And living today is Edward William Elgar (1857), the dean of English composers. While not adding to the new music, he is famous for many pieces, among which are The Dream of Gerontius, The Apostles, other oratorios, symphonies, and his march, Pomp and Circumstance.
Women Writers in England
Among the women in England, Dame Ethel Smyth (Dame is an honorary title in England) (1858) is known for her opera The Wreckers, and her comic opera The Boatswain’s Mate. Some of her operas have been performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and at Covent Garden, London. Besides she has written songs for the Suffrage Movement, incidental music, and music in large forms.
Liza Lehman (1862–1918), wrote In a Persian Garden, Nonsense Songs, and The Daisy Chain, which made her famous.
“Poldowski,” Lady Dean Paul, daughter of Wieniawski, the Polish composer and violinist, has written piano pieces and lovely songs in Debussy style. She has had considerable influence in getting the work of the younger British composers and her countryman, Szymanowski, heard in London.
Rebecca Clarke, a young Englishwoman, has written several chamber music works which place her in the foremost rank of women composers. On two occasions she received “honorable mention” in the Berkshire chamber music prize competition offered by Mrs. F. S. Coolidge, at Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
CHAPTER XXIX
Music Appears in National Costumes
We cannot tell you very much about the history of music in Russia because until the 19th century, the Russians had little but their folk songs and church music. For many centuries the Christian priests disliked to have them sing their legends and folk songs because they were not of Christian origin and so music had a very difficult road to go.
Another thing which kept music as an art from growing, was the edict in the Church against the use of instruments. But as there is always a silver lining to every cloud the unaccompanied singing became very lovely.
For ages, then, there was the most strikingly beautiful natural music in the folk tunes of this gigantic country, three times as large as the United States. Its cold bleak steppes or plains and its nearness to the East gave them fascinating and fantastic legends, and a music sad, wild and colorful with strange harmonies—their inheritance from the Slavs and Tartars. All these date back to days before the Christian era, so you can understand even though they are of surpassing beauty, the Church was afraid of the wild, tragic, pagan melodies and rhythms.