances were favour-
able, the old-time love of it, or such forms of it
as were in existence centuries ago, is incapable
of resurgence.
All that seems wanting, is the hour and the
man.
At present, it cannot be said that the outlook,
from the national point of view, is very hopeful.
Unless the native composer can see some
definite reward for his labour, it is scarcely to be
expected that he should devote his genius and
energies to the composition of a work that may,
perhaps, take the greatest part of his time for
a year or more.
And yet no return, in the least degree equiva-
lent to the labour expended, could be looked
for as things are now.
If a committee of influential personages could
be formed, and a scheme for the furtherance
of English opera be inaugurated, with a work
from the pen of Sir Edward Elgar, there
is every reason to believe that an interest
would be aroused in the country sufficient
200 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
to guarantee immediate success, and settle,
once and for all, the question whether, given fair
conditions, the English people were in the dis-
position to welcome, not only opera in England,
but English opera in England. I think the
response would be of a character that every one
interested in English music would ardently
wish for.
CHAPTER IX
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS IN ENGLAND DURING
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT
Birth — Family connected with English Church music — Enters
Royal Academy of Music — Importance of the step— His work
there — Proceeds to Leipzig — Schumann's appreciation of his
genius — The German impress — His return to England — Life-long
association with Royal Academy of Music — Bennett as pianist
— Institutes chamber concerts — His conservative views —
Rivalry of foreign musicians — His most important compositions
— Founds The Bach Society — His place in musical history.
William Sterndale Bennett was born at
Sheffield in 1816. I^ike the majority of cele-
brated English musicians, he came of a family
long associated with the music of the Church ;
several of his relatives, including his grand-
father, having been members of cathedral choirs.
When he was only eight years of age he entered
the choir of King's College Chapel, Cambridge,
and there became acquainted with, and as later
events proved, influenced by, the ancient school
of English ecclesiastical music, which, notwith-
standing his subsequent foreign education, never
entirely lost its effect on his mind.
He was not, however, perhaps unfortunately,
allowed to remain there long, for after two years
he was sent to the Royal Academy of Music in
London, which was then a young institution in
201
202 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
which the pupils were not only taught music
and given an elementary general education,
but were, at that period of its history, boarded
as well.
It is certainly open to question whether it was
a wise step on the part of his relatives to take,
seeing that it removed him from a centre where
all the surroundings were English — English
thought, influence, music and all that goes to
mark national characteristics — to one which
was, however admirable from many points of
view, to say the least, cosmopolitan in character.
A genius so precocious as Bennett would be
perfectly capable to assimilate, even at so early
an age, the spirit of the ancient school, and this
he certainly accomplished to some extent at
Cambridge : the fact that it subsequently
became subservient to another was, simply,
the result of the force of circumstances.
In the end, it cannot he denied that the spirit
of German music practically obliterated it,
and, while acknowledging the independence of
thought that Bennett's music often displays,
and which one likes to think may be owing
to his Cambridge days, it must be admitted
that its similarity in style to that of, above all,
Mendelssohn's, detracts from the value that
it would otherwise possess.
He remained at the Academy for several years,
during which he wrote, among other things of
note, two or three pianoforte concertos, the most
popular, although not the best, being the one in
F. It is related that one of its movements,
which attained great popularity, was composed
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 203
one afternoon when the other students were
absent on a holiday excursion. Their delight
when, on their return they heard The Barcarole,
as it was called, was so great that, as the late
Dr. Steggall, for many years Organist of
Lincoln's Inn Chapel told me, they carried him
in triumph round the concert-room on their
shoulders. In 1836 he went to Leipzig to
continue his studies, and there came under
the immediate influence of Schumann and
Mendelssohn.
That his abilities met with sincere apprecia-
tion is shown by the eulogistic way in which the
former wrote of him in a musical journal he
edited.
That Bennett's stay in Iyeipzig was a success-
ful and even delightful experience, there is no
room to doubt ; it is, though, open to question
whether it did not, to some extent, denationalize
him as a musician. Men of his temperament
and genius, are peculiarly open to exterior
impressions, and going at an age of mental
expansion and enthusiasm, everything that
happened seems only natural. Blind ourselves,
as one willingly would, the fact must be admitted
that the German impress remained indelibly
stamped on him during his whole life-time. It
must in justice be remembered that when he
was removed from Cambridge, at the age of
ten, all essentially English thought, so far as
music is concerned, became as a thing of the
past.
He returned to England to remain perman-
ently, after a second visit to Leipzig, in 1842.
204 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
He was appointed a Professor of Music at the
Royal Academy of Music about this time, and
was associated with that institution, where his
memory is held in just veneration, until he died
in 1875.
His work there, in conjunction with composi-
tion, became the main occupation of his life.
His energies were not, however, wholly confined
to it.
He was a pianist of the first order. Indeed,
I was told, many years ago by a celebrated
pianoforte teacher, that his technique, in
exactitude, compared favourably even with that
of Mendelssohn himself.
Soon after his final settling in Iyondon, he
commenced a series of chamber concerts, and
continued to present the classical masterpieces
of this form of music for about twelve years. It
was his enthusiasm alone that accounts for this
fact, not public support, for that, he may be
said never to have received, to any appreciable
extent.
His style was, perhaps, too refined and his
tastes too rigidly classical.
In this respect he was, if one may be per-
mitted to say so, somewhat narrow in his out-
look. For instance, he could not tolerate
Chopin's music, and, as one of them told me,
would not permit his pupils to play it in his
presence.
He was of a retiring disposition, and the
arts of public advertising were as objectionable
to him, as they appear to be acceptable to
many performers to-day. Again, the rivalry of
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 205
eminent foreign musicians and the conspicuous
patronage they received in high quarters, which
naturally aroused public interest in them,
militated against his success, and so, feeling
that the conditions were unequal, he withdrew
from the arena. He was especially great as
a player of Bach's music, to which he was
intensely attached, and it may be at once admit-
ted that he was entirely lacking in that emotional
temperament, which seems to appeal so strongly
to the feminine atmosphere that so frequently
pervades the public concert-room.
He was essentially a player who most appealed
to musicians. His personality must have been
a fascinating one, for he aroused even passionate
attachment in many of his pupils, and it has
often been a source of interest to hear grey-
headed men talk of his memory in the language
of a lover.
His pianoforte music contains much that is
both beautiful and original in style, the lovely
sketches, " Lake," " Millstream " and "Foun-
tain," being the best known and most popular.
The more important chamber compositions
include a sestet for piano and strings, a trio,
and a sonata for violincello and piano. In
1855, he produced his cantata, " May Queen,"
at the I^eeds Festival, with great success. It
contains much delightful music, and, like other
of his works, the comparative neglect into which
it has fallen, seems perfectly extraordinary.
Nine years were to elapse before his great work,
" The Woman of Samaria," was to appear at
the Birmingham Festival.
206 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
If it created no great sensation at the time,
that may be accounted for by the fact that he
studiously avoided sensational effects. It is,
however, characterised by nobility of thought,
religious feeling, and perfect grace of expression.
Although seldom performed as a whole, the
touching quartet, " God is a Spirit," is in
general use, and remains a model of beauty and
simplicity.
This work, together with his overtures —
especially the " Naiades " and " Paradise and the
Peri " — and his pianoforte concertos in F and
D minor, are the chief compositions on which
his fame will principally rest.
Sterndale Bennett founded the Bach Society
in 1849. His extraordinary enthusiasm for the
works of the great master was a leading char-
acteristic of his life, and was doubtless stimulated
by Mendelssohn during his Leipzig days.
He was appointed conductor of the Phil-
harmonic Society in 1856, and Principal of the
Royal Academy of Music in 1866.
He was elected to the chair of music of
Cambridge University in 1856, and was knighted
by Queen Victoria in 1871.
It is difficult as yet to assign Sterndale
Bennett's definite place in the history of music.
His genius, if not of the order that sways
multitudes, was undoubted, and he seems to
form, together with Samuel Sebastian Wesley,
the connecting link between Henry Purcell and
Sir Edward Klgar.
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 207
SIMS REEVES
Birth — His precocity — His musicianly attributes — His protest
against the " high pitch " — Sims Reeves in opera — Association
with Macready — Reeves in Italy — Triumphs m that country —
First appearance in oratorio — Doubts expressed as to his probable
success—Scene of enthusiasm after " Sound an alarm " — The
greatest interpreter of Handel — His idiosyncrasies — His high
standard of art.
John Sims Reeves, one of the greatest tenor
singers of whom the world has any record,
was born in Kent on October 21st, 1822. His
genius as a child was early evident. At an age
when the average boy is found playing cricket
on the village green, as should be, this one was
playing the organ at a village church near by.
It is an interesting reflection that, whereas
the majority of singers confine their energies
to the development of the voice alone, Sims
Reeves, from his earliest years, was bent on
mastering the mysteries of music — such as
harmony and counterpoint.
He succeeded to this extent, that he became
a thoroughly sound musician.
In the consideration of his career, this point
must ever be borne in mind.
Sims Reeves was not only a singer, but he
was a fine and well-instructed musician, and
any opinion that he might put forward was
entitled to respect, not only from the singer's
point of view, but that of a musician whose
erudition was unquestionable:
So, when he raised his voice against the
abominable pitch that had been introduced
into the country through the instrumentality
208 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
of a foreign, cosmopolitan musician, he had the
weight behind him, not only of a distinguished
singer, but of a musician perfectly able to
maintain the position he had taken up, on
grounds both reasonable and logical.
The fact that his opinion, however strongly
put forward, had no influence, is not a matter
for surprise. In that Victorian period, the
English musician was practically an alien in his
own country.
Although Sims Reeves was destined to become,
perhaps, the greatest of oratorio singers, his
earliest successes were made in opera. His
" first appearance on any stage " * was at
Newcastle, when he appeared as the " Gipsy
Boy " in " Guy Mannering."
He was soon found, as would naturally arise,
in London; Macready, the theatrical monarch
of those days, and whose scene of operations
was Drury Lane Theatre, attracting him.
Here, on the first occasion that presented
itself, he made a success, that those gifted with
any sense of perception, could easily see, indi-
cated a great career, and the rising of a great sun
in the firmament of music.
It was in Purcell's " King Arthur," and the
particular number that was to make him
famous was " Come, if you dare." In this
connection, it is amusing to note the clashing of
the artistic and managerial temperament ; both,
probably, at their highest expression. Macready
insisted that the singer should address his
adjuration to the warriors whom he was facing,
* " Iyife of Sims Reeves," by Sutherland Edwards.
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 209
with his back to the audience. The singer held
an entirely opposite view, and wished to sing
to the public. The fight was keen, and Sims
Reeves apparently gave way.
On the night, however, he adopted an attitude
that was not foreseen ; pacing the stage side-
ways, he sang with his voice thrown at the
audience, and threatening looks at the " supers,"
who were amazed at such an exhibition of
liberty, and made a success that was not
only great, but assured the management of a
satisfactory issue to the adventure.
