The art of music, Vol. 05 (of 14)

by Unknown

III

In latter-day England song-writing has risen to a dignity and importance which it had not possessed since the time of Purcell. With Arthur Goring-Thomas, whom we have already mentioned, a new note of artistic sincerity entered the art. This was continued by an unusually talented man, Arthur Somervell (born 1863), who has composed some of the best song cycles of recent times. Somervell is by no means a radical in his method. But his lyric sense is keen and his invention fertile. His cycle from Tennyson’s ‘Maud’ attains rare fidelity and tragic intensity. Among his other numerous songs are the two cycles, ‘A Shropshire Lad’ and ‘James Lee’s Wife,’ the latter scored for orchestral accompaniment. These both show his happy invention and his high musicianship. A song-writer who has gained a much more glittering reputation less deservedly is Edward Elgar, whom people regard for some reason as the chief representative of modern English song. As a matter of fact, Elgar’s song output has been slight and has not pretended to show the best he was capable of (as Reger did attempt to show in his songs). There is little of Elgar’s forceful musicianship which comes across to us in these songs. The ‘Sea Pictures’ have made their effect chiefly through the effective orchestration which their composer provided for them. Considered as independent music, they are inferior and somewhat conventional. The best is probably ‘Where Coral Lies.’ ‘The Swimmer’ will serve to suggest Elgar’s descriptive style. The conventional, in fact, hangs over most of Elgar’s songs. The one which notably escapes it is the beautiful lyric, ‘My Love Lives in a Northern Land,’ which is worthy to be signed by a first-class musician. Of the others we may mention ‘Queen Mary’s Song,’ which, with its accompaniment in imitation of a lute, is effective in concert; ‘Through the Long Days,’ The Shepherd’s Song,’ and The Pipes of Pan.’

Granville Bantock (born 1868) may justly be called a radical modern composer, whereas Elgar has much of the classical reserve about him. Bantock’s very great ability and learning sometimes produce rather chaotic results, the more so because his output is unusually great. But frequently it produces results that are altogether admirable. To singers he is known chiefly through his ‘Songs of the East.’ These are published as cycles, as follows: Songs of Egypt, Songs of India, Songs of Persia, Songs of the Seraglio, Five ‘Ghazels of Hafiz,’ lyrics from ‘Ferishtah’s Fancies,’ Songs of China, and Songs of Japan. The exoticism of these many songs is rarely genuine and Bantock’s facile technique extends over them all to make them seem rather too much alike for the good of his reputation. But the effect of exoticism is frequently attained with rare skill and the musical standard is kept far higher than is usual in this class of music. Bantock’s powerful technique, which is obviously influenced by Richard Strauss, is to be studied to advantage in many of these songs, especially the more pretentious ones. From the Songs of Egypt we should mention the majestic ‘Invocation to the Nile,’ the mystical song ‘The Unutterable’; and the poignant ‘Lament of Isis.’ Of the Hindoo songs that of the Nautch girl is ever memorable for its effect of fierce physical motion. The songs from Persia include two of high quality, the ‘Drinking Song’ and the ‘Hymn of the Ghebers.’ Let us further pick out, as among the best, the Persian Love Song from the ‘Songs of the Seraglio’; and the ‘Shah Abbas’ and ‘Mahirab Shah’ from ‘Ferishtah’s Fancies,’ the last remarkable for its expression of physical pain. The songs of China and Japan are in no way unusual. Nor are the six Jester Songs, though they sometimes catch the joy of life in engaging fashion. But Bantock has one very ambitious work, the cycle of fragments from Sappho, which is sufficient to put him in the front rank. It is hard to describe the richness of the technique he has lavished on this work. We should find it difficult to name anything similar to it in its peculiar emotional intensity. The best that Bantock has to show of his art (his instrumentation aside) is all to be found in this remarkable group of songs. Every one of them is admirable, as is also the very long introduction. But one remembers especially the opening number, the ‘Hymn to Aphrodite,’ dramatic and passionate; the painfully beautiful song, ‘The Moon Has Set’; the masterful description of ‘Peer of the Gods’; and the profuse musical richness of ‘In a Dream I Spake.’ Possibly these songs will in later years be judged too pretentious. But while the judgment is still unmade we must regard with the highest respect the musician who has done this thing in the musical conditions that have prevailed in England.

