III
The members of the second and third groups shared with Elgar the advantages of much improved musical conditions. After twenty-five years' hard work the older generation of composers had educated the country to a wider, deeper, and purer appreciation of music. They had even arrived at a tacit understanding with their countrymen that an Englishman might, under certain conditions, be able to compose. Of this understanding their pupils took immediate advantage. Let us see of what these improved conditions consisted.
In 1880, outside the provincial church festivals, orchestral opportunity for the English composer meant a few concerts conducted by August Manns at the Crystal Palace and a few more given by the London Philharmonic Society. To-day there is a larger number of first-class orchestral players in London than in any other city in the world.
To a large extent this is the result of the insatiable London appetite for musical comedy performed with a beauty and lavishness unknown in America. For the orchestral player who cannot live by symphony work alone can live by symphony and theatre work combined. The number of orchestras both metropolitan and provincial has thus increased enormously. The percentage of English works played has also increased, though there is still room for some improvement in that respect.
In London alone there are, besides the Covent Garden Orchestra—the Royal Philharmonic, the Queen's Hall,[78] the London Symphony, the New Symphony, and the Beecham. All of these can and do tackle successfully the most modern music. A certain number of excellent amateur orchestras, such as the Royal Amateur, the Stock Exchange, and the Strolling Players, testify to a wide interest in this form of music. Outside London there are permanent orchestras at such places as Bournemouth, Brighton, Glasgow, Harrogate, Liverpool, Manchester, and Torquay.
Among conductors who have at one time or other interested themselves in English music may be mentioned Henry J. Wood, Granville Bantock, Godfrey, Thomas Beecham, Balfour Gardiner, Landon Ronald. And this leaves out of account the theatrical conductors, the older musicians most of whom have conducted either at the Royal Philharmonic or at some provincial festival, and the conductors of choral societies, such as George Riseley, Frederick Bridge, Allen Gill, Henry Coward, and Arthur Fagge.
The second point which calls for notice is the folk-song movement, which has forced composers to reconsider some of the fundamentals of their art and at the same time has furnished them with a mass of material on which to work. We must remember that, from the early middle ages until the present day, the traditional music of Europe (folk-song) has continued to flow in a sort of underground stream, while the written or professional music has been the main official waterway. The two have constantly joined their currents, and at times the underground stream has actually been in advance of the river overhead.
The important point is that, in England and Ireland at any rate, the folk-song, orally transmitted, has practically evolved as a separate art-form with its own ways and means of expression. And the outstanding feature of the movement is the recognition of this art-form as a thing of beauty, of vitality, and of necessity to the nation. One might make a very fair division of English composers into those who do not use folk-tunes, those who do for cheque-book reasons, and those who do because they must.
In England the missioners of this movement came only just in time. When they visited the country and seaboard towns of such counties as Norfolk and Somerset they found the art of folk-singing unknown except to the oldest inhabitants. Luckily, however, these sturdy grandfathers kept in their minds a great treasure of folk-song, and it was from their lips that our present collections were made. With this work the name of Cecil Sharp will always be honorably joined. There is now very little chance of folk-song dying, but, as everywhere else, the genuine folk-singer is practically extinct.
Irish folk-song has been the subject of conscious literary enquiry for nearly two hundred years. And this is not to be wondered at when we consider that, of all folk-song, it is first in musical charm, variety, and depth of poetical feeling. In this department the most important recent contribution by far is Stanford's monumental edition of the complete 'Petrie Collection'; but, besides that, he has restored and arranged Moore's 'Irish Melodies' and has published two volumes containing altogether eighty Irish songs and ballads with accompaniments. Both in Wales and Scotland there has been a similar but less important activity.
Before concluding this hasty sketch of the English folk-song movement we must point out that its effect on English composition was only gradually felt. The men of the second group had been too strictly trained in the tradition of the elders to feel quite comfortable under the new dispensation. They acknowledged but evaded its power. Their successors, on the other hand, viewed it, not as a curious archæological discovery, but as a living spring from which they could draw their vitality.
The two most eminent names in the second group of composers are undoubtedly Frederic Delius (b. 1863) and Granville Bantock (b. 1868).
The former was born in Bradford, lived for some time in the United States, and finally after long residence and marriage in France became almost a foreigner. Blessed with abundant means, he has always been able 'to cherish his genius' and let the world go hang. When he reappeared in England it was as a solitary stranger unknown even by name to his co-evals. And this sudden reappearance on the wave-crest of a vigorous English propaganda was not made the subject of loud-voiced enthusiasms. His brilliant talents excited a perverse misunderstanding; and he had to live down a certain sore opposition from his contemporaries, many of whom had for years been struggling in the Cave of Æolus to blow up the very wind that sent him into harbor. These are happily things of past history, and he is now accepted by the world as a tone-poet of great power and originality. Of his works—most of which owe their present popularity to the exertions of his friend Thomas Beecham—one may note 'Paris,' 'Brigg Fair,' 'Appalachia,' 'Seadrift,' 'Dance Rhapsody,' and his great 'Mass of Life.' Of his operas, neither 'Koanga' nor 'A Village Romeo and Juliet' seems to have made a pronounced success.