Macready, nevertheless, fined him £5 for
disobedience !
He was from this moment recognised as a
great singer.
Strong, however, in the consciousness of
unusual gifts, he determined to test his powers
on the Continent, and went to Paris. After a
short stay there, he proceeded to Italy, where,
after a few lessons from Mazzucato, he made
his appearance as '' Edgardo " in " I^ucia di
Iyammermoor."
His success was great. The Italians, who
have an abnormal love of the tenor voice,
received him with acclamations, and his tour
through the Italian cities was a triumphant
progress. On his return to England, he was
received as an " Italian " singer, and doubts
were expressed as to his ability to sing oratorio
music.
His first appearance in England, after his
foreign experiences, was, again, in opera, as
" Edgardo." Berlioz was conducting, and
210 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
wrote thus : " Reeves has a beautiful voice,
and sings as well as it is possible to sing in this
frightful English language."
His first appearance in oratorio was made on
February ioth, 1848, at Exeter Hall, in Handel's
" Judas Maccabeus." All doubts were soon
allayed as to his ability to interpret Handel's
music.
It had been generally expressed that his
success in opera made it improbable that he
could succeed, to an equal degree, in gaining the
affections of the English people in oratorio, their
most loved medium of expression in music.
His success was immediate and triumphant.
At the conclusion of " Sound an alarm," a
scene of enthusiasm occurred that had never,
previously, been known at an oratorio perform-
ance.
It set a mark on his career.
From that moment he was recognised as the
greatest interpreter of Handel ; and from that
pinnacle of fame no subsequent singer has been
able to move him. His popularity became
immense. At every great music festival his
appearance was regarded as a necessity, and,
until his final refusal to sing at the artificial
pitch that had been introduced by Costa, his
interpretations of all the great masterpieces
of oratorio music were looked forward to as
things of national interest.
Sims Reeves was a great singer, and like most
great artists, had idiosyncrasies. On one occa-
sion, Sir Arthur Sullivan (then Mr., and a young
man) went down to his beautiful place at
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 211
Norwood, to play over the music written for
him, in a forthcoming production. He heard it
through, and then said, " My dear Arthur, the
music is quite beautiful, but it would be difficult
to say for what voice it was written." Certain
passages had to be revised to suit him.
That this would, naturally, be done, all those
who knew Sullivan's character would easily
understand.
Sims Reeves continued to be, for many years,
the idol of the British public, and it is only just
to say that he deserved the distinction, being as
he was, a man of sterling character, and one
whose ideals were ever high.
MADAME NORMAN-NERUDA
(LADY HALL^)
Her Birth — Precocity — Learns the violin at four years of age —
First of women violinists — Sensation at her first public appear-
ance — Arrival in London — Plays at Philharmonic concert, being
ten years old — Tour in Russia — Arrives in Paris — Arouses
enthusiasm — Second visit to London — Memorable consequences
— Association with Popular Concerts, directed by Arthur
Chappell — Her great fame — Her character — Association with
Halle — Their memorable concerts — Experiences in England —
Her position in musical history.
Wixma Neruda was born at Briinn, Moravia,
in 1839. The family from which she came had
been long famous in musical history. The story
of her precocious genius reads, even to-day, as
something akin to the marvellous. When she
was about four years of age, her father, as the
late Frantz Neruda told me, made her a miniature
violin, more with a view to her amusement
than with any contemplation of serious results.
212 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
It was not long, however, before he became
conscious that in this little daughter, he
possessed a treasure, and one that was likely
to prove a moving element in musical history.
That his judgment was justified, events too
have shown.
At that time, strange as it may seem now, the
idea of a woman-violinist was not only foreign to
public instinct, but was even contrary to the
general sense of propriety !
Her fame, notwithstanding, rapidly increased
in local circles, and it was not long before she
was taken by her father to play before a great
Church dignitary, not only to gain his patronage,
but, through it, to allay any prejudice that
might be aroused by so unusual a spectacle.
The interview was entirely successful, the
Cardinal having heard her, saying, " One whom
God has so blessed should play ever to His
Eternal Glory." Her progress was so astonishing
that her father took her, in 1846, to Vienna,
where she made her first public appearance, at
the age of seven.
The sensation her playing produced was
phenomenal, and soon all Europe was eager
to hear the wonder-child.
A grand tour was the natural result, during
which she performed in the principal cities of
Germany, and arrived in London in May, 1849.
On June nth she appeared at a Philharmonic
concert, where she played a concerto by De
Beriot, the child being then ten years old.
The enthusiasm with which she was received
is a matter of history.
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 213
Her next important experience was a prolonged
tour in Russia, of which she ever retained vivid
memories. Many were happy, some lugubrious,
and the one she most cherished was a cordial
reception given to her by the Imperial family
at St. Petersburg.
Her next scene of triumph was Paris. She
arrived there in 1864, and made her first appear-
ance at one of the Pasdeloup concerts — the
most important organisation of the kind in
France — with a success that was, as she often
said in after life, perfectly bewildering.
It is not difficult to imagine it.
She was possessed of a technique that could
hardly be surpassed, and a genius equally remark-
able, a constitution that defied fatigue, and an
enthusiasm that years of incessant work such
as she was destined to experience, did not
dull.
There is little doubt that her great powers
were displayed, at this time, in their most
dazzling splendour.
In May, 1869, Madame Norman-Neruda —
as she had become known through her marriage
with the Swedish composer — visited London
again, and the event proved to be decisive, little
as she thought it, as to her future career. She
came to play at a Philharmonic concert, but was
prevailed upon to stay through the summer, so
that she should inaugurate, in the autumn, a new
era in the history of the " Popular Concerts "
— an institution that had been established ten
years previously by the eminent firm of Chappell
and Co., with the late Mr. Arthur Chappell as
214 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
director. The main feature was the perform-
ance of classical chamber music.
The event may be justly described as historic.
Her success was absolute and convincing. The
fact that a woman was seen " leading " a quartet
of performers that embraced the greatest players
that Europe could produce, was one of intense
significance.
One great result was not long in showing
itself. The violin soon became fashionable in
a girl's hands, and from a fashion it has
degenerated into a rage.
To her lasting fame, Wilma Neruda was the
first to demonstrate, under conditions that were
often discouraging and sometimes forbidding,
that a woman could, in this form of art, hold
her own with the greatest of male exponents.
Madame Norman-Neruda was a woman of
extraordinary strength of character. Austere
in manner and of cold demeanour, as she
undoubtedly was, in any direction that her
sane judgment pointed out as worthy, she was
capable of generosity that was, at once, spon-
taneous and noble.
Her most prominent characteristic was, I
think, intellectuality. She could not, it must be
admitted, " suffer fools gladly."
Had she desired a motto, a very appropriate
one would have been " Odi profanum vulgus." *
From that eventful year of her life, 1869,
Madame Norman-Neruda spent the greater part
* In this connection, these words might well be trans-
lated, if not quite literally, as " I dislike common-place
people."
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 215
of her time in England, devoting the spring and
winter to the Chappell, Halle, Philharmonic and
other important concerts, with occasional visits
to the Continent to play at functions of excep-
tional interest.
Her career in England is so well known that it
is not necessary to dwell at any length on it here.
Suffice it to say that her work was incessant,
and that hers was, soon, a familiar figure on
every concert platform throughout the length
and breadth of the country. It is not difficult
to imagine that the constant travelling would
provide occasional and novel experiences ; one
of them I^ady Halle related to me.
She, with Sir Charles Halle, was on her way,
in the north, to fulfil an engagement, when a
severe snowstorm came on, which soon hindered
the progress of the train. They arrived at the
place of their destination an hour after the time
appointed for the concert. The snow was so
deep on the ground that no conveyance was
available, and there was no alternative to
making their way, on foot, to the hall.
Once arrived there, Sir Charles proceeded to
the platform to offer explanations to the
patiently waiting audience. It was not necess-
ary . Everything was understood, and he retired
amid much cheering.
When I^ady Halle appeared she received such
an ovation, doubtless expressive of sympathy
and admiration, that as the concert progressed
the unpleasant experience soon faded from
her mind. Unhappily, however, an attack of
bronchitis was the result ; a form of illness that
2i6 __ MUSIC IN ENGLAND
she suffered from, intermittently, for many years,
and of which she eventually died.
I^ady Halle (by which title Madame Norman-
Neruda came to be generally known in her latest
years of residence in England, through her
marriage with Sir Charles Halle in 1888) was,
notwithstanding outward appearances, not only
capable of enjoying but engendering simple
fun, as her friends well knew.
She was, for instance, full of joy and gaiety
when Christmas-time was coming and the Christ-
mas tree in near prospect. I do not think that
Charles Dickens himself exceeded her in love for
that beautiful and touching festival. It was
then that she gave full vent to a nature that
teemed with kindness and generosity. Few
who were privileged to see it could forget the
suppressed excitement with which she led her
guests, family and household, to the room where
the Christmas tree was ablaze in all its glory.
On it was sure to be found some present, large
or small, for every one.
One Christmas I well remember, I had recently
returned from America, where I had acquired
the habit of drinking iced^water.
My refusing claret had been a constant source
of banter from Sir Charles and I^ady Halle,
and more boisterous expressions from my
friends, I^udwig and Waldemar Neruda, I^ady
Halle's sons, on the occasions of my dining with
them.
My present proved to be a purse. When I
took it, I^ady Halle called out, clapping her
hands, " Open it." This, of course, we did.
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 217
It contained a Swedish gold coin, and a sheet of
notepaper on which was written, " The future
Mrs. Ernest Ford. The secret revealed. Why-
Mr. Ford became a teetotaler ! "
The incident is quite trivial, but it certainly
gives a glimpse into the character of a truly
great and noble woman, that would be little
suspected by those who knew her only as an
outstanding figure in public life.
It is only natural to suppose that I^ady
Halle was a constant recipient of appeals for
advice from young aspirants, eager to emulate,
in however humble a degree, her career.
She was ever open to them, and her judgment,
sane and tried, was freely at their disposal.
The last years of her life were, unhappily,
darkened by the deaths of her two sons ; that of
the former, tragically, on the Alps; the other,
after long suffering, in Briinn.
If for no other achievement, Wilma Neruda
would go down to history as one of the notable
women who indicated a new career for her sex.
But she did more. She left behind her a fame
that time itself will not easily efface.
2i8 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
SIR CHARGES HAIX&
Interesting features of character — Early life in Paris — Giants of
musical history — His reception by them — Ignorance of German
music in France — Intercourse with Cherubini — Establishes
chamber concerts — Personal friendships made in Paris — Arrival
in England — Settles in Manchester — Establishes subscription
chamber concerts — His first great venture — Manchester concerts
— Association with Madame Norman-Neruda — Great results —
Qualities as pianist and conductor — His musical sympathies —
His remarkable character — A personal reminiscence — His
permanent place in history.