It only remains to speak of the most radical of the young English composers, Cyril Scott (born 1874). He broke away completely from the traditional English style, founded on conventional church music, and embraced the ‘atmospheric’ manner of the modern Frenchmen. In this style he has displayed great energy and no small amount of inventiveness. It remains to be seen whether he can make his influence permanently felt in music. His songs well exemplify the general style of his music. The best are ‘Lovely Kind and Kindly Loving’ and ‘Why so Pale and Wan,’ both from opus 55. Others which should be mentioned are ‘My Captain’ (to Walt Whitman’s words), ‘A Reflection,’ and ‘Afterday.’ The song writing of the modern English school has not yet gathered body. It is only beginning to make itself felt beyond the seas. But it has already shown so much vigor and independence that we may justly look for abundant and fine results from it.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] See Musical examples, Volume XIV.

APPENDIX
THE FRENCH-CANADIAN FOLK-SONG

The songs of the French Canadians, which show considerable originality, are in part transplanted from France, modified and localized in the natural course of popular music. But a considerable part are indigenous, with a history dating back, possibly, more than two centuries. They are all, of course, made in imitation of the parent stock, but in many instances they have taken on a new character, befitting the wild and uncouth environment in which they were composed. In some instances they show model characteristics, as in the Mon Cri Cra, Tir’ la Liretta, sung by the boatmen on the Red River. This old song shows scarcely any traces of the omnipresent influence of the court of Louis XIV. Other songs bear the marks of the French priests, through whose hands they passed on their way to the Canadian natives, Indians or Frenchmen. Such a song is Jesos Ahatonhia, the music of which was evidently an ecclesiastical melody with a strong modal character indicating its great age. But on the whole the refined and graceful influence of French civilization is strongly marked in the Canadian songs, even when these songs originated in the New World. The one department in which they are supreme is that of playful humor—not the humor of the old English songs, which is somewhat bumptious and muscular, but a more delicate humor, into which the singer enters from pure effervescence of human sympathy and childlike playfulness. We must range a long way through folk-song literature before we find a song of this sort to equal ‘The White Duck,’ or ‘I Hear a Mill Go Tick-Tack.’ A provocative playfulness sings in the words of ‘My Faithful Bottle,’ ‘The Lost Chance,’ and the inimitable ‘When Returning from Varennes,’ with its continuous refrain, Cach’ton joli bas de laine. The spirit of Gascony, famous home of the practical joke, is in the ‘Song of Lies,’ in which the singer turns the world topsy-turvy and hopes to be hung if a single word he says is true. The sentimental note is not so often struck, but we find it charmingly in such occasional songs as ‘The Traveller’s Return,’ and ‘From Yonder on the Mountains.’

Gagnon’s collection, made in 1865 (the earliest of all), contains a number of gentle and lovely airs, such as C’est la belle française. We may also notice in this book a number which have been transported from France and forgotten in the home country while they lived and flourished under their foster mother. Such a song is Dans les Prisons de Nantes. Mon Per’ n’avait fille que moi is one of the most interesting examples of the old modal style. The Canadian songs are peculiarly addicted to the use of the refrain. This device, which is always a mark of unsophisticated playfulness, is relied upon to such an extent that one would call it excessive if the high spirits of the music and words did not carry the little game through to complete success. As so often happens, the refrain frequently has nothing whatever to do with the sense of the text. The primitive innocence of the mind is absolutely demanded of any singer who attempts, for instance, ‘The White Duck.’ On the whole, the Canadian songs, though very limited in range, can show a few types of folk-expression managed with such consummate art that they deserve a place in the folk-literature of the world.

