|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 5
he did not mean that Lawes was the first to bar his music, for music
had been barred long before Lawes. He meant that Lawes did not use the
poem as an excuse for a melody, but the melody as a means of
effectively declaiming the poet's verse. The poet (naturally) liked
this--hence Milton's compliments. It should be noted that many of the
musicians of this time were poets--of a sort--themselves, and wished
to make the most of their verses; so that it would be a mistake to
regard declamation as something forced by the poet, backed by popular
opinion, upon the musician. With Lawes, then, what we may call the
declamatory branch of the English school culminated. Except in his
avowedly declamatory passages, Purcell did not spin his web precisely
thus; but we shall presently see that his method was derived from the
declamatory method. Much remained to be done first. Lawes got rid of
the old scholasticism, now effete. But he never seemed quite sure that
his expression would come off. It is hard at this day to listen to his
music as Milton must have listened to it; but having done my best, I
am compelled to own that I find some of his songs without meaning or
comeliness, and must assume either that our ancestors of this period
had a sense which has been lost, or that the music played a less
important part compared with the poem than has been generally
supposed. Lawes lost rhythm, both as an element in beauty and a factor
in expression. Moreover, his harmonic resources were sadly limited,
for the old device of letting crossing parts clash in sweet discords
that resolved into as sweet or sweeter concords was denied him. What
would be called nowadays the new harmony, the new rhythm and the new
forms were developed during the Civil War and the Puritan reign. The
Puritans, loving music but detesting it in their churches, forced it
into purely secular channels; and we cannot say the result was bad,
for the result was Purcell. John Jenkins and a host of smaller men
developed instrumental music, and, though the forms they used were
thrown aside when Charles II. arrived, the power of handling the
instruments remained as a legacy to Charles's men. Charles drove the
secular movement faster ahead by banning the old ecclesiastical music
(which, it appears, gave him "the blues"), and by compelling his young
composers to write livelier strains for the church, that is, church
music which was in reality nothing but secular music. He sent Pelham
Humphries to Paris, and when Humphries came back "an absolute
Monsieur" (who does not remember that ever-green entry in the Diary?)
he brought with him all that could possibly have been learnt from
Lulli. He died at twenty-seven, having been Purcell's master; and
though Purcell's imagination was richer, deeper, more strenuous in the
ebb and flow of its tides, one might fancy that the two men had but
one spirit, which went on growing and fetching forth the fruits of the
spirit, while young Humphries' body decayed by the side of his younger
wife's in the Thames-sodden vaults of Westminster Abbey.
IV.
A complete list of Purcell's compositions appears somewhat formidable
at a first glance, but when one comes to examine it carefully the
solidity seems somewhat to melt out of it. The long string of church
pieces is made up of anthems, many of them far from long. The forty
odd "operas" are not operas at all, but sets of incidental pieces and
songs for plays, and some of the sets are very short. Thus Dryden
talks of Purcell setting "my three songs," and there are only half a
dozen "curtain-tunes," _i.e._ entr'actes. Many of the harpsichord
pieces are of tiny proportions. The sonatas of three and four parts
are no larger than Mozart's piano sonatas. Still, taking into account
the noble quality that is constantly maintained, we must admit that
Purcell used astonishingly the short time he was given. Much of his
music is lost; more of it lies in manuscript at the British Museum and
elsewhere. Some of it was issued last century, some early in this.
Four expensive volumes have been wretchedly edited and issued by the
Purcell Society, and those amongst us who live to the age of
Methuselah will probably see all the accessible works printed by this
body. Some half century ago Messrs. Novello published an edition of
the church music, stupidly edited by the stupidest editor who ever
laid clumsy fingers on a masterpiece. A shameful edition of the "King
Arthur" music was prepared for the Birmingham Festival of 1897 by Mr.
J.A. Fuller-Maitland, musical critic of "The Times." A publisher
far-sighted and generous enough to issue a trustworthy edition of all
Purcell's music at a moderate price has yet to be found.
Purcell's list is not long, but it is superb. Yet he opened out no new
paths, he made no leap aside from the paths of his predecessors, as
Gluck did in the eighteenth century and Wagner in the nineteenth. He
was one of their school; he went on in the direction they had led; but
the distance he travelled was enormous. Humphries, possibly Captain
Cook, even Christopher Gibbons, helped to open out the new way in
church music; Lawes, Matthew Lock, and Banister were before him at the
theatres; Lock and Dr. Blow had written odes before he was weaned; the
form and plan of his sonatas came certainly from Bassani, in all
likelihood from Corelli also; from John Jenkins and the other writers
of fancies he got something of his workmanship and art of weaving many
melodies into a coherent whole, and a knowledge of Lulli would help
him to attain terseness, and save him from that drifting which is the
weak point of the old English instrumental writers; he was acquainted
with the music of Carissimi, a master of choral effect. In a word, he
owed much to his predecessors, even as Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and
Beethoven owed to their predecessors; and he did as they did--won his
greatness by using to fine ends the means he found, rather than by
inventing the means, though, like them, some means he did invent.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|