"I consider," he says, "that the English are naturally the most musical race in the world, except the Germans. It would take a good many pages to explain my opinion, as it is obviously contrary to all the received and accredited traditions, so I will not attempt to justify it at present beyond saying that I don't mean that the race is gifted with any natural facility, but that taking it all round there is more appreciation of what is genuinely and wholesomely good—Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, Brahms, Handel (at his best), Mozart, and the great madrigalists and so forth—than in any other country except Germany. The fact that the English people have no great taste for opera is all in their favour."
Mr. Parry concludes with a few remarks on the merits and demerits of writing "to order." "Certainly no one could turn out anything worthy of the name of art," he says, "if he had it on his mind that he was writing under pressure; neither will any man do anything really good when he is thinking more of the money payment, or suiting managerial ideas, than of the thorough working out of his own devices. But this should not be confounded with a man's undertaking work that is thoroughly congenial to him when he has plenty of time to carry it out honourably. If the Philharmonic Society or Richter ask a composer to write them a symphony, they put at his disposal a magnificent orchestra for the interpretation of anything that he may have to say in that line; or if the committee of any great festival invite a composer to write them an oratorio several years before it is wanted, they put at his disposal a splendid chorus and soloists, and all the resources a man can desire. With such opportunities, I should have thought a man had a better chance of being inspired to some purpose than if he were pottering about just when the humour took him."
I am fortunate enough to be able to give here, in facsimile, a bar from the original first score of "Job."
C. Hubert Parry
Ebenezer Prout.
Mr. Prout, when composing, makes first a very rapid sketch on two staves—with instrumental works generally only the upper part and a figured bass; with choruses, anthems, etc., usually the four-voice parts. For songs he writes only the melody, with just enough indication of the accompaniment to prevent his forgetting the idea.
"My first sketches," he says, "are always written as fast as the pen will go. I make it an invariable rule never to write unless I am in the humour, and if I find that ideas do not come as fast or faster than I can put them down, if I have to stop to think what should come next, I at once put the music-paper aside, knowing that I am not in the mood for composing. After completing my sketch I begin the fair copy, the full score, in the case of orchestral work, putting in the details and often making considerable improvements. My public works usually differ pretty widely from the original draft; but the first sketch, containing the fundamental idea, is invariably produced at what I may call a 'white heat.'"
Composition, in this composer's opinion, can be taught so far as the technique is concerned; but if a student has no ideas, these cannot be given by any instruction, though a latent talent may often be brought out and cultivated by proper training. By this he means that there may be a natural aptitude for composition of which its possessor is unaware till his teacher discovers and develops it.
Of his own works Mr. Prout thinks he is, perhaps, hardly an impartial judge, but his own favourites are among the instrumental work, his "3rd Symphony" and the two quartets in B flat and F; and among the vocal works, the cantatas the "Red Cross Knight" and "Damon and Phintias."