CHAPTER IV
THE DECLINE 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 Calvinistic teaching—Excesses of the Commonwealth soldiery—Facts as to life of Calvin—Effects of change of dynasty—The Stuarts and music—The Restoration and resulting 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.
The three principal causes that led to the decline and 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 Reformation and all that it involved was, overwhelmingly, 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
deadly one, was its suppression in the services of the Church. To grasp to the full the significance 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 dependent 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 mediæval 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.
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.