THE ENGLISH SCHOOL.
... a crescent; and my auguring hope
Says it will come to the full.—Shakspeare.
Climate, and the national habits of life, have in England presented no light obstacles to the progress and well-being of the musical art, as collectively regarded. The fogs and lazy vapours that so oft obscure, in our dear country, the genial face of the sun, must needs check and chill our animal spirits, and beat back into the heart the feelings that else would seek fellowship with the ear, by uttering the language of sweet sounds. The eager pursuit of business, on the other hand—the continuity of action, rigorously self-imposed, in order to satisfy both our material wants and our ambition—leaves us little opportunity—even when our sky and our land are not mutually frowning and exchanging sullen looks—for the liberation and development of our half-stifled musical impulses. The consequence of this two-fold opposition is—in multitudinous instances—that the music which is in us, comes not out; and hence it happens that we are too often suspected, by foreigners, of organic deficiency in this matter, and too often induced to doubt of ourselves. With the luxurious climate, however, and the leisurely life, that combine to make the people of Italy as vocal as grasshoppers, we, too, should burst forth into the raptures of song, and overflow with melodial honey;—so at least I venture to believe, when I think of our stock, actually hived, in the way of glees and ballads—a not contemptible little store.
In addition to the two sources of impediment just noticed, may we venture to glance at a third? There is another gloom, besides that of our skies, that has had its obstructive influence, and still, in some degree, retains it. England, happily for her own comfort, has now left far behind her those puritanic days wherein all persons who ministered to the amusement of their fellow-beings were stigmatized as the “caterpillars of a common-wealth,” and found law and opinion alike arrayed against them;—but the spirit of Puritanism, once so tyrannically exclusive, has never since departed wholly from among us—and we have, to this day, many sincere and well-meaning compatriots, whose peculiar notions of what constitutes piety, lead them to look with distrust and suspicion upon all that is beautiful in Nature or in Art, and so, to consider musical talent rather as a snare to be shunned, than as a resource to be cherished. These movers-in-a-mist, and extra-burden-bearers, confounding into one the two ideas of cultivation and corruption, as if the terms were synonymous, refuse all countenance to music, as an art. Its secular forms, in particular, are their aversion; for they have a strong impression that music is then, only, in its right place, when directly employed in the service of the sanctuary. They discover, even in an Oratorio, copious matter for reprobation. They have no sympathy with the practice of the sweetly majestic Psalmist of Israel, who brought together, to aid in the solemnities of public worship, all that was best in vocal and instrumental skill. Vociferated dissonance, exempt from rule, and from accompaniment, has their approval, far above any tempered and balanced harmony; because (as they persuade themselves) the one comes from the heart, and the other does not. To such persons, I can only (in the words of the Archbishop of Granada to Gil Blas) wish all happiness, and a little more taste—regretting that the influence of what I conceive to be their mistake should have helped, with the other cited causes, to lessen the diffusion among us of the most delightfully recreative of all the arts, which, thus discouraged, has been driven to become the spoiled favourite of the great and rich, instead of being the constant friend and solace of the whole community.
Adverting now specifically to the English School of the violin, I would remind the reader of what has been previously observed respecting the very low estimation in which that instrument was for some time held, after its first advent to this country. To raise it into favorable regard, and to stimulate the efforts of our native professors, successive importations of foreign talent (chiefly from Italy) were required, and supplied. Our debt of this kind to the Italians has been larger than that of our continental neighbours, either of France or of Germany. Indeed the very fact of our possessing a School of our own, in this branch of art, has, I believe, been commonly overlooked by the musical writers of the continent: nor is this very surprising, when it is considered how the great masters from Italy, taking the lead in concerts and public performances, became “the observed of all observers,” and the sole marks, or at least the principal ones, for the pen of the writer. It may be demonstrated, nevertheless, that we, too, as violinists, have our separate credit to assert for the past, and yet more for the present, though we may not aspire to an equal amount of merit, in this sense, with Germany or France. We have certainly not caught, so effectually as the French, the various dexterities and felicities of execution; but it is perhaps not too much to say that we possess more “capability” for the development of the graver and better sort of expression. Your Englishman, with all his lumpish partiality for beef and pudding, is generally allowed to be a being of profounder sensibilities than your Frenchman. He is a better recipient of the more intense emotions that lie within the province of the “king of instruments,” although its more brilliant characteristics are less within his reach. The violin is a shifting Proteus, which accommodates itself to almost every kind and shade of emotion that may actuate the human mind: but then, the lighter emotions more frequently dispose us to seek the aid of music for their audible sign, than the graver ones: therefore your Frenchman, “toujours gai,” is oftener impelled to practise the violin than your Briton; and therefore he becomes, after his own fashion, a better player. But, after all, those who would appreciate all the capabilities of the violin as an individual instrument, should watch its “quick denotements, working from the heart,” under all manner of hands—Italian, German, French, English, Dutch, and the rest.
