On the side of actual orchestral opportunity the English composer of to-day is undoubtedly more favored than his American brother. There are more orchestras there; and they are more ready to do native works. The conditions are not perfect by any means, but they are better there than here. As far as the publication of serious music goes the English composer's position is hopelessly bad. He has to contend against ignorance, apathy, and a short-sighted financial timidity far beyond American credence. In addition to that he often has to fight hard against his own seniors who—themselves comfortably off—deny that music, when written, has any commercial existence. A certain London firm, in order to encourage its poorer and younger clientèle to take example thereby, continually cites the readiness of one of its older wealthy composers to take $25 for a choral work. Words can go no further.
It is unnecessary to specify the names of the great English publishing houses which have associated themselves with the English revival. Suffice it to say that they have always been at hand, ready to lighten the burden and the pocket of the composer. But it would not be fair to ignore the firm of Stainer and Bell, which was founded—under a directorate of distinguished musicians—with the prime object of dealing honorably with the composer. The existence of this firm is, in its way, a landmark; or rather a lighthouse for composers who have long had to beat up in the straits of chicanery and dishonesty. Nor must we omit to mention the present extended activity of the Society of Authors. Though founded by Sir Walter Besant some fifty years ago for the special protection of literary men, it has recently formed a sub-committee of composers under the chairmanship of Sir Charles V. Stanford. It is now known as The Society of Authors, Playwrights, and Composers and, among the last-named workers, has already done valuable service.
The number of composers who might be mentioned in this group is, of course, very large. Now that music has almost risen to the level of golf and horse-racing as a national pastime, it employs the brains of many. The list, we fear, must be ruthlessly pruned. But it will be pruned so as to leave the more prominent branches and even some of the buds visible to the American reader. Of his charity he may be asked to surmise what the author well knows, that some young Englishmen of great original powers are forced by circumstance to spend their days in teaching little girls the fiddle, while others who scarcely condescend below grand opera might just as well be employed on some wholly uninspired task—such as the writing of these pages.
Ralph Vaughan Williams—though he is the most characteristically English of this group—is a Welshman. Large both in body and mind, he has always kept before himself and his fellows a singularly noble ideal. It may safely be said of him that he has never trimmed his course even half a point from what he considered his duty. The music that comes from this simple and courageous mind is naturally of the most earnest—perhaps a little awkward at times, but always deeply sincere. His aims and his outlook are peculiarly national. Let us try to exemplify this. To a fresh-water people like the Americans the attempts of Rubinstein, Wagner, and others to illustrate 'the sea' in music may not appear particularly unsuccessful: to a sea-loving race like the English they are simply puny and ridiculous. Williams has taken this subject, and, in his choral 'Sea Symphony' (words by Walt Whitman), has actually caught up the sounds of the sea as the English hear them. This is a new and a great achievement. Again in his 'London' symphony he has somehow managed to express in sound a thing not hitherto expressed—the poetry both tragic and comic which dwells in that most wonderful of all towns. In Williams's larger works there is always, quite apart from their actual length, something vast, shadowy, and almost primeval. His landscape is always bathed in a pearly, translucent haze. The subjects loom up and disappear with a suddenness natural in England but unnatural elsewhere. It is as if a Turner canvas had been translated into sound. Of Williams's other works, many of which are directly inspired by the folk-music of which he is an ardent collector, one may mention the orchestral 'Norfolk Rhapsodies,' 'In the Fen Country,' 'Harnham Down,' and 'Boldrewood'; the 'Five Mystical Songs' for baritone, chorus, and orchestra; the beautiful cantata 'Willow-wood' for baritone, female chorus, and orchestra; the six songs, 'On Wenlock Edge,' for tenor voice, string quartet, and pianoforte; and, last, his music to 'The Wasps.'
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) and William Young Hurlstone (1876-1906) both died while still young. The one was an African, the other a pure Englishman. Both died leaving an example to their friends of modesty and cultured simplicity. As far as technique went they could probably have both given Vaughan Williams ninety yards start in a hundred and beaten him. But, in any more serious race, the handicap would probably have had to be reversed. Their sailing-orders as students were perhaps merely to keep the ship's head on Beethoven and Brahms. But, in the case of Taylor, the powerful lode-stone of Dvořák's genius spoilt the compass-readings and drew his ship nearer and nearer to 'the coast of Bohemia.' Of his work the best-known by far is his 'Hiawatha,' the first performance of which at the R.C.M. was heard by at least three members of the first group of composers—Sullivan, Stanford, and Parry. After 'Hiawatha' may be mentioned his cantata 'A Tale of Old Japan,' his 'Bamboula Rhapsodic Dance' (written for Norfolk, Conn.), and his violin 'Ballade' and 'Concerto.' In Hurlstone's case a constant physical weakness prevented the true development of his really great musical powers. The best of his refined work is found in his sonatas, trios, and quartets. Most of these have been or are now being published in London.