Modern British Composers:
Sir G. Hubert H. Parry Sir Arthur Sullivan
Granville Bantock Sir Edward Elgar
Bantock is a man of quite another kidney. The son of a London doctor, he has always exerted himself for the benefit of his fellow countrymen. In his younger days as conductor of the New Brighton Orchestra he devoted himself largely to the performance of English music. The present writer, among many others, has to acknowledge that his first chance was offered him by Bantock. At the present time he wields great influence as head of the Midland School of Music at Birmingham. Bantock's work is characterized by fluent expression and vivid coloring. His early experiences have given him an almost uncanny touch in the orchestra. Perhaps no one knows better than he how to 'score heavily' by 'scoring lightly.' In his choice of subjects he leans somewhat toward the exotic and oriental. From his long list of compositions it is only possible to select the orchestral works 'Sappho,' the 'Pierrot of the Minute,' 'The Witch of Atlas,' 'Fifine at the Fair'; and his vocal-and-orchestral works 'Omar Khayyám,' 'The Fire Worshippers,' the six sets of 'Songs of the East,' and the nine 'Sappho' fragments.
Hamish MacCunn (b. 1868) and Edward German (b. 1868),[79] the one a Scot and the other a Welshman, are both more particularly identified with the theatre. MacCunn's early orchestral poems, such as 'The Land of the Mountain and the Flood' and 'The Ship o' the Fiend,' at once brought him wide recognition. Their fine poetical qualities are well known. A large portion of his time, however, has been devoted to operatic conducting and composition. In the latter field he has to his credit such works as 'Jennie Deans' and 'Diarmid.' But, though MacCunn is known to all as an able, brilliant musician, he has had to pay the penalty of his association with that musical Cinderella, English Opera.
German, on the other hand, though never aiming at the sun, has once or twice hit a star. He succeeded Sullivan at the Savoy and made successes with 'The Emerald Isle,' 'Merrie England,' 'A Princess of Kensington,' and elsewhere with 'Tom Jones.' His incidental music to 'Henry VIII' and 'Nell Gwyn' has been liked into dislike. But German has done a great deal more than this. No account of him would be complete that did not mention his 'Welsh Rhapsody,' his 'Rhapsody on March Themes,' his 'Gypsy Suite,' and his 'Overture to Richard III.'
There is no denying the power, the wide ability, or the technical resource of Ethel Mary Smyth. Judged by her music alone one would say that she was only the nom de guerre of a strong masculine personality saturated with Teutonism. This, however, is only a pleasing fancy. As a fact, the terrific earnestness of her music could never have come from the brain of a mere man. Opera is her stronghold, and her greatest victory therein a fine Cornish drama, 'The Wreckers.'
Neither Walford Davies nor Charles Wood has produced music in great quantity. Both have led somewhat secluded lives; the one as organist of The Temple, and the other as a Cambridge don.
Davies is a man of fastidious taste, a first-class organist and contrapuntist, and a profound student of Bach, Browning, and The Bible. It is said that his coy muse sometimes furls her pinions at the approach of a too red-blooded humanity. However that may be, she has inspired him with at least one subtle and delicately beautiful work, 'Everyman.'
Charles Wood is an Irishman from Armagh, a fine scholarly musician and probably the best all-round theorist in the country. He has a strong interest in the folk-song of his native land and has written a set of orchestral variations on the tune, 'Patrick Sarsfield.' One of his best things is his string quartet in A minor. In the realm of choral music his 'Ballad of Dundee' may be selected for mention. He has at any rate one great song to his credit—'Ethiopia saluting the colors.'
Arthur Hinton's (b. 1869) work, which is appreciated on both sides of the Atlantic, includes some elaborate pianoforte music, a two-act opera, 'Tamara,' a couple of symphonies, the orchestral suite 'Endymion,' and a good deal of chamber music. His compositions are characteristic of the group to which he belongs. A certain delight in clean, finished workmanship and an incisiveness of expression are their main features.
Arthur Somervell has been throughout his life one of the standard-bearers of the English revival. And he has kept the banner flying both by his enthusiasm for folk-music and by his own compositions. His graceful, refined songs are sung and liked everywhere. Of these perhaps the best known is his cycle from Tennyson's 'Maud.' Among his larger works one may mention his 'Normandy' variations for pianoforte and orchestra and his recent symphony 'Thalassa.' For some years past Somervell has been the official mainspring which keeps the clock of elementary musical education ticking.
