To-day songs of great beauty are being constantly 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
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 London 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 Hallé—its interests have been mainly watched over in London by the historic firm of John Broadwood and Sons.
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
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.