Of the many thousands of German musicians
who, since the days of Handel, have made their
home in England, Charles Halle was, from
many points of view, the most interesting
personality. He was a man of culture, and
his. varied experiences in many countries,
which he sometimes would describe delight-
fully to a circle of friends, naturally added
to the interest that his charm of manner,
and known greatness as a musician, always
inspired.
When he left his native town of Hagen, in
Westphalia, in 1836, for that, in those days,
Mecca of musicians, Paris, he must have felt
supreme confidence in his powers, although
only seventeen years of age, knowing that he
would find there rivals as formidable as
Chopin, I^iszt and Thalberg. This did not
deter him. He had been used to playing
in public from infancy, had known nothing
but success ; his pianoforte playing as a child
still had evoked the wondering praise of no
less a man than Spohr, and, probably, knowing
that his style was so essentially different from
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 219
that of these great artists, he determined to
make the daring venture.
He made it successfully. He was received
with great kindness by every one, but especi-
ally by Cherubini. This great musician, who
was then head of the Conservatoire, took
the greatest interest in the young German
pianist, whom he constantly invited to his
house, and never seemed to tire of hearing
him play the Beethoven sonatas which, strange
as it sounds now, he was hearing, as Sir Charles
Halle told me many years afterwards, for the
first time.
Indeed, I have often heard Sir Charles speak
of the astonishing ignorance of German music,
even that of Beethoven, which existed in France
at that time.
It proved to be, however, a fortunate thing
for him, since, as soon as he had established his
chamber concerts with the express intention of
introducing the best of German classics of this
description, he not only quickly gained a
clientele of cultured amateurs, but they speedily
became a rendezvous of the most celebrated
musicians in Paris.
The success of these concerts continued to
increase until 1848, when the revolution forced
him to seek shelter for his wife and children
in England.
The years that Sir Charles Halle spent in
Paris were memorable ones in his life. Not
only did he enjoy the friendship of Chopin,
Georges Sand, listz, Thalberg, and others of
great fame, but there, too, he met Richard
220 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
Wagner who was, at the time in poverty, ekeing
out an existence, by means of drudgery that is
painful to think of.
Among the many friendships that Sir Charles
made there was one, in particular, that he
greatly prized, and which was destined to last a
fife-time — that of Stephen Heller, perhaps the
most popular writer for the piano known to
lady amateur pianists, at least of the past
generation.
Soon after arriving in England, Sir Charles
Halle settled in Manchester, where the large
German colony resident there at once rallied
to him. He, immediately, commenced a series
of chamber concerts, on the same lines as those
he had established so successfully in Paris ;
the subscriptions were eagerly taken up by his
compatriots, and it was not long before they were
firmly established on a financial basis ; and this,
together with the teaching connection that he
speedily gained, proved sufficient to relieve him
of any financial anxiety.
These things, however satisfactory, by no
means satisfied either his ambitions or his
energies, which were prodigious.
He gave pianoforte recitals in I/mdon, Man-
chester and Bath — in which city he once thought
of taking a house — which soon became regular
institutions.
It was not long before he organised a per-
manent orchestra in Manchester, to be followed,
so soon as it was on a firm basis, by a permanent
choir.
Thus were started the " Manchester concerts,"
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 221
later to become known, and widely celebrated,
as the " Halle concerts."
It would be difficult to over-estimate the
services that Sir Charles Halle rendered to
England, through this medium alone. As year
followed year, so did one masterpiece after
another find its way to Manchester, to meet the
reception that only these northern enthusiasts
know how to accord. To them, whether it were
the work of a modern master, or a hitherto
unknown work of Handel, the result was ever
the same, granted that it touched their highly
emotional sensibilities.
The firm establishment of this great and justly
celebrated institution, was the act of his life
that was fraught with the most lasting con-
sequences, and the one that will, in all proba-
bility, live longest in public memory.
After his death, in 1895, Dr. Richter was,
an interregnum passed over, appointed to fill his
place.
The long association, musically, of Sir Charles
Halle, and the great violinist, Madame Norman-
Neruda (who in after years became his wife) is
too well known to need dwelling on. Suffice
it to say that their joint recitals became, in
course of time, annual features in the musical
events of every town of importance throughout
the country. Sir Charles Halle had an absolute
genius for organisation, as the many and great
undertakings, so successfully carried through,
and so permanent in their character, prove.
He was not only the moving spirit in them, but,
wonderful as it is to think, he attended to the
222 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
minutest details of them all, and, in doing so,
probably eclipsed the efforts of half-a-dozen
ordinary secretaries.
He was a great pianist and a great conductor.
His temperament was inclined intellectually,
rather than in the direction of emotion. This
was, doubtless, the reason that gave rise to
the popular impression that he was cold and
unsympathetic in disposition.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
That his tastes, so far as music is concerned,
were rigidly and unyieldingly classical, there is
no room for doubt. His sympathies were not,
as regards modern developments, elastic. One
great charm of his character was absolute
honesty.
For instance, he never believed in an English
School of Music.
" Englishmen ? Yes," he once said to me,
" Great soldiers, great poets, great statesmen,
but — musicians, no. You lost all that when
Purcell died."
Had he lived till to-day, I have not the slight-
est doubt that he would have changed his views
on the subject ; but, after all, he was only
voicing a very generally held opinion.
With the extreme developments of modern
times he was not altogether in sympathy, and
I should think that sane conservatism, would
fairly express his attitude on the subject of
musical progress.
Sir Charles Halle was a man of superb physique,
and his health right up to the end was wonder-
ful, considering the strenuous life he led.
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 223
I remarked to him one day, " It seems to me
perfectly extraordinary, seeing that you must
spend at least half your life on the railway, that
you escape trouble with your nerves. What
with the incessant hurrying to catch trains "
He interrupted me with, " Ah, but you see, I
never do that. I make it a rule to be at the
station twenty minutes before the train starts.
It is to that fact I attribute my immunity
from nerves, as you express it."
I, shortly after this conversation, had practi-
cal experience not only of this, but of another
remarkable feature in the life of a truly remark-
able man.
I never knew anyone so absolutely intolerant
of doing nothing. Rest was to him, emphatic-
ally, change of occupation. For instance, I
have known him, when on a Sunday morning
he had no pressing work that called for his
attention, to devote his time to the making of
a score of a string quartet from the parts that
the performers had been using, shortly before,
while rehearsing for the next day's " Monday
Popular concert."
One can only characterise this as a very
superfluity of strenuousness.
My other experience happened in this manner :
Sir Charles was on the point of performing, at
Manchester, a little known, in fact, entirely
neglected, oratorio of Handel's, " Theodora,"
and he asked me to go down there with him
and hear it.
The invitation was one that, I, naturally
enough, accepted with keen pleasure, anticipat-
224 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
ing as actually happened, a very pleasant and
interesting experience.
Exactly at the appointed time (Sir Charles
had been particularly insistent on this point)
I was on the platform, at Euston, and found
him pacing up and down in front of the train.
Directly he saw me, he motioned to the guard,
who unlocked the door of a reserved compart-
ment, which we immediately entered. It had
been scarcely relocked, when he produced a
pack of cards, and we, at once, proceeded to
play the old German game of " sechs-und-sech-
zig," of which he was very fond.
When, twenty minutes or so later, the train
steamed out of the station, we were both so
absorbed, that neither of us noticed the fact,
and it was only after we had gone a consider-
able distance on our journey, that I, at least,
realised it.
Sir Charles Halle's leisure time was so limited
— the railway carriage was, to all intents and
purpose, his office for conducting business
correspondence — that he had little opportunity
for playing games, so, with characteristic fore-
thought, he seized upon the occasion, and I am
glad to know, quite enjoyed the experience.
I well remember how surprised we both were,
when we found ourselves in Manchester. It
was, certainly, the shortest of such journeys that
I can remember.
The performance of Handel's oratorio was to
me a memorable one, not so much on account
of the music, which in comparison with that
of the " Messiah," " Israel in Egypt " or " Judas
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 225
Maccabeus," seemed rather uninteresting, the
magnificent singing of the choir and soloists,
or the splendid playing of the orchestra, as the
absolute enthusiasm displayed by Sir Charles
Halle in its direction.
The music seemed to arouse all that was
masterful and compelling in him. His person-
ality dominated everything, and I never saw
him on any other occasion so obviously moved
as he was that night. His love of the music
of Handel was, from his earliest years, passionate,
as that of Beethoven, and, in a less degree,
Berlioz, became in later years.
On the way back to his house, observing that
he showed evident signs of fatigue, I forbore to
speak, but he suddenly said, " Well, what do
you think of it ? " I replied, " Sir Charles, it
was perfectly splendid, and, if not a liberty,
may I say, that your conducting was simply
magnificent ? " The words read, in print, per-
haps, exaggerated and extravagant. I can only
say that I simply voiced my feelings at the
moment.
He leaned back in the carriage, saying :
" Thanks. That is something," and after a
pause," The work has been long and — arduous."
However, on arriving at his home, he soon
regained his usual serenity, when, after a light
supper, he lit a cigar.
In the course of conversation, I said, " Will
you tell me, Sir Charles, if it was simply the
result of philosophical reflection, or some
incident, that made you determine on the
' twenty minutes before the train ' rule ? "
226 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
He replied, " It was, certainly, the result of
an accident that occurred to me, many years
ago, in Manchester ; but at the same time, I
think there is much philosophy in it. I was being
driven to the station to catch a train to the north,
with a band rehearsal and concert before me.
My carriage suddenly stopped, and, looking
out to see what was the matter, I found that,
owing to some work on the road, we were hope-
lessly blocked. I seized my bag, and running all
the way to the station, was just in time to enter
the train as it was starting. In fact, had the
guard not recognised me, I should have lost it."
"Well, Sir Charles," I said,, "with such
possibilities constantly facing you, it was, as
Sam Weller said to Mr. Pickwick, ' the prudentest
resolution as you could come to.' "
" It has," he answered, " made all the differ-
ence between misery and comfort, in such a life
of incessant travelling as mine." We continued
talking into, I am afraid, the early hours of the
morning, when an old domestic entering the
room, on some pretext or another, Sir Charles
who was just commencing, " However, there
was one occasion," immediately rose from his
chair, and saying, "it is late, we must go to
bed," made preparations for that event. The
story was never told. >
On the return journey, the same game occu-
pied our attention, Sir Charles remarking as we
entered our compartment, " Now, I am going
to win back what you got from me coming
down." The feat was not a considerable one,
but the zest with which he threw himself into the
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 227
effort, the absolutely boyish, joy he exhibited,
was a thing that I can never forget. He did not
succeed. When, saying " good-bye " to him, as
he entered his carriage, after our arrival in
I/ondon, he remarked, " But I am going to get
that half-crown back ; you will see."
Sir Charles Halle was, in every sense, a remark-
able man. Judged from any standpoint, he
appears as one destined to make his mark in
history.