One of the most admirable features of the later phases in the English musical renaissance is the quickened and deepened interest shown both in English musical history and in the general topic of musical æsthetics. For the first time since the days of Hawkins and Burney investigators have begun an elaborate search in college, cathedral, and secular libraries. The existence of a vast store of madrigals, of church and instrumental music was scarcely suspected even by professional musicians; and the treasure when unearthed came as a revelation to musical England.
In the field of musical æsthetics there has been an equally remarkable activity. And it is noteworthy that a number of men who have devoted their lives to purely musical composition have also produced elaborate studies either of the technique, the history, or the psychology of their art. Of these we may name six: Wallace, McEwen, Walker, Tovey, Macpherson, and Buck.
William Wallace is, like MacCunn, a Scot from Greenock. His mental growth had its roots in the stiff classical sub-soil of a public school, and then pushed its way up through the rocks of a university medical course till it flowered in the sweet open air of the R.A.M. composition class. Hence his mind, which almost needs the threefold pormanteau-word 'musiterific' to describe it. Wallace was the first Englishman to write a symphonic poem, and he has made this form something of a specialty. The best known of his six are 'The Passing of Beatrice' and 'Villon.' Of these the latter has been played everywhere, and the present writer has had to satisfy more than one puzzled American enquirer as to how the author of 'Maritana'[80] could possibly have written it! Some of Wallace's songs, for instance 'Son o' Mine,' have acquired a popularity in England almost too great for public comfort. In the field of literature he has produced two remarkable studies in the development of the musical sense—'The Threshold of Music' and 'The Musical Faculty.'
John Blackwood McEwen is, like Wallace, a Scotsman. Furthermore he has the same mental and physical homes—Glasgow University, the R.A.M., and London. He has produced much symphonic and chamber music all characterized by a severe self-criticism, impeccable workmanship, and at times a certain Scottish exaltation. His quartets in A minor and C minor are excellent. Of his symphonic poems the border ballad 'Grey Galloway' can hold up its head in any company. He is an untiring enquirer into musical fundamentals and, of his five published volumes, the most valuable is 'The Thought in Music.'
Both Ernest Walker and Donald Francis Tovey are university men. The former, who is organist of Balliol College, Oxford, has been much applauded for his songs and chamber music. He has also rendered great and lasting service by his admirable 'History of Music in England.'
Tovey—the distinguished occupant of the Reid Chair of Music in Edinburgh—is a sort of musical Francis Bacon. Few of the English tales as to his learning and memory would be believed if printed in America. The most credible is that he is able to play the sketch-books of Beethoven by heart. His pamphlets of severely analytical criticism have, in a way, set a new standard in this kind; while his work in connection with the eleventh edition of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' has had the happiest results. Though a very able theorist and historian, Tovey is by no means that alone. He has written a good deal of chamber music, a concerto for pianoforte and orchestra and, one hears, an opera. It is difficult to place these works. Some of the older musicians have hailed them as greatly instinct with the spirit of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, while some of the younger men have catalogued them rather as compilations from those three masters. The composer's own views, throwing a terrific weight onto his isolated notes and phrases, seem to make of music a burden almost too heavy to bear. However this may be, it is quite certain that Tovey has not yet shot his last bolt.
With Stewart Macpherson and Percy C. Buck we may close this list of composer-authors. The former, in addition to a considerable amount of published music, has printed ten volumes, mostly on the technique of composition: the latter, besides his music, has written two valuable works—'The Organ' and 'The First Year at the Organ.' Naturally the greater part of the literary work in connection with this movement has been done by scholars who are not themselves composers. Most of these men have been in close touch with the leaders of the renaissance; but, even when their work has been purely archæological, it has, so to speak, cleft the rock and released a fountain of inspiration for their creative brethren.
Henry Davey's 'History of English Music' is a pioneer work embodying the results of long and patient research. Its combative determination to claim honor for the honorable is beyond praise. A similar work, less scholarly but equally patriotic, is Ernest Ford's 'Short History of Music in England.' Barclay Squire (of the British Museum), has, with his brother-in-law J. A. Fuller Maitland, done much to revive the national pride in Purcell and to spread an accurate knowledge of the earlier Elizabethan and Jacobean composers. Fuller Maitland himself, apart from his claims as editor of 'Grove' (2d ed.) and as a contributor to the 'Oxford History of Music,' always used his distinguished position at The Times to further the best interests of English music. To this list we may add the names of three other scholar-musicians all associated with the 'Oxford History of Music': W. H. Hadow, the brilliant editor of the work and at present principal of the Armstrong College; H. E. Wooldridge; and (the late) Edward Dannreuther, whose life-span stretched from personal contact with Richard Wagner to patient and sympathetic intercourse with the youngest school of English musicians.