LITERATURE FOR VOLUME V

(In English)

A. B. Bach: The Principles of Singing (London, 1897).

J. Frank Botume: Modern Singing Methods (London, 1885).

Lennox Browne and Emil Behnker: Voice, Song and Speech (2nd ed., London, 1884).

Anna Chapin: Makers of Song (New York, 1904).

William Chappell: Old English Popular Music, 2 vols. (London, 1893).

H. Holbrook Curtis, M. D.: Voice Building and Tone Placing (New York, 1896).

Henry T. Finck: Songs and Song Writers (New York, 1910).

Ffrangcon-Davies: The Singing of the Future (London, 1904).

Folk-Songs from Somerset, 5 vols. (London, 1904-8).

Harry Plunkett Greene: Interpretation in Song (New York, 1912).

Max Heinrich: Correct Principles of Classical Singing (Boston, 1910).

H. L. F. Helmholtz: The Study of Sensations of Tone (Trans. by A. J. Ellis, 1875).

W. J. Henderson: The Art of Singing (New York, 1906).

Gordon Holmes: A Treatise on Vocal Physiology and Hygiene (1879).

John Howard: The Physiology of Artistic Singing (1886).

Dora Jones: Lyric Diction (New York, 1913).

Kickson and Neal: English Folk-song and Dance (Cambridge, Eng., 1905).

H. E. Krehbiel: Afro-American Folk-song (New York, 1914).

Louis Lablache: Complete Method of Singing.

Francesco Lamperti: A Treatise on the Art of Singing (Trans. by J. C. Griffiths, 1876).

Lilli Lehmann: How to Sing (New York, 1912).

Eugenie Lineva: Peasant Songs of Great Russia (Engl. and Russian text, Imperial Academy of Science, St. Petersburg).

Sir Morell Mackenzie: The Hygiene of the Vocal Organs (London, 1890).

Giovanni Battista Mancini: Practical Reflections on Figured Song (Engl. transl. by Pietro Buzzi, Boston, 1913).

Matilda Marchesi: Ten Singing Lessons (London, 1901).

Wesley Mills, M. D.: Voice Production in Singing and Speaking (1906).

Sir C. Hubert H. Parry: The Evolution of the Art of Music (1899).

C. K. Rogers: My Voice and I (Chicago, 1910).

E. W. Scripture: The Elements of Experimental Phonetics (1902).

William Shakespeare: The Art of Singing, 3 parts (London, 1898).

W. Warren Shaw: The Lost Vocal Art (Phila., 1914).

Shays: English Folk-Carols (London, 1911).

Shays: English Folk-Chanteys (London, 1914).

Shays: English Folk-Songs; Some Conclusions (London, 1907).

David C. Taylor: The Psychology of Singing (New York, 1908).

Pietro Francesco Tosi: Observations on the Florid Song (1723). (Reprint by William Reeves, London, 1905.)

George P. Upton: The Song (Chicago, 1915).

In German

Erk und Böhme: Deutscher Liederhort, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1893).

Max Friedländer: Das deutsche Lied im 18. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1902).

H. L. F. Helmholtz: Die Lehre der Tonempfindungen.

R. G. Kiesewetter: Schicksale und Beschaffenheit des weltlichen Gesanges, etc. (1841).

Dr. L. Mandl: Die Gesundheitslehre der Stimme (1876).

Carl Ludwig Merkl: Der Kehlkopf (1873).

In French

F. J. Fétis: Histoire générale de la musique (1869).

Méthode de chant du Conservatoire de Musique (Paris, 1803).

Julien Tiersot: Histoire de la chanson populaire en France (Paris, 1889).

J. B. Weckerlin: Chansons populaires du pays de France, 2 vols. (Paris, 1903).

In Italian

Giovanni Battista Mancini: Reflessioni pratiche sul canto figurato (1777).

Giulio Caccini: Le nouve musiche (Florence, 1600).