As a pianist, on no less an authority than
Hans Von Biilow, he is to be regarded as one
of the greatest exponents of Beethoven.
As a conductor, his memory is equally secure.
That the scene of his greatest achievements
happened to be England, is, as we know, a
matter of accident. But it is equally certain
that wherever fate had decided that his lot
should be cast, his name would be carried down
in history, as a man of great endowments, noble
character, and one of those whose existence
enriches humanity.
SIR ARTHUR SUUJVAN
His disposition — His early days — As a student at Leipzig — Return
to England — The " Tempest " music — Results of its perform-
ance — Definite plans as to the future — As song writer — Punch
and one of them — A house of noted hospitality — Association
with Gilbert and D'Oyly Carte — First result — The Savoy operas
— " Ivanhoe " — His powers of work — The oratorios — The
" Martyr of Antioch " — '* The Golden Legend " — His strong
character — His critical genius — A personal incident — A story
of Sir W. S. Gilbert — His great place in the history of English
music.
Sir Arthur Suixivan's disposition was a
happy one — in other words, it was bright and
228 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
sparkling. Blessed with a sense of humour
that enabled him to look out on the world with
invariable cheerfulness, he passed his days in an
atmosphere of serenity that might well be the
envy of all who knew him. It was only natural,
for he was a veritable child of fortune.
Most men, and, emphatically, most musicians,
have to experience years of struggle or strenuous
work, before they attain to fame, or, in the
jargon of the day, " arrive."
Not so, Arthur Sullivan.
The fates took too much care of him to subject
their favourite to anything so unpleasant or
distressing !
His childhood was happy ; at school he was a
universal favourite, and as a student at Leipzig,
he passed some of the most pleasant years of his
life.
When he returned to England in 1861, he
brought with him several manuscript composi-
tions, one of which proved to be a veritable torch
that was destined to light his way to fame —
and fortune. It was his music to Shakespeare's
" Tempest."
He was, of course, well-known in musical
circles through his being the winner of the
Mendelssohn scholarship, so there was no diffi-
culty in arranging for its performance. This took
place at the Crystal Palace, under the direction
of the late Sir August Manns, in April, 1862.
Its success was instantaneous and extra-
ordinary. In fact, it must be admitted, on
looking at it to-day, that the' enthusiasm it
aroused seems not a little in excess of its merits
Sir Arthur Sullivan-.
Face 22S.
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 229
— considerable as they were. He became, at one
stroke, famous, and no one was more astonished
at the sudden notoriety he had acquired, than
himself.
He, if ever one did, had " greatness thrust
upon him." Fortunately it did not spoil him,
for his nature was eminently a sane one.
Even as a young man he had made- decisive
plans as to his future. He had come to the
definite conclusion that teaching was incom-
patible with composition, and therefore, resolved
upon trying to compose in a manner calculated
to catch the public ear, and thus, while making
an income sufficient for his needs, still have time
to devote himself to more serious efforts. That
he successfully carried out his resolution is a
matter of history, for such teaching as he did,
was confined to a few only, of pupils who
appeared to be of exceptional promise. Even
this did not last long.
The medium through which he made his appeal
to the general public was song-writing, and, one
must allow— such is the advance in musical
education — that compared with songs that
achieve great popularity to-day, like those of
I^andon Ronald, Arthur Somervil, Sir Charles
Stanford and others, many of them possess
little distinction.
Others, such as " Orpheus with his lute," are
on the contrary, worthy of place in the highest
rank. His greatest achievement in this form of
art, written at a later period, was " The Iyost
Chord," which not only attained world-wide
celebrity and an enormous circulation, but is
230 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
full of poetic interest and instinct with genuine
inspiration.
It was written one night, while sitting at the
bedside of his dying brother.
It maybe mentioned that, perhaps, the earliest
that promised to bring any really substantial
result was one called " Meet me once again."
Its sale, already large, was greatly increasing,
when it suddenly stopped, owing to " Punch "
producing a parody of it in a picture representing
the excitement of a number of cats, on hearing
a man singing " meat me once again," as it was
rendered. The caricature was neither clever
nor in good taste, but it was a serious thing for
the composer, as it meant the loss of a consider-
able income, while still a. young man, and not
earning as many hundreds as he did thousands
of pounds in after years.
At that time the paper was far different from
the brilliant and refined " Punch " of to-day.
In those days the puns of F. C. Burnand were
preferred to the wit and humour of W. S. Gilbert.
But then, " Punch " rejected the " Bab Ballads " !
Arthur Sullivan was born in 1842.
His first popular success in the sphere, in
which he was, afterwards, to win universal
fame, was made in 1875, when he produced, in
conjunction with W. S. Gilbert, the extrava-
ganza, " Trial by Jury." He had made tenta-
tive efforts, on two or three occasions, of a
similar kind, but this one proved, with the utmost
clearness, his exceptional ability in this direc-
tion, and obviously indicated a future path for
him.
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 231
In those days there were two people in I/m-
don of noted hospitality, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur
I^ewis (the latter was an elder sister of Miss Ellen
Terry, and herself a distinguished actress ; she
was known to a former generation as Miss Kate
Terry), and it was at their house that these
pieces were first presented. On the occasion of
this particular performance, the late Mr D'Oyly
Carte was present, and to his happy idea to get
the author and composer to collaborate on a
work of larger scope, and his undertaking to
produce it, that the combination of the three
remarkable men, who were destined to make
so much history, is due.
" The Sorcerer " was produced at the Opera-
Comique Theatre, I/5ndon, on November 17th,
1877. It was altogether too new in style,
bewildering in its humorous absurdities, and
unlike anything previously seen, to achieve
pronounced popularity, but it convinced the
public that a new force had arisen in the theatre-
world and, gradually, it attracted a sufficient
following to permit of 175 consecutive perform-
ances. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that
it was in this piece that the late Mr. George
Grossmith laid the foundations of his great
fame as an actor, and that Mr. Rutland Barring-
ton established his lasting popularity, in the
part of the " pale young curate."
If "The Sorcerer" left the question of
permanent success to this new school of
theatrical art to some extent in doubt, the
next production, " H.M.S. Pinafore," absolutely
dispelled it, the success being immediate and
232 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
triumphant. It quickly spread to the great
colonies and America, where the excitement it
produced exceeded anything previously known
in the history of the stage. At one time it was
being played at upwards of a dozen theatres,
simultaneously, in New York alone. Perform-
ances on board a real ship were given ; per-
formances solely by negroes, and in fact, of
every kind that ingenuity or excitement could
suggest, were common features in the extra-
ordinary craze it aroused. " H.M.S. Pinafore "
was succeeded by " The Pirates of Penzance,"
" Patience " (during the run of which it was
transferred to the Savoy Theatre, meanwhile
built by Mr. D'Oyly Carte), and the many others
with names that are too familiar to need
recounting. It may, perhaps, be permissible to
say that of them all, the two of most outstanding
merit were " The Mikado " and " The Yeoman
of the Guard." If Sir Arthur Sullivan's often
avowed wish to establish an English school of
Iyight Opera has not been realised to the extent
he would have desired, its temporary eclipse
having to be acknowledged, yet it is to be
greatly hoped that there will be found, and that,
too, before long, men both willing and able,
not only to follow, but improve on the lines of
healthy artistic traditions he and Sir William
Gilbert so happily laid down.
With the composition of " Ivanhoe," Sir
Arthur Sullivan entered the lists as a writer of
Grand Opera. If his success was not complete,
I think that the circumstances with which its
career was indissolubly connected, go a long
[ihfC^-,Jt<-(6.*a.a . JU.^ ;
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 233
way to account for the fact. In the first place,
it was subjected to the intolerable strain of 168
consecutive performances.
No possible chance of making alterations
that only public performance can point out, with
certainty, as desirable or necessary, was accorded
to the composer, since its even temporary with-
drawal would have involved the closing of the
newly-built opera house and, under the cir-
cumstances alluded to in another chapter,
made the continuance of the scheme a matter of
doubt.
Had the conditions been different, I do not
doubt that Sir Arthur Sullivan would have
made a great and possibly vital change in the
work . One of the most persistent and j ustifiable
criticisms brought against it was its demon-
strably unevenness in merit. Any musician
with the least critical faculty would recognise
its truth. For instance, the second scene of
the second act should have been entirely
eliminated. It was unworthy of the work and
the composer. It was forced, theatrical, and
destitute of spontaneity or inspiration.
That a man of such acumen could fail to
recognise it is impossible ; as a matter of fact,
he once told me that the scene spoilt the act
which, it may be said, with this exception,
contained the most splendid music in the opera.
It is inconceivable that, had he found the
opportunity, he would not have composed an
entirely new one. To give credence to this
opinion, I may mention that he made an
important alteration, in the short time at his
234 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
disposal, before it went to Berlin for perform-
ance. So short, indeed, that he asked me to do
the necessary scoring for the orchestra that the
alteration involved.
Another criticism often levelled against
" Ivanhoe," was that it was occasionally
reminiscent " of the Savoy " — implying that
the high standard imposed by Grand Opera was
not consistently maintained. This was, doubt-
less, suggested by the popular " Ho ! Jolly
Jenkin." In this connection, I will at once say
that Sir Arthur Sullivan, himself, anticipated this
objection, as the following words will show.
It was typical of him, when he had an important
work in view, to delay its commencement to
the last moment. The result was that, once
begun, he was obliged to work with incredible
energy and persistence to effect its completion
at the stipulated time. It was so on this
occasion.
The night was as constant a watchman of his
work as the day.
I had been engaged by the publishers, Messrs.
Chappell and Co., to make the pianoforte
arrangement from the full score, and, at Sir
Arthur Sullivan's request, I used to drive down
to his residence from the Savoy Theatre, where
I was. at the time conducting, after the evening
performance, to take away any pages of the
score that might be completed. I generally
arrived about midnight. On one occasion, as
I entered his study, he said to me, " I want you
to hear something," and went to the piano and
played this particular song. When he had
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 235
finished I remarked, " Sir Arthur, why, it will
be an immense success," and he replied, some-
what with a sigh," Yes, I think it would ; but
it won't do. I can hear them now saying,
' redolent of the Savoy.' "
He then continued that he was going to
attempt another setting before finishing work
for the night.
I, naturally enough, as those who know the
song, will agree, urged, as far as I could, that it
should be retained. I don't suggest that this,
in any way, affected his decision ; I merely
state the facts. In the event, as is known, he
kept it in.
" Ivanhoe " contained, as I believe, and as
many highly competent critics have affirmed,
some of the finest music that Sir Arthur
Sullivan ever wrote.
The soliliquy of the Templar, and the great
scene between Rebecca and the Templar in the
castle of Torquilstone (with both these characters
the composer was in intense sympathy) re-
present Sir Arthur Sullivan's powers at their
highest expression.