In the special field of instrumental construction and development we have Rev. F. W. Galpin, with his scholarly and delightful volume 'Old English Instruments of Music,' and Kathleen Schlesinger. Of Miss Schlesinger's painstaking and accurate scholarship her country has by no means made the acknowledgment it deserves.
In the realm of more general musical æsthetics and criticism many names might be mentioned. We must content ourselves with those of Ernest Newman, whose profound works on 'Gluck' and 'Wagner' are discussed everywhere, and E. J. Dent, who has studied certain phases of Mozart's work and has published a classical volume on 'Scarlatti.'
Though it is somewhat outside our special topic, some reference must be made here to the English researches into Greek music. For the first time since the Germans began to inspissate the gloom, a ray or two of light has been allowed to fall upon this difficult subject. In particular D. B. Monro, with his volume 'The Modes of Ancient Greek Music,' has shown that it is not an essential of this study that the reader should always have the sensation of swimming in glue. Since his day Cecil Torr has published a clever work on the same topic; while H. S. Macran and Abdy Williams have both written on Aristoxenus.
This concludes the list of original writers, but, before leaving the subject, a word must be spared for the vast improvement that has appeared during the past few years in the translation of foreign musical texts into English. The value of the work of such men as Claude Aveling, Frederick Jameson, and Paul England can only be appreciated by a comparison of their translations with those of their predecessors. One may add that there is now a persistent cry in the London press for fine English finely sung, and this demand—though not always gratified—is kept before the public by such patriotic critics as Robin Legge, Edwin Evans, and Henry Cope Colles.
Finally, before passing on to the third group, we may here conveniently place together the small band of theatrical composers who have succeeded Sullivan. Musical comedy and the money that comes from writing it are the very sour grapes of the average English symphonist. One and all they applaud what they call 'genuine comic opera' (meaning Offenbach or anyone else that is old and dead), but decry its much brighter, cleaner, and more musical descendant. The ludicrous snobbery of English life draws a wide black line between the two classes of composer; and the stupidest Mus. Doc. that ever drowned a choir would probably rather have his daughter run off with the butler than marry a musical comedy composer. Nine times out of ten the theatrical man's revenge is that it is he and not the Mus. Doc. that has the butler. For, even under present conditions, the theatre alone in England offers a composer-conductor the chance of an honorable livelihood.
During Sullivan's lifetime he and Gilbert were comic opera; and, though the Savoy cap was tried on such diversely shaped heads as A. C. Mackenzie, Ernest Ford, Edward Soloman, and J. M. Barrie, it never really fitted any of them. Cellier alone—brother of Sullivan's conductor—made a success (elsewhere) with his charming work, 'Dorothy.' We have already mentioned that, after Sir Arthur's death, German completed his unfinished opera, 'The Emerald Isle,' and continued to employ his easy brilliant talents in that field. A later attempt to run a miniature grand opera, written by an Italian (Franco Leoni) but sung in English, was defeated by the two gods of fog, musical and meteorological.
Toward the end of the century theatre-land began to shift westward and northward into the Piccadilly Circus and Shaftesbury Avenue district. The new form of entertainment came into its own, and—if one may quote the words of an eminent Russian violinist—'Musical comedy at Daly's became the top-thing.' Of the men who have been providing the music for the London theatres we may mention four—Jones, Monckton, Talbot, and Rubens.
Sidney Jones's music has been played all the world over. In 'The Geisha,' 'San Toy,' and many other works he has had the opportunity of exercising his delicate taste and his really very musical mind. He has written more than one extended finale that is a comic opera masterpiece; while the alternate sparkle and quaint tenderness of his melodies are quite irresistible.
Of recent years Lionel Monckton has had the biggest finger in the musical comedy pie. And deservedly so. He owes his present distinguished position mainly to his inexhaustible fund of original melody. Many of these tunes are, in their way, perfect. Their special excellence is lightness, vigor, rhythmic variety and constructional power. If the present writer were subpœnaed before the Court of the Muses to give evidence as to the best tunes made in the past fifteen years he would testify, among others, for Monckton. The Folk-Song Society of 2500 will probably explain him as a solar-myth.
Howard Talbot[81] and Paul Rubens may be bracketed together. The former, though a New Yorker born, has lived his musical life in London. And his charming talent is shown in the many works of which he is either whole-or part-author. Of these the most popular are perhaps 'A Chinese Honeymoon,' 'The Arcadians,' and 'The Mousmé.' Rubens may be specially noticed for his Sullivanesque power of associating his music intimately with his literary text. Not that his music has anything in common with Sullivan's. But the special faculty of making the two things appear one is common to both composers. Rubens nearly always writes his own lyrics and thus, in a delightful manner, revives and vindicates the theory and practice of Greek poetic composition.