In the field of musical æsthetics there has been an equally remarkable activity. And it is noteworthy that a number of men who have devoted their lives to purely musical composition have also produced elaborate studies either of the technique, the history, or the psychology of their art. Of these we may name six: Wallace, McEwen, Walker, Tovey, Macpherson, and Buck.
William Wallace is, like MacCunn, a Scot from Greenock. His mental growth had its roots in the stiff classical sub-soil of a public school, and then pushed its way up through the rocks of a university medical course till it flowered in the sweet open air of the R.A.M. composition class. Hence his mind, which almost needs the threefold pormanteau-word 'musiterific' to describe it. Wallace was the first Englishman to write a symphonic poem, and he has made this form something of a specialty. The best known of his six are 'The Passing of Beatrice' and 'Villon.' Of these the latter has been played everywhere, and the present writer has had to satisfy more than one puzzled American enquirer as to how the author of 'Maritana'[80] could possibly have written it! Some of Wallace's songs, for instance 'Son o' Mine,' have acquired a popularity in England almost too great for public comfort. In the field of literature he has produced two remarkable studies in the development of the musical sense—'The Threshold of Music' and 'The Musical Faculty.'
John Blackwood McEwen is, like Wallace, a Scotsman. Furthermore he has the same mental and physical homes—Glasgow University, the R.A.M., and London. He has produced much symphonic and chamber music all characterized by a severe self-criticism, impeccable workmanship, and at times a certain Scottish exaltation. His quartets in A minor and C minor are excellent. Of his symphonic poems the border ballad 'Grey Galloway' can hold up its head in any company. He is an untiring enquirer into musical fundamentals and, of his five published volumes, the most valuable is 'The Thought in Music.'
Both Ernest Walker and Donald Francis Tovey are university men. The former, who is organist of Balliol College, Oxford, has been much applauded for his songs and chamber music. He has also rendered great and lasting service by his admirable 'History of Music in England.'
Tovey—the distinguished occupant of the Reid Chair of Music in Edinburgh—is a sort of musical Francis Bacon. Few of the English tales as to his learning and memory would be believed if printed in America. The most credible is that he is able to play the sketch-books of Beethoven by heart. His pamphlets of severely analytical criticism have, in a way, set a new standard in this kind; while his work in connection with the eleventh edition of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' has had the happiest results. Though a very able theorist and historian, Tovey is by no means that alone. He has written a good deal of chamber music, a concerto for pianoforte and orchestra and, one hears, an opera. It is difficult to place these works. Some of the older musicians have hailed them as greatly instinct with the spirit of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, while some of the younger men have catalogued them rather as compilations from those three masters. The composer's own views, throwing a terrific weight onto his isolated notes and phrases, seem to make of music a burden almost too heavy to bear. However this may be, it is quite certain that Tovey has not yet shot his last bolt.
With Stewart Macpherson and Percy C. Buck we may close this list of composer-authors. The former, in addition to a considerable amount of published music, has printed ten volumes, mostly on the technique of composition: the latter, besides his music, has written two valuable works—'The Organ' and 'The First Year at the Organ.' Naturally the greater part of the literary work in connection with this movement has been done by scholars who are not themselves composers. Most of these men have been in close touch with the leaders of the renaissance; but, even when their work has been purely archæological, it has, so to speak, cleft the rock and released a fountain of inspiration for their creative brethren.
Henry Davey's 'History of English Music' is a pioneer work embodying the results of long and patient research. Its combative determination to claim honor for the honorable is beyond praise. A similar work, less scholarly but equally patriotic, is Ernest Ford's 'Short History of Music in England.' Barclay Squire (of the British Museum), has, with his brother-in-law J. A. Fuller Maitland, done much to revive the national pride in Purcell and to spread an accurate knowledge of the earlier Elizabethan and Jacobean composers. Fuller Maitland himself, apart from his claims as editor of 'Grove' (2d ed.) and as a contributor to the 'Oxford History of Music,' always used his distinguished position at The Times to further the best interests of English music. To this list we may add the names of three other scholar-musicians all associated with the 'Oxford History of Music': W. H. Hadow, the brilliant editor of the work and at present principal of the Armstrong College; H. E. Wooldridge; and (the late) Edward Dannreuther, whose life-span stretched from personal contact with Richard Wagner to patient and sympathetic intercourse with the youngest school of English musicians.
In the special field of instrumental construction and development we have Rev. F. W. Galpin, with his scholarly and delightful volume 'Old English Instruments of Music,' and Kathleen Schlesinger. Of Miss Schlesinger's painstaking and accurate scholarship her country has by no means made the acknowledgment it deserves.
In the realm of more general musical æsthetics and criticism many names might be mentioned. We must content ourselves with those of Ernest Newman, whose profound works on 'Gluck' and 'Wagner' are discussed everywhere, and E. J. Dent, who has studied certain phases of Mozart's work and has published a classical volume on 'Scarlatti.'
Though it is somewhat outside our special topic, some reference must be made here to the English researches into Greek music. For the first time since the Germans began to inspissate the gloom, a ray or two of light has been allowed to fall upon this difficult subject. In particular D. B. Monro, with his volume 'The Modes of Ancient Greek Music,' has shown that it is not an essential of this study that the reader should always have the sensation of swimming in glue. Since his day Cecil Torr has published a clever work on the same topic; while H. S. Macran and Abdy Williams have both written on Aristoxenus.