The opera, however, proved to be the one
important event in his career that did not
result in the complete and absolute success
to which he had, for so many years, been
accustomed.
If Sir Arthur Sullivan gained his fortune in
the theatre, as is quite certain, it is equally
incontrovertible that he attained his great
fame in the concert-room, and, moreover,
through the medium of his sacred works, or,
236 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
perhaps I should say, works dealing with sacred
subjects.
His first important contribution to purely
sacred music was the short oratorio, " The
Prodigal Son." Although evidence of imma-
turity may be occasionally detected, the music
shews the firm grasp he had on the technique
of composition, and the influence of religious
feeling is strongly apparent, as indeed, may be
said of all his works of this description.*
Produced at the Worcester Festival in 1869,
it achieved a success that augured well for his
future efforts in this region, which he had
evidently chosen as the one most appealing to
his genius and temperament.
After an interval, during which he produced,
among other interesting compositions, the over-
ture " Di Ballo " — a work full of sparkling and
original music, which he scored, it may be said,
at a time of great physical suffering — his
oratorio, " The flight of the World," a work
on much larger lines than its predecessor, was
given to the public as the principal attraction of
the Birmingham Festival in 1873. Although
its reception by the audience was flattering
enough, it cannot be said that it aroused any
enthusiasm among the critics.
In fact, it aroused considerable controversy,
some maintaining that so far from being an
advance on, it lacked the admitted promise
* Shortly before his death, waking from a period of
torpor, he recognised one of his faithful servants sitting at
his bed-side crying. " Don't cry," he said. "lam quite
happy, knowing I shall soon see my dear mother again."
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 237
of " The Prodigal Son " ; while others were
equally pronounced in their views as to its
superlative merits.
Although subscribing to neither opinion, I
cannot but think that the former contained
more truth than the latter. That " The I4ght
of the World " contains much that is beautiful
is not denied, but that it contains some that
nearly verges on the common-place, cannot,
I am afraid, but be admitted. It has fallen into
desuetude for many years now.
In a short summary of Sir Arthur Sullivan's
career, as this must, necessarily be, I have to
leave unrecorded much that is both interesting
and important.* I content myself, therefore,
with some reference to those works upon which
his fame, so far as serious music is concerned,
will chiefly rest.
" The Martyr of Antioch " was produced at
the Iyeeds Festival in 1880. It was an event of
particular significance in his life.
The continued successes of his Savoy comic
operas, and the popularity gained by his songs,
had begun to make a decided effect on the public
mind, which was rapidly losing count of the
other side of the versatile composer — that of
more serious import. It was, then, with no little
interest and speculation that the production
was awaited.
The result exceeded the most sanguine hopes
of his friends and admirers. Its reception was
veritably triumphal, and at once re-affirmed
* He was a sufferer from periodical attacks of severe
pain throughout his life.
238 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
his position as the leading English composer of
his time.
Any doubts that might have been felt by the
audience assembled on this memorable occasion,
were soon dispelled. The splendid chain of
choruses with which the work opens — once
interrupted by the hauntingly beautiful, and
purely original song, " The love-sick damsel " —
immediately convinced them, not only that the
composer was, in no sense, shorn of his powers
as a writer of serious music, but that they had
discovered him in a vein of virile strength, of
which he had, previously, scarcely given
warning.
From that moment, the work was not only
assured of success, but, as it progressed, en-
thusiasm increased to such an extent, that at
the conclusion of the finale, to the success of
which the magnificent singing of that great
artiste, Madame Albani, predominatingly con-
tributed, a scene of excitement occurred that
only those who witnessed it could adequately
imagine. Of the many numbers that contri-
buted to this result, those that most readily
spring to the memory are the strenuous, and,
again, highly original " Io Paean " ; the charm-
ing " Come, Margarita, come " ; and, above all,
the one that will probably live, when the others
are forgotten, the noble hymn, of the type which
Arthur Sullivan, may be said to have made his
own, and which is so frequently sang on occa-
sions of national mourning, " Brother, thou art
gone before us " ; of them all, this remains as
the grandest monument.
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 239
The years immediately succeeding the pro-
duction of "The Martyr of Antioch" must,
I think, have been the happiest of the
composer's life.
The illness from which he occasionally suffered
from early manhood, had not taken sufficient
hold on him to prevent his thorough enjoyment
of life and all its various attractions, and so,
with abundant means and ample time at his
disposal, he was able to enjoy, with complete
serenity, any recreation or amusement that
appealed to him. His happy temperament
prompted him to take the advantages that
good fortune had thrown in his way, and to this
I attribute the fact of his being able to reach
even the moderate age to which he attained.
In this way the years passed rapidly, con-
tinued successes at the Savoy ever augmenting
both fame and fortune, until, when the calls
for another work of serious importance from
his pen began to assume an importunate form,
he had scarcely realised how much time had
elapsed since "The Martyr of Antioch" was
composed.
In answer to the urgent request of the com-
mittee, Sir Arthur Sullivan undertook to write
a work for the I^eeds Festival of 1886, and
accordingly, turning to the experienced skill
of Mr. Joseph Bennett to supply him with the
" book," he, at length settled himself to the
composition of " The Golden legend."
The subject was exceptionally well chosen
to draw upon his well-known power of dramatic
writing. The poem of the great American writer,
240 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
Henry W. I/mgfellow, from which Mr. Bennett
arranged his libretto, is full of picturesque and
fanciful imagination, and furnished the composer
plentifully with scenes that enabled him to
exhibit his genius at its greatest strength.
The prologue was the medium of displaying
his descriptive, as was the epilogue of his choral
writing, at its best, and what this conveys can
only, perhaps, be fully appreciated by the skilled
musician. I need only say that they were
masterly displays. A striking feature in the
work, is the quaint and original manner in which
the character of I^ucif er is portrayed. The music,
with which he is invariably accompanied is of a
semi-sacred character, contrapuntal in con-
struction, but which is, at once, grotesque and
eminently fitted to mark the sardonic humour
of the character that I^ongfellow so powerfully
painted.
The numbers that are, probably, the most
popular are those for the soprano and contralto,
"My Redeemer, and my £ord," "Virgin who
lovest the poor and lowly," and the hymn, " O
gladsome £ight."
The reception accorded to " The Golden
legend " on its presentation, like that of
" The Martyr of Antioch," was enthusiastic
in the extreme. It has retained its popularity,
and is usually conceded to be his masterpiece.
It is sung wherever the English language is
spoken.
Of the many great singers who were associated
with the composer in these productions, I might
mention the names of Titiens, Trebelli, Albani,
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 241
(Madame) Patey, Sims Reeves, Edward Iyloyd
and Charles Santley.
In character, Sir Arthur Sullivan was broad-
minded, tolerant, sympathetic and generous.
In tastes, he was decidedly eclectic, for they
ranged from the aesthetic ones of literature and
painting, to the more prosaic of racing and
cards. Whatever happened to be the subject
of interest at the moment, was sure to com-
mand the enthusiastic attention of his ever
active brain.
Once, however, started on some important
composition, nothing was allowed to interfere
with his complete absorption in it.
Doubtless, this was a leading factor in his
success, or, at least, one of very great import-
ance that directly tended towards it. The
process was, undoubtedly, an exhausting one,
for it constantly happened that after the com-
pletion and production of such a one, a more
or less prolonged period of rest and diversion of
thought was necessary to bring him back to his
normal state of healthy activity.
One great attribute he was unquestionably
blessed with, and that was the power of throwing
off his mind, completely, any thought of music,
once he had accomplished any given task. In
fact, when he was not actively engaged with
it, music was seldom a subject of conversation
with him. Of this I have had convincing proof.
Some years ago, I was spending a part of one
winter with him, at his villa on the Mediter-
ranean. During the whole time, I can only
remember two occasions on which he spoke of it ;
R
242 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
the first initiated by him, the second by me.
We were reading in the drawing-room one
evening, after dinner, when he suddenly turned
round to me, and said, " What do you say,
Ernest, to playing a Schumann symphony ?
I have an arrangement for four hands here." I
naturally acquiesced, and his dwelling affection-
ately over many of the passages, the profound
knowledge he displayed as he talked of Schu-
mann's genius, and his intensely interesting
comparison of it with that of Schubert, remain
with me as a memorable experience.
The other occasion was of a very different
character.
I was walking with him one day, on the road
to Cap S. Martin — walking, it may be said,
was not a form of recreation to which he was
much addicted. The weather was glorious,
and Sir Arthur in high spirits, thoroughly
enjoying his unwonted exercise.
Seeing him in this mood, I said, " Sir Arthur,
I should like to make a bet with you."
He turned to me, and laughingly replied, ' ' Well,
if the amount is not quite beyond my resources —
a franc ? — quel soulagement ! — then go on." .
"It is that I tell you your favourite Savoy
opera, and that you don't tell me mine."
He walked on for a few minutes, and then said,
" I think I must say ' The Yeoman of the
Guard.' "
" So far, I have won," I remarked.
Again, after a little while, he continued, " I
should not be surprised if it were ' Princess Ida.' "
I called out, "Sir Arthur the bet is off,"
DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS 243
handing him, at the same time, a slip of paper, on
which I had previously written these two titles.
The incident led him to speak of various
reminiscences in connection with the Savoy
Theatre, one of which, I remember, he told me
with great zest and evident appreciation.
Considerable exception had been taken to
the title Mr. (later Sir William) Gilbert had
chosen for one of the operas, " Ruddygore."
The author professed to see no objection to it,
but eventually announced to the composer
that he intended to change it. He did. He
renamed it Rudd-i-gore."
Sir Arthur Sullivan left many and great
claims on the gratitude of his countrymen. In
the sphere of light opera, he enormously advanced
the standard of taste.
Those of his songs that achieved great popu-
larity, whatever may be thought of them now,
were immensely superior to any that had
previously gained the ear of the " man in the
street." I am, of course, referring to those
which make more frank appeal to the less culti-
vated lovers of music ; " Orpheus with his
lute," " The Lost Chord," and others of similar
type, being in an entirely different category.
Through "The Martyr of Antioch" and " The
Golden Legend," Sir Arthur Sullivan not only
convinced English people, who were able to
learn the lesson, that an English composer was
capable of arousing their highest emotions, but,
incidentally, indicated the road that led them,
in after days, to their pride in, and appreciation
of, "The Dream of Gerontius."
CHAPTER X
GENERAL SURVEY
Facilities for hearing music — Opera an exception — Sir Henry Wood
— Dream of Gerontius — Sir Frederick Bridge — Ballad concerts
—Ballad singers — Madame Clara Butt and Mr. Kennerly
Rumford — Chamber music— Mr. Arthur Chappell and the
Monday Popular Concerts— Salome — Question of the censor —
Recognition of merit in distinguished musicians— Examina-
tion craze — Government enquiry suggested — Musical criticism
— Disadvantages of anonymity — The great Festivals — Costa
and the Handel Festival — Brass Band Contests and the North
of England — Music halls of the past — Theatre of Varieties
to-day — English composers — A suggestion — Closing words.