Joseph Holbrooke (b. 1878) is from the land of Cockaigne. His purposeful character and his invincible habit of saying in public what most composers only think in private have made him the enfant terrible of London musical life. In output, energy, and material-command he is probably unsurpassed by any living composer. A strong, blistering style and a constant determination to call his 16-inch guns into action have procured for him many (musical) enemies. He is blessed with a great sense of humor and a very complete knowledge of the way to express it in music. His orchestral variations on 'Three Blind Mice' should be played everywhere. Holbrooke has enjoyed very exceptional opportunities in the way of dramatic performance and full-score publication. This is not to be regretted; especially when one considers the usual disadvantages of the English composer under these two heads. He has written a large quantity of songs and chamber music—some of it for the most curious combinations.[82] Among his larger works one may select his operas 'The Children of Don' and 'Dylan'; his 'Queen Mab' and 'The Bells'; and his 'illuminated' choral symphony 'Apollo and the Seaman.'
Percy Grainger (b. 1883)—pianist, composer, arranger, friend of Grieg, etc.—comes from Australia; and, if that country had not produced him, the concert-agents of the world would have had to invent him. His playing is wonderful. He never writes a dull note, and he ranges from the Faroe Islands to the Antipodes. He crosses no sea but as a conqueror. Folk-song is his battleship and quaint diatonic harmony his submarine. 'Molly on the Shore,' 'Father and Daughter,' 'Mock Morris,' 'Händel in the Strand,' and 'I'm Seventeen Come Sunday' all attest the 'certain liveliness' of his very happy gifts. He has been applauded by thousands and sketched by Sargent. What he will do next nobody knows—but it is sure to be successful.
Cyril Scott[83] was born, apparently, in the 'Yellow Book.' His slim Beardsleyesque nature seems to be always moving through an elegant exotic shadow-world, beckoned on by his own craving yet fastidious mind. At Pagani's he sits mysteriously in a black stock and cameo. A strange personality, distinguished and uneasy! Certain crippling theories of rhythm and development have at times bent the flight of his muse. His 'Aubade,' Pianoforte Concerto, and Ballad for baritone and orchestra, 'Helen of Kirkconnell,' are notable.
Gustav von Holst[84] for all his name, is English born and bred. Skegness gave him to the world: he has all the energy and tenacity of the east-coast man. The main features of his music are an extremely modern and comprehensive method of handling his subjects, great warmth and variety of orchestral color, and (occasionally it must be confessed) excessive length. His successes have been striking and well deserved. Among his best-known productions are his Moorish work 'In the Street of the Ouled Nails,'[85] his orchestral suites 'Phantastes,' and 'de Ballet,' and (more particularly) his elaborate vocal and orchestral works, such as 'The Cloud Messenger' and 'The Mystic Trumpeter.' A large part of von Holst's time has been given to the composition of Hindu opera on a vast scale; and, as we have already hinted, composers who take up opera in England have to pay penalties. Among others who have been mulcted in this way are Nicholas Gatty (with three operas, 'Greysteel,' 'Duke or Devil,' and 'The Tempest'); Rutland Boughton (with his scheme of open-air choral drama on the Arthurian legends); J. E. Barkworth (with 'Romeo and Juliet' set directly to Shakespeare's text); George Clutsam, Colin McAlpin, and Alec Maclean.
Norman O'Neill and Balfour Gardiner may be honorably mentioned as among the very few young English composers who ever picture the Goddess of Music as not swathed in crêpe. O'Neill's compositions are manifold. Among the most successful are his capital numbers written as incidental music to 'The Blue Bird.' Gardiner has a shorter list, but all his works have a delightfully boyish and open-air spirit. We may mention his orchestral pieces 'English Dance,' 'Overture to a Comedy,' and 'Shepherd Fennel's Dance.'