HATTON.
John Liphot Hatton, a composer well known in America, not only by his songs and other works, but also by his visits here, was born in Liverpool in 1809. Though his early musical education was very scanty, he soon became known as a composer after his removal to London in 1832, and his works met with a very cordial reception. In 1842 he became conductor at Drury Lane Theatre, and while acting in that capacity brought out one of his operettas, called “The Queen of the Thames.” In 1844 he went to Vienna and produced his opera “Pascal Bruno.” Shortly afterwards he issued several songs under the nom de plume of “Czapek,” which secured for themselves widespread popularity. In 1848 he came to this country, and some years later made a concert-tour here. Upon his return to England he assumed direction of the music at the Princess’ Theatre, and while engaged there wrote incidental music for “Macbeth,” “Sardanapalus,” “Faust and Marguerite,” “King Henry VIII.,” “Pizarro,” “King Richard II.,” “King Lear,” “The Merchant of Venice,” and “Much Ado About Nothing.” In 1856 he wrote “Robin Hood,” a cantata; in 1864 the opera “Rose, or Love’s Ransom,” for Covent Garden; and in 1877 “Hezekiah,” a sacred drama, which was performed at the Crystal Palace. He has also written a large number of part songs, which are great favorites with quartet clubs, and nearly two hundred songs which are very popular; among them, “Good-by, Sweetheart, good-by,” which has been a stock piece with concert tenors for years, and which the late Signor Brignoli used to sing with excellent effect. His music is specially characterized by grace and melodiousness. Hatton died in 1886.
Robin Hood.
The pastoral cantata of “Robin Hood” was written for the Bradford (England) Triennial Festival of 1856, Sims Reeves creating the part of the hero. Its name suggests the well-known story of the greenwood outlaw which has been charmingly versified by George Linley in the libretto. The personages are Maid Marian, Robin Hood, Little John, and “The Bishop.” Maid Marian, it will be remembered, was the mistress who followed Robin into the Sherwood Forest and shared his wild life; and Little John was his stalwart lieutenant, whose name was transposed after he joined the band, thus heightening the incongruity between his name and his great size. The incident contained in Linley’s poem appears to have been suggested by Robin Hood’s penchant for capturing bishops and other ecclesiastics, notwithstanding his religious professions, which were exemplified by the retention of Friar Tuck as chaplain in the bold archer’s household; or it may be based upon the historical story of the expedition which Edward II. and some of his retainers, disguised as monks, made into the forest for the purpose of exterminating the outlaws and thus stopping their slaughter of the royal deer. As the old story goes, they were led into an ambuscade by a forester who had agreed to conduct them to the haunts of Robin, and were captured. When Robin recognized the King in the disguise of the abbot, he craved forgiveness for himself and his band, which was granted upon condition that he should accompany his sovereign to Court and take a place in the royal household. The old collection of ballads, “The Lytell Geste of Robyn Hood,” tells the same story and continues it, relating how after “dwelling in the Kynge’s courte” a year, he tired of it and obtained permission to make a visit to the woods again, but forfeited his word and never returned, dying at last in Kirklees priory, through the treachery of the abbess, and how in his last moments he blew a loud blast on his horn, summoning Little John from the forest, to whom, after he had forced his way into his chamber, the dying Robin said:
“Give me my bent bow in my hand,
And an arrow I’ll let free,
And where that arrow is taken up,
There let my grave digged be.”
The cantata opens with a chorus of the outlaws, who vigorously assert their independence of tribute, laws, and monarchs, followed by a bombastic bass aria by the Bishop, who threatens them for destroying the King’s deer. His grandiloquence is speedily interrupted by the outlaws, with Robin at their head, who surround him without further ado and make him the butt of their sport. Robin Hood sings a charmingly melodious ballad, “Under the Greenwood Tree,” in which the Bishop is invited to become one of their number and share their sylvan enjoyments. A trio and chorus follow, in the course of which the Bishop parts with his personal possessions in favor of the gentlemen around him in Lincoln green with “bent bows.” A chorus (“Strike the Harp”) also informs us that the ecclesiastic is forced to dance for the genial band much against his will as well as his dignity. Robin’s sentimentalizing about the pleasures under the greenwood tree is still further emphasized by a madrigal for female voices, supposed to be sung by the forest maidens, though their identity is not very clear, as Marian was the only maid that accompanied the band. After the plundering scene, the cantata grows more passionate in character, describing a pretty and tender love-scene between Robin and Marian, which is somewhat incongruous, whether Marian be considered as the outlaw’s mistress, or, as some of the old chroniclers have it, his wife Matilda, who changed her name when she followed him into the forest. From the musical standpoint, however, it affords an opportunity for another graceful ballad of sentiment, in which Marian describes her heart as “a frail bark upon the waters of love;” a duet in which the lovers passionately declare their love for each other as well as their delight with the forest; and a final chorus of the band, jubilantly proclaiming their hatred of kings and courtiers, and their loyalty to Robin Hood and Maid Marian. It may be worthy of note in this connection that Bishop, the English composer, wrote a legendary opera called “Maid Marian, or the Huntress of Arlingford,” in which the heroine is Matilda.