England, to-day, is second to no country in the
world as regards facilities for hearing good
music, under conditions that are both favour-
able and tending to attract even the least
ardent devotees.
| The exception must, however, be candidly
made of opera, which, at present under ideal
circumstances is offered at Covent Garden
theatre, it is true, but at a price that is quite
beyond the means of the average individual,
and then only during a few months that
constitute the London " Season."
It would be premature to write of the experi-
ment now being made by Mr. Hammerstein,
interesting as it is, but it is one that calls for
sympathy, and the willing aid of all lovers of
opera.
It is certain that the opportunities of hearing
244
GENERAL SURVEY 245
orchestral music now presented to Londoners,
are on a scale that would have made their
forefathers pale with amazement.
To Sir Henry Wood this is largely due.
His achievements, to which allusion is made
in another chapter, not only opened the eyes of
those gifted with a true sense of the trend of
events, but furnished the occasion that per-
mitted of the indication, on the part of the
dwellers in the metropolis, to seize with eager-
ness on the boon offered to them, not only under
conditions that were artistic in the best sense
of the word, but at a cost that need not affright
those least blessed with worldly endowment.
This applies, of course, more particularly to
the Promenade concerts, which are given nightly
at the Queen's Hall in London, for two months
or more during the late summer and autumn,
and conducted by Sir Henry Wood.
The London Symphony Orchestra, the New
Symphony Orchestra, and last, but by no
means least, that venerable society, the Phil-
harmonic, give concerts, both winter and sum-
mer ; those of the last-named being confined to
London, while the two former place their
services at the disposition of the country at
large.
On the subject of concerts in general, it is
not necessary to dwell at length. If London is
in advance of the provinces in respect of her
orchestras, the north and midlands are immensely
in advance of the metropolis as regards their
choirs, there being none in the south to compare
with the Festival-choirs of Leeds, Birmingham,
246 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
Sheffield or Bradford. It is to the great Eng-
lish Festivals that we must look for stability in
the position of oratorio, for it must be admitted,
there have been obvious signs, at least in the
south, of fading interest; the popularity of
concert arrangements of popular operas, as
evidenced by their continual use at the concerts
of our choral societies, being, perhaps, the most
significant sign.
The stimulus afforded by the periodical great
provincial music Festivals — the excitement
provided by the prolonged preparations that
are necessary, being a healthy accessory — goes
to keep the interest alive in this noble form of
art, not only in the immediate vicinity, but far
and wide of the cities in which they take
place.
The appearance of " The Dream of Gerontius,"
and the hold it took on the imagination of the
people (the picturesque combination of genius
in the persons of Cardinal Newman and Sir
Edward Elgar, being a feature of striking inter-
est) went to arrest what was, unquestionably,
a disquieting tendency.
A tribute to the splendid work of Sir Frederick
Bridge and the Royal Choral Society at the
Albert Hall is, however, due, not only on account
of the merit of the performances, but to the
consistently high standard that is maintained
in the selection of works for representation.
Oratorio, and oratorio in its noblest embodi-
ment being the ever-present consideration.
The concerts that make the most direct,
simple, and probably most successful appeal
Photo.
Sir Edward Elgar.
Elliott and Fry.
GENERAL SURVEY 247
to the masses, are those devoted to ballads.
They are universal throughout the country, and
from the Royal Albert Hall, to the concert-room
on the pier of the smallest sea-side resort, are
always in evidence.
Although series of them on an elaborate scale
are given in every important town in the king-
dom, perhaps those at the Albert Hall and
Queen's Hall, in London, under the respective
directions of the renowned firms of Boosey &
Co., and Chappell & Co. (Mr. William Boosey,
director) are the most universally known, and
they may be justly regarded as typical of such
entertainment at their best. There is not the
slightest doubt that, as regards the standard
of artistic taste, this class of concert has in
recent years made great progress. It is not
long ago that songs without the slightest pre-
tence to any musical value attained to immense
popularity, and when a scream at the end of
one of them, on a note known as high F, would
draw volumes of applause on the panting and
highly gratified singer.
Happily those days are either numbered, or
in the quick course of becoming so.
To-day songs of great beauty are being con-
stantly produced, and appreciated at their true
worth. The art, too, of ballad-singing has
immensely improved, as those whose memories
can carry them back thirty years gratefully
recognise, when they hear such past-masters of
their craft as Madame Clara Butt and Mr.
Kennerley Rumford.
The song writers who have attained to the
248 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
greatest popularity in England, are mainly
English — men and women.
The cult of classical chamber music is not
one that appeals very strongly to the average
English music-lover ; it is rather to the enthusiast
or the foreigner, that its purveyors must appeal
for support. But that there are large numbers
of both these classes in I^ondon is proved by the
success with which the late Mr. Arthur Chappell
carried on for so many years, those celebrated
concerts known as the Monday and Saturday
" Pops."
Since those days, the golden days of chamber
music, so far as England is concerned — the days
of Madame Norman-Neruda, Joachim, Piatti,
Madame Schumann and Charles Halle — its
interests have been mainly watched over in
London by the historic firm of John Broadwood
and Sons. j
That the standard of taste in every branch of
music has risen enormously in this country
during the past few years none will be found
to deny; but, nevertheless, I cannot regard
without suspicion the apparent outbursts of
enthusiasm, on the part of the average English
opera-goer, for such a work as Richard Strauss's
" Salome " ; they appear to me altogether
artificially contrived.
That the critic, saturated with music at its
highest development should hail with joy a
work so well calculated to act as a stimulus to
his highly-tried faculties, I can quite understand,
but, that the less-trained intellect of the average
opera-goer could grasp, with any appreciable
GENERAL SURVEY 249
understanding, at a first or second hearing,
the tremendously complex music that is here
presented, is quite beyond comprehension, or
credence.
Yet foreign newspapers reported that the music
was received in England with extraordinary
enthusiasm. One may be, I think, justified
in doubting the value of the sources from which
the information was derived . In many instances
the music of Richard Strauss has been claimed
to be an advance on that of Richard Wagner.
I do not think that one in a thousand English
musicians would admit the claim.
The question of the censor has been much
in evidence of late, and it is not to be wondered
at, seeing the eminence of many of those in
opposition to the continuance of the office,
that public opinion has been shaken in its old-
time confidence in his decisions. So far as music
is concerned I think there is little of which one
may with reason complain.
It would be absurd to expect from any official,
however distinguished, the gift of infallibility.
When " Samson et Dalila" was inhibited, there
was undoubted reason in cavilling at the deci-
sion, for, after all, the story is one that might
be taken from heathen mythology, and has no
religious significance whatever.
With " Salome " the case is quite different.
The poem by Oscar Wilde, was founded on an
incident recorded in the New Testament. This
fact in itself was quite sufficient to make the
censor hesitate to permit its public performance,
knowing, as he would, that it was calculated to
250 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
wound the feelings of, and arouse justified
resentment among, thousands of religious people
in England. After all, England is a Christian
country, although London does not declare the
fact in its highest manifestation. Viewing the
trend of events to-day, the sense of unrest, the
prevalent feeling of doubt and uncertainty,
and the craving for excitement satisfied in
however questionable a manner, I think the
existence of an official who has the power to cry
" halt ! " in the important matter of stage
performances, is a thing for which we should be
profoundly grateful.
It must be borne in mind that the position of
those responsible for giving advice on such
delicate questions, must be extremely difficult,
and therefore commands from all who are capable
of taking an unprejudiced view, sympathetic
consideration.
One of these, the official recognition of
merit in distinguished musicians, is, pro-
bably, not one of the easiest to deal with,
and this, perhaps, explains to the man in the
street some of the amazing decisions (one would
almost hazard the thought of sardonic humour
in some harassed courtier as the mainspring)
that have at times, been arrived at. For
instance, it may be observed that, whereas many
Englishmen — professors of universities, admin-
istrators of great schools of music, historians
of mark, and authors of theoretical books of
immense importance — have been passed by,
foreign composers of music that has not the
slightest claim to serious consideration, have
GENERAL SURVEY 251
been the recipients of honours equivalent to
those awarded to a General, on the conclusion
of a successful campaign.
A prominent feature of present musical life
in England, and one that has only come into
existence in recent years, is the amazing passion
for examinations that has seized on old and young
alike, all over the country. That the influence
is largely for good will, I think, be generally
admitted, but that there are objections, and
grave ones too, I shall speedily show.
The craving to be able to put some mysterious-
looking letters after their name, has become a
positive mania among those whose occupation,
mainly, is that of teaching music in its humbler
spheres. The result is that institutions of all
kinds, good, bad, indifferent or altogether worth-
less, have been springing up all over the country
with a view to satisfy this longing and, inter alia,
take benefit by the fees that are willingly paid
by the applicants, who may be said, veritably,
to be numbered in thousands.
I am afraid they little know, poor people, how
absolutely indifferent the public have gradua-
ally become to this matter of certificates of
efficiency. People, in fact, have become so
accustomed nowadays to see a whole string of
letters after a person's name, which in ninety
cases out of a hundred have no significance to
them whatever, that, beyond flattering the vanity
of the individual, the use of letters authorised
by these self-appointed institutions has no
effect. The least educated could hardly be
deceived by them.
252 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
That certificates from such places as the
Royal College of Music, Trinity College, or the
Royal Academy of Music are valuable to the
young teacher, there is not the slightest doubt,
but that the fact of similar ones being positively
showered on young people from one end of the
land to the other must, unless something is
done, soon darken the prestige and lower the
value of even these, I think there can be little
question.
A government enquiry into the whole ques-
tion is decidedly needed, for it must be remem-
bered that the general public have neither time
nor inclination to solve the intricate question
of the relative value or importance of the letters
placed after the names of such crowds of people
in these days, and, naturally, harm must accrue
to those who have passed legitimate examina-
tions and obtained recognised degrees that are
witness to their competence.
That examinations by approved persons are
both desirable and even necessary it is needless
to insist on.
In the years immediately following on 1880,
I held the position of senior teacher in a school of
considerable importance, and, becoming sensible
of the solemn farce of annual examinations by
teachers of their own pupils, that had been the
custom of many years past, I suggested to the
authorities that they should engage an examiner
from one of the principal institutions. I was,
accordingly, desired to go to the Royal Academy
of Music and see whether that body would
entertain the proposition.
GENERAL SURVEY 253
I was informed that there was no machinery
for such purposes, but that the matter would be
placed before the committee. In the event,
the late Mr. Walter Macfarren came down.
In the following year, I approached the Royal
College of Music, with the same object in view,
and had an interesting interview with the late
Sir George Grove.
He expressed himself as being highly inter-
ested in the idea, announced his intention to
accede to the request, and asked if I had any
preference as to the member of his staff he should
select. I replied that the school authorities
would prefer to leave the question, absolutely,
to his discretion.
