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Page 3
II.
Hardly more is known of Purcell than of Shakespeare. There is no
adequate biography. Hawkins and Burney (who is oftenest Hawkins at
second-hand) are alike rash, random, and untrustworthy, depending much
upon the anecdotage of old men, who were no more to be believed than
the ancient bandsmen of the present day who tell you how Mendelssohn
or Wagner flattered them or accepted hints from them. Cummings' life
is scarcely even a sketch; at most it is a thumbnail sketch. Only
ninety-five pages deal with Purcell, and of these at least ninety-four
are defaced by maudlin sentimentality, or unhappy attempts at
criticism (see the remarks on the Cecilia Ode) or laughable sequences
of disconnected incongruities--as, for instance, when Mr. Cummings
remarks that "Queen Mary died of small-pox, and the memory of her
goodness was felt so universally," etc. Born in 1658, Purcell lived in
Pepys' London, and died in 1095, having written complimentary odes to
three kings--Charles the Second, James the Second, and William the
Third. Besides these complimentary odes, he wrote piles of
instrumental music, a fair heap of anthems, and songs and interludes
and overtures for some forty odd plays. This is nearly the sum of our
knowledge. His outward life seems to have been uneventful enough. He
probably lived the common life of the day--the day being, as I have
said, Pepys' day. Mr. Cummings has tried to show him as a seventeenth
century Mendelssohn--conventionally idealised--and he quotes the
testimony of some "distinguished divine," chaplain to a nobleman, as
though we did not know too well why noblemen kept chaplains in those
days to regard their testimony as worth more than other men's. The
truth is, that if Purcell had lived differently from his neighbours he
would have been called a Puritan. On the other hand, we must remember
that he composed so much in his short life that his dissipations must
have made a poor show beside those of many of his great
contemporaries--those of Dryden, for instance, who used to hide from
his duns in Purcell's private room in the clock-tower of St. James's
Palace. I picture him as a sturdy, beef-eating Englishman, a puissant,
masterful, as well as lovable personality, a born king of men,
ambitious of greatness, determined, as Tudway says, to exceed every
one of his time, less majestic than Handel, perhaps, but full of
vigour and unshakable faith in his genius. His was an age when genius
inspired confidence both in others and in its possessor, not, as now,
suspicion in both; and Purcell was believed in from the first by many,
and later, by all--even by Dryden, who began by flattering Monsieur
Grabut, and ended, as was his wont, by crossing to the winning side.
And Purcell is no more to be pitied for his sad life than to be
praised as a conventionally idealised Mendelssohn. His life was brief,
but not tragic. He never lacked his bread as Mozart lacked his; he was
not, like Beethoven, tormented by deafness and tremblings for the
immediate future; he had no powerful foes to fight, for he did not bid
for a great position in the world like Handel. Nor was he a romantic
consumptive like Chopin, with a bad cough, a fastidious regard for
beauty, and a flow of anaemic melody. He was divinely gifted with a
greater richness of invention than was given to any other composers
excepting two, Bach and Mozart; and death would not take his gifts as
an excuse when he was thirty-seven. Hence our Mr. Cummings has
droppings of lukewarm tears; hence, generally, compassion for his
comparatively short life has ousted admiration for his mighty works
from the minds of those who are readier at all times to indulge in the
luxury of weeping than to feel the thrill of joy in a life greatly
lived. Purcell might have achieved more magnificent work, but that is
a bad reason for forgetting the magnificence of the work he did
achieve. But I myself am forgetting that the greatness of his music is
not admitted, and that the shortness of his life is merely urged as an
excuse for not finding it admirable. And remembering this, I assert
that Purcell's life was a great and glorious one, and that now his
place is with the high gods whom we adore, the lords and givers of
light.
III.
Before Purcell's position in musical history can be ascertained and
fixed, it is absolutely necessary to make some survey of the rise of
the school of which he was the close.
In our unmusical England of to-day it is as hard to believe in an
England where music was perhaps the dominant passion of the people as
it is to understand how this should have been forgotten in a more
musical age than ours. Until the time of Handel's arrival in this
country there was no book printed which did not show unmistakably that
its writer loved music. It is a fact (as the learned can vouch) that
Erasmus considered the English the most given up to music of all the
peoples of Europe; and how far these were surpassed by the English is
further shown by the fact that English musicians were as common in
continental towns in those days as foreign musicians are in England
nowadays. I refrain from quoting Peacham, North, Anthony Wood, Pepys,
and the rest of the much over-quoted; but I wish to lay stress on the
fact that here music was widespread and highly cultivated, just as it
was in Germany in the eighteenth century. Moreover, an essential
factor in the development of the German school was not wanting in
England. Each German prince had his Capellmeister; and English nobles
and gentlemen, wealthier than German princes, differing from them only
in not being permitted to assume a pretentious title, had each his
Musick-master. I believe I could get together a long list of musicians
who were thus kept. It will be remembered that when Handel came to
England he quickly entered the service of the Duke of Chandos. The
royal court always had a number of musicians employed in the making or
the performing of music. Oliver Cromwell retained them and paid them;
Charles the Second added to them, and in many cases did not pay them
at all, so that at least one is known to have died of starvation, and
the others were everlastingly clamouring for arrears of salary. It was
the business of these men (in the intervals of asking for their
salaries) to produce music for use in the church and in the house or
palace; that for church use being of course nearly entirely
vocal--masses or anthems; that for house use, vocal and
instrumental--madrigals and fancies (_i.e._ fantasias). As generation
succeeded generation, a certain body of technique was built up and a
mode of expression found; and at length the first great wave of music
culminated in the works of Tallis and Byrde. Their technique and mode
of expression I shall say something about presently; and all the
criticism I have to pass on them is that Byrde is infinitely greater
than Tallis, and seems worthy indeed to stand beside Palestrina and
Sweelinck. Certainly anyone who wishes to have a true notion of the
music of this period should obtain (if he can) copies of the D minor
five-part mass, and the Cantiones Sacr�, and carefully study such
numbers as the "Agnus Dei" of the former and the profound "Tristitia
et anxietas" in the latter.
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