With regard to compositions for the instrument, generally, it must be admitted that those to which merit, as well as custom, has given the greatest currency in this country, have been of foreign production—chiefly Italian or German. Truth requires the acknowledgment, that in this matter we stand far from high in the scale of national comparison. It is the remark of Burney, that, for more than half a century preceding the arrival of Giardini, the compositions of Corelli, Geminiani, Albinoni, Vivaldi, Tessarini, Veracini, and Tartini, supplied all our wants on the violin. Though somewhat poor in this point of view, we are, however, not destitute. Let us advert here to two instances only, that is to say, Boyce and Purcell. Dr. Boyce’s “Twelve Sonatas, or Trios, for two Violins and a Bass,” were longer and more generally purchased, performed, and admired (says Dr. Burney) than any productions of the kind in this kingdom, except those of Corelli. They were not only in constant use as chamber-music, in private concerts—for which they were originally designed—but in our theatres as act-tunes, and at the public gardens as favourite pieces, for many years.
“Purcell’s Sonatas and Trios (observes Mr. Hogarth, in his ‘Memoirs of the Musical Drama’) belong to the same school as those of Corelli. The Trios of the great Italian composer were published in the same year, and could not have served as a model to Purcell, who, in acknowledging his obligation to ‘the most famed Italian masters’ in this species of composition, must have alluded to Torelli and Bassani, the latter of whom was Corelli’s master. Purcell’s Sonatas, in some respects, are even superior to those of the great Italian composer; for they contain movements which, in depth of learning and ingenuity of harmonical combination, without the least appearance of labour or restraint, surpass anything to be found in the works of Corelli: but Corelli had the advantage of being a great Violinist, while Purcell, who was not only no performer himself, but probably had never heard a great performer, had no means, except the perusal of Italian scores, of forming an idea of the genius and powers of the instrument. This disadvantage prevented Purcell from striking out new and effective violin passages, and produced mechanical awkwardness, which a master of the instrument would have avoided: but it did not disable him from exhibiting taste and fancy; and every admirer of the works of Corelli will take pleasure in these Sonatas of Purcell.”
The first Englishman who seems to have attained distinction as a professional Violinist, was John Banister, successor of Baltzar, the Lubecker, in the conduct of Charles the Second’s new band of twenty-four violins. Davis Mell, the clock-maker, should, however, if we are to “keep time,” be first introduced, since, although but an Amateur, he was an eminent hand at the violin, and was an agent of some little importance in the diffusion of a taste for the instrument, ere it had yet struggled into general notice. The merits of Davis Mell may be best described in the language of an already familiar friend, honest Anthony Wood:—
“In the latter end of this yeare (1657), Davis Mell, the most eminent Violinist of London, being in Oxon, Peter Pett, Will. Bull, Ken. Digby, and others of Allsowles, as also A. W. (Anthony à Wood) did give him a very handsome entertainment in the Tavern cal’d The Salutation, in St. Marie’s Parish, Oxon, own’d by Tho. Wood, son of —— Wood of Oxon, sometimes servant to the father of A. W. The company did look upon Mr. Mell to have a prodigious hand on the Violin, and they thought that no person (as all in London did) could goe beyond him. But when Tho. Baltzar, an outlander, came to Oxon in the next yeare, they had other thoughts of Mr. Mell, who tho’ he play’d farr sweeter than Baltzar, yet Baltzar’s hand was more quick, and could run it insensibly to the end of the finger-board.”[54] And in another place, the same writer says, “After Baltzar came into England, and shew’d his most wonderful parts on that instrument, Mell was not so admired; yet he play’d sweeter, was a well-bred gentleman, and not given to excessive drinking, as Baltzar was.”
It is worthy of notice that in the year of that event (the Restoration) which proved so favourable to the march of fiddling in this country, there was published by John Jenkins (who had been a voluminous composer of fancies for viols) a set of twelve sonatas for two violins and a bass, professedly in imitation of the Italian style, and the first of the kind which had ever been produced by an Englishman. “It was at this time” (observes Burney) “an instance of great condescension for a musician of character to write expressly for so ribald and vulgar an instrument as the violin was accounted by the lovers of lutes, guitars, and all the fretful tribe.” This John Jenkins is designated by Wood as a little man with a great soul. He died in 1678.