We were fortunate enough to have the ser-
vices of Mr. (now Dr.) Eaton Faning placed at
our disposition. The result was all that could
be desired, as the prestige of these great institu-
tions would, naturally, presage.
I mention these facts merely to illustrate the
extraordinary rapidity with which the exam-
inational system has spread over the country.
If the true advance of the spirit of music in
England correlate with the energy that is
displayed in this particular direction, one can
only be thankful for the evidence it presents,
even though incidents in connection with it
may justly give occasional cause for uneasiness.
But that there are other and striking indica-
tions that afford indubitable proof of increasing
interest on the part of the public in everything
to do with music in England, the public press
of the country conclusively proves.
254 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
It may be safely said that where, thirty years
ago, one short paragraph dealing with the sub-
ject was thought sufficient to meet all require-
ments, the leading journals of to-day devote
two or three whole columns to satisfy the
demands of their readers.
In this connection, the subject of musical
criticism naturally obtrudes itself, and it may
at once be said that one of the most satisfac-
tory features in modern musical life is its general
fairness, and the entire absence of savagery that
was so prominent a feature in it in days of not
long ago.
To read the effusions of so fine an old musician
and writer as J. W. Davidson, simply makes one
feel stupefied. Wagner was to him as nothing
but typical of the Evil One. Chopin was nearly
as bad, and the language he used concerning
them both is calculated to make one's hair
stand on end.
Those were days when the old order was just
beginning to give place to the new, and the
critics of the old school fought for their principles
with a tenacity, and even ferocity, that can only
excite admiration, if tempered with surprise,
in these times of laxity of purpose.
But, after all, they were genial souls at heart,
and the words written to-day were, evidently,
expected to be forgotten to-morrow.
For example : many years ago, when quite a
boy, I had the pleasure to spend an evening in
the company of one of them, then an old man.
He was pleasant, communicative and evidently
fond of indulging in reminiscences. In the
GENERAL SURVEY 255
course of the conversation, I said, " I can never
understand what caused you to write so viru-
lently about " He interrupted me with
" Did I ? I don't remember." This was stag-
gering, since I had often been told of the sensa-
tion his articles caused at the time. It irre-
sistibly brought back to my mind, and I recall
it with all reverence, that wonderful sketch by
Anatole France, of Pontius Pilate, in his old age
at Baise : " Jesus ? . . . Jesus de Naza-
reth? . . . Je ne rappelle pas." They were
days of hard striking, with the confident
expectation of receiving a like return.
In the case of Chopin, his nature was alto-
gether too sensitive to enter upon warfare of this
kind. He simply suffered. With Wagner, it
was entirely different. His nature was comba-
tive, his pen vitriolic, and he was a skilled con-
troversialist. No critic ever entered into con-
flict with him without carrying away distinct
evidence of the fray.
It must be said in justice, that whatever the
vehemence of expression, or the open and un-
abashed hatred of the ideas he condemned, the
critic of those days avowed himself, and stood
out, fearlessly, to meet any reprisals that his
words might subject him to.
In this I say frankly my sympathy goes out
to him. To-day, it must be conceded, that
musical criticism is on a distinctly higher plane.
But, while cordially admitting the inspiring
and thought-compelling material that constantly
emanates from the pens of the distinguished
men who represent the foremost journals of
256 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
I^mdon and the great provincial cities, one has
got to record the fact that the pall of anonymity
is over it all.
From every point of view this seems most
regrettable. It is as unfair to the critic who
writes, as to the public that reads.
The signed article not only adds weight
to the views expressed, but enhances, and most
justly, the reputation of the writer, through
the publicity it extends to his name.
As things are at present, the public are kept
entirely in the dark as to the authorship of the
criticism they read, and, therefore, have no
means of knowing what precise importance need
be attached to it.
It may be written by the eminent and
experienced chief musical representative of the
journal, or some callow youth making his first
efforts in a difficult, and, it must be admitted,
often a very thankless occupation.
The public know nothng. I think, however,
that among the immense majority of readers,
whatever may be put forward, is usually accepted
as the reasoned view of the paper in which it
appears.
It is then, obviously unfair to public and critic
alike, and if to them, what is to be said of the
person criticised ? He is the one who suffers
most, and, what is more, has no means of
retaliation.
Judged from any point of view, anony-
mity in criticism, seems to me to be absolutely
indefensible.
The question is an old one, I admit, but it is
GENERAL SURVEY 257
none the less serious for that, and comes readily
to the pen and the memory.
That the critic, in the long run, is in the
ascendant will be granted, but when he, in the
person of I^ord Brougham, attacked Byron, or
through some less powerful channel, attacked
Keats, thereby bringing down the magnificently
expressed scorn of Percy Bysshe Shelley, he
did not come off with his accustomed success.
The criticisms were ephemeral, the replies
immortal. One may venture upon a wish that
more such offences should be perpetrated, could
similar results be certain of arrival. At any
rate we owe to them Byron's " English Bards
and Scotch Reviewers," the first work which
revealed his genius to the world, and made
himself conscious of it, and the still greater
" Adonais," of Shelley.
In the rush and flurry of musical events to-day,
it is naturally impossible for one representative
of a paper to record, much less criticise them,
and this fact often leads to things that, if inevit-
able, are none the less regrettable. I have in my
possession two issues of a prominent I/mdon
paper. They contain critical notices of a certain
orchestral work. In the first, it is written of in
terms of high appreciation, among others, the
word " remarkable " being applied to it. In the
second, it is alluded to in language that makes
one wonder not only that an educated gentle-
man could find it in him to put pen to, but that
a sub-editor could be found to pass it.
It would often appear as if the modern editor
valued literary ability in his colleagues, rather
258 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
than critical acumen. If the idea is a correct
one, it would largely account for such inconsist-
encies.
So large a body must necessarily include
men of varied powers, varied educational endow-
ments, and, probably, of various races ; from
the highly-cultured leading critic of the great
daily journals, down to the cosmopolitan writer,
whose other occupations seem strangely incon-
sistent with the exercise of so fine an art.
The gratitude, however, of all English musi-
cians should go out to the eminent men who,
daily, portray so vividly the strangely-moving
panorama of music, as it faces us all to-day.
People who live in serene atmospheres may not
realize their work at its true value, but that it is
of powerful and far-reaching influence, there is
no room for doubt.
The great festivals of England are among the
most important features in the musical history
of the country. Their influence is for good in
whatever direction you seek. They provide
the composer with the most perfect means that
human effort can devise, to render his ideals
into actual effect. They give the soloist every
incentive to the highest efforts. They create
that subtle atmosphere which inspires chorus,
orchestra, conductor and all, to supreme achieve-
ment.
I do not include the Handel festival among
them. The peculiar characteristics that go to
mark its unique position in the world of English
musical history, are decidedly antagonistic to
the artistic ideals that are the very life and soul
GENERAL SURVEY 259
of the others. This festival cannot, I think, be,
in any sense, interpreted as a sign of advance
in the art of music, on the part of the English
people. It certainly provides the pleasurable
excitement of a week in the metropolis, inter-
spersed with music, to the many hundreds of
enthusiastic choral singers who flock to the
Crystal Palace from, practically, every part of
the country.
This, added to the fact that it attracts count-
less thousands of people, whose only musical
experience it often proves to be, certainly
proclaims it as an agency for good.
But, judging it solely from an artistic point
of view, and with no desire to use undue empha-
sis, the amalgamation of a chorus numbered by
thousands, and an orchestra of appalling size,
the brass instruments (mostly called into
requisition by Costa, and having no place in
Handel's original scores), and those of percus-
sion being in terrible evidence — cannot, as it
seems to me, be regarded in any other light
than the simple glorification of noise.
That there was an element of genius in the
original conception of the idea is not to be
denied, and the picturesque combination of
such masses of people would naturally appeal
to the imagination of such a man as Sir Michael
Costa, gifted as he was, with a sense of things
on a grand and imposing scale.
f& Of the success that attended the festivals
from the beginning, and has been conspicuous
to the present day, it is only a matter of justice
to relate, and to the great conductor who was
260 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
for so many years its embodiment, such a
tribute as the fact involves, is unquestionably
due.
Indeed, after his death, many and ominous
were the doubts openly expressed as to the
capability of any other musician to take his
place with success.
However, the late Sir August Manns, who was
elected to succeed him, speedily put an end to
any uneasiness on the sub j ect . Since his decease
Sir Frederick Cowen has, with equal success,
carried on the traditions.
A feature of special interest, in that it affords
convincing proof of the love of music existing
among the masses of wage-earners, particularly
in the northern counties of England, is the
popularity of brass-band contests, it being
borne in mind that all the performers belong
to that class.
The final exhibitions generally take place at
the Crystal Palace, and it is an inspiring sight
to watch, not only the whole-hearted enthusi-
asm with which the players throw themselves
into their work, but the equal excitement of
their respective followers who flock to the
south to witness them.
It is safe to say that the decisions of the
examiners are awaited with as breathless interest,
as is displayed while the result of the final cup-
tie, of Association football, is in doubt. While
not claiming for them too high a position as
artistic manifestations, it can only be regarded
with a sense of true admiration, that the
comparatively little time that their arduous
GENERAL SURVEY 261
occupations leave at their disposal, is spent by
the men to such a purpose.
The pieces chosen for performance are, fre-
quently, not only classical, and thereby demand-
ing high qualifications of fine discernment, but
of sufficient difficulty to require .considerable
technical skill on the part of the players. It
does not call for much consideration to realize
the sustained endeavour necessary to meet
such requirements. Enthusiasm tempered by
a refinement that is extraordinary, all things
being considered, characterises the best efforts
of the successful competitors.
If evidence were wanted to prove the ever
upward trend in everything that has to do with
art, one of the most striking features of the times,
the Variety Theatres, surely, can offer it, and,
on a scale that, perhaps, could not be equalled
in any other direction. It seems only yesterday
that such a thing as the following quotation
narrates, took place in one of them. Although
I did not witness it, I well remember the indig-
nant outcry it called forth.
" As an indication of the vulgar and repulsive,
I recall a performance given in one of these halls
which was said to represent an incident that
actually took place in one of the Indian Frontier
wars. In a charge by a Scottish regiment, the
Piper, while sounding it, was dangerously
wounded, but continued to play until his
regiment was lost to sight.
" For this act of valour he received the decora-
tion of the Victoria Cross, the most coveted
distinction in the British Army. . . . Yet
262 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
in order to attract the morbid curiosity of the
crowd, this scene was enacted with every attempt
at verisimilitude."
It is impossible to think of such a disgusting
spectacle taking place in one of these theatres
to-day. The music hall of those not remote
days, together with the type of manager such
performances indicate, is a thing of the past.
Instead of offering attractions to the lowest
tastes, the authorities frequently appeal to the
highest, and invariably only to those which the
average individual may honestly indulge.
The greatest actors and actresses of every
country in the world are constantly to be seen,
and the Drama and the Variety Theatre are in
complete agreement, instead of, as formerly,
contemptuous on one side, and resentful on the
other.
So far as music is concerned the change is
equally marked, as may be realized when Sir
Edward Elgar is found conducting one of his
own compositions at the Coliseum. This must
certainly be regarded as an epoch in the history
of music in England, as well as that of the
Variety Theatre.
Although unable to take the roseate view of the
position of native music in England that is often
expressed by a few prominent writers in the
Press, I think it will be generally agreed that
there are many signs, at once indicative of hope-
fulness and, already, great and assured progress.
There are others, however, that, shut one's
eyes to them as one would, cannot be ignored,
and are, certainly, less satisfactory.
GENERAL SURVEY 263
Disunion among any communion is generally
disastrous, but I am afraid it has been a fatal
fact in the history of English musicians.
The writing, for instance, of a parody by one,
of the work of another, seems to me to be a
policy of sheer negation. It neither enhances
the reputation of the one, nor impedes the
upward progress of the other. The ostentatious
patronage of the foreign, at the expense of the
equally skilled native, musician, is again a sign
that does not induce a feeling of hopefulness.
To create a national school of English music
which, notwithstanding the raptures some writ-
ers have indulged in, simply does not exist,
a policy of a definite nature is needed.
That there exists a band of brilliant and
original English composers to-day, is a matter
of heart-felt congratulation, and one that gives
rise to hopes that, but a few years ago only,
would scarcely have been justified.
That their influence is already great and will,
before long be still greater, as adverse influences
lose their power, is a matter of thankfulness.
At the present time, however, a sense of
cohesion seems to be lacking.
One might express a fervent wish that a
series of conferences, the members restricted
to English composers, might be held under the
presidency of Sir Hubert Parry or Sir Edward
Elgar, with a view to propagate authoritative
advice to those in whose hands the training of
the future generation of English composers is
entrusted.
There is, surely, much to go upon. The
264 MUSIC IN ENGLAND
noble school of ancient English Church music,
and the national folk-music in which England is
exceptionally rich, form a firm foundation on
which to build.
Dvorak indicated the lines on which to found
an American school of composition, by writing
a symphony based on national melodies, and
instinct with the spirit of the people. Will
not some of the young English composers, in
their days of youth and enthusiasm, emulate
so splendid an example ?
* * ~ * * *
England was musical once upon a time ; and
bids fair to be so again, in the highest and
noblest sense that the word can convey. .
England was " merrie," once upon a time ;
and, if the early days of irresponsible gaiety
can never return, she may well be happy in the
prospect of a noble art restored to her.
In that firm faith, I close these pages.
INDEX
A
PAGE
Albani, Madame 238
Amateur Bands ....... 144
Antiphony ....... 94
" Anny Quadrilles " 140
B
Bach Society, established .
Balfe's " Bohemian Girl " .
„ " Rose of Castille " .
Ballads ....
Ball, John
"Basoche"
Beecham, Mr. Thomas
Benedict's " Iyily of Killarney "
Bennett, Mr. Joseph .
Bennett, Sir William Sterndale
Beringer, Oscar .
Birmingham
Birmingham Choir
Bizet's " Carmen "
" Blest Pair of Sirens "
Blow, Dr. John
Bodda-Pyne, Madame
Boosey & Co., Messrs.
Boyce, William .
Bradford Choir .
Brass Band Contests .
Bridge, Sir Frederick .
Broadwood & Sons, Messrs. .
Bunn, Alfred
Burns, Georgina
265
182,
206
183, 196
184
23, 247
43
192
181
184
196
99, no, 201
112
112
245
195
102
64
184
247
88
246
260
246
248
182
187
266
Buononcini
Butt, Madame Clara
Byrd
INDEX
PAGE
83, 106
• 247
6, 39. 43. 53
Calvinism and Music
Calvin, John
Carl Rosa .
Carte, Mr. D'Oyly
Casals, Sefior
Catch
Cathedrals and Music
Censor, The
Certificates.
Chappell & Co., Messrs.
Chappell, Mr. Arthur
Charles II. and Opera
Choirs, Provincial
Chopin
Church and Drama
Church and Music
Church Music
Clive, Mr. Franklin
Comic Operas
Composers, Early English
Composers, Status of
Costa, Sir Michael
Counterpoint
Cowen, Sir Frederick
Criticism, Anonymous
Crotty, Leslie
Crystal Palace Concerts
69
76
186
189
118
37
118
249
252
247
248
177
245
254. 255
4
2, 68
264
192
193
47
18
no, 115,
259
95
260
256
187
132
D
Dance Music
Davies, Mr. Ben
Davidson, Mr. J. W. .
De Reszke, The Brothers .
" Der Ring des Nibelungen "
Diction, Importance of
21, 27
187, 192
• 254
• 179
• 179
121
INDEX 267
PAGE
" Don Giovanni " 178
Douland 39
Drama and the Church 4
Dvorak ...... . 264
E
Education, Musical 93
Edwardes, Mr. George '. 194
Elgar, Sir Edward 199, 262
Elgar's, Sir Edward, advice .... 104
"Elijah" 163
Elizabeth, Queen, and Music . . . 2, 29, 31
England, Opera in 176
English Music, Sources of 11
English Opera 180
"Esmeralda" 188
Examinations 251
Faning, Dr. Eaton
• 253
Festivals
. 258
" Flying Dutchman " .
187
Ford, Thomas
40
Foreign Influence ....
29
Foreign Teachers in England
103
French School of Opera
• 179
G
Games and Music 22
Gaylord, Julia 187
Gerardy, M 118
German Music 103
Gibbons, Orlando . . . . 6, 9, 39, 43, 57
Glee 37
Gounod's " Faust " 195
Grove, Sir George 100, 253
Guildhall School of Music 100
Guiligni 179
Gye 178
268 INDEX
H PAGE
Halle, Lady 211
Halle, Sir Charles .... J136, 218, 248
Hammerstein, Mr 196, 199
Handel 83, 106, 153
Handel and Opera 178
Handel Festival V 258
Harmony ........ 95
Harrison, Mr. William 183
Harris, Sir Augustus 179
Haydn and the Orchestra ..... 126
Henry VIII. and Music 33
Hersee, Miss Rose 186
Hill, Miss Lucille ^ I 9 2
I
Instrumental Music 43
Instruments, Early ...... 13
Instruments, Musical 43
Italian Chorus and Mendelssohn .... 123
Italian Opera . 176
Italian Singers 120
Italian Training ....... 120
" Ivanhoe " 190
J
Jackson, William 90
Joachim ........ 248
Jullien 140
K
Kent ........ 90
Kirkby-Lunn, Madame 180
Lablache . . , . . . . . . 179
Leeds Choir 245
INDEX
269
PAGE
London Symphony Orchestra .... 245
M
Maas, Joseph 187
Macfarren, Mr. Walter
253
Macfarren, Sir G. A. .
99. i85
Macintyre, Miss Margaret .
192
Mackenzie, Sir Alexander C.
99. i85
Madrigal ....
37
Malibran .
178
Manchester
112, 139
Manns, Sir Augustus
132, 260
Mapleson .
178
Mario
179
Masque, the
34
McGupkin, Mr. Barton
187
Melba, Madame .
1
79, 121
Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto
195
" Merrie," When England was
29
Messager, Andre
192
" Messiah," The
158
Minstrels, Early .
18
Moss, Mr. Hugh .
191
Monks and Music
6
Moody-Manners Company .
186
" Morning Hymn "
42
" Morning Post," Quotation from
196
Morris Dance
21
Musical Comedies
193
N
New Symphony Orchestra .... 143, 245
• 179
178
Norman-Neruda, Madame .
211, 248
Novello & Co., Messrs.
90
270
INDEX
Opera, English .
Opera, Essentials for Success
Opera, History of
Opera in England
Opera, State Aid for .
Oratorio in England .
Orchestral Music
Orchestral Music in London
Organ, An, in Sixth Century-
Organ, Development of the
Oudin, Eugene .
PAGE
180
197
176
176
193
150
125
245
44
45
191
P
Palestrina 6
Palliser, Miss Esther 192
Parepa, Madame ...... 186
Parry, Sir Hubert 100
" Parthenia " 27, 28
Patti, Adelina 178
Philharmonic Society, The .... 125, 245
" Philip Vanderdecken " 187
Piatti 248
Pitch fixed by Costa 115
Players, Strolling 2
"Pops" 248
Promenade Concerts 139
Purcell 9, 45, 60
Purcell and Opera 176
Puritanism 29, 69
Puritans, The, and Opera 177
Pyne, George, and James Kendrick . . 184
Pyne-Harrison Company, The .... 184
Pyne, Minto ....... 184
Pyne, Miss Louisa 183
R
Reeves, Sims 179, 207
Reformation, Effect on Music .... 2
INDEX
Restoration, The, and Music
Richter Concerts
Richter, Dr.
Riviere
" Robin Hood " .
Ronald, Mr. I/andon
Round
Royal Academy of Music
Royal Amateur Orchestral Society
Royal Choral Society .
Royal College of Music
Royal Italian Opera .
Rumford, Mr. Kennerley
271
PAGE
80
• 131
179, l80
140
• 185
101, 144
37
. 98
• 145
246
99
• 179
• 247
Salmond, Mr. Norman 192
"Salome" 248, 249
" Samson et Dalila " 249
Santley, Sir Charles 179, 186
Schumann, Madame ...... 248
Secular Music of Thirteenth Century ... 20
"Senta" 187
Sheffield ........ 112
Sheffield Choir 246
Smith 178
Sontag 178
Spohr 109
Squire, W. H 118
Stanford, Sir Villiers 185
Straus, Richard ...... 181, 248
State Aid for Opera 193
Sullivan, Sir Arthur .... 86, 190, 227
" Sumer is icumen in " 40
Sunday Concerts 144
Symphony Concerts 139
Symphony Orchestra, The I^ondon . . . 142
Tallis
" The Creation "
6, 9, 48, 96
160
272
INDEX
" The Dream of Gerontius "
" The Golden legend "
" The Last Judgment "
" The Redemption " .
" The Silver Swan " .
" The Woman of Samaria "
Thomas Arthur Goring
Tietjens, Therese
Turner, J. W. .
PAGE
173, 246
168
166
168
39
no
188
178
186, 187
V
Valleria, Alwina . . . . . . 187
Variety Theatres » . . 261
Violin, The . 13
W
Wagner 179, 254, 255
Wagner Festival, The 131
Wallace's " I,urline " 184
Wallace's " Maritana " 183
Wesley, Samuel 91
Wesley, Samuel Sebastian .... 91, 184
Wilde, Oscar 249
Wolff, Johannes 112
Wood, Sir Henry .... 116, 139, 245
Y
York, Josephine 187
THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LTD., LONDON AND NORWICH