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Page 8
VI.
Purcell is also a chief, though not the chief, among song-writers. And
he stands in the second place by reason of the very faculty which
places him amongst the first of instrumental and choral writers. That
dominating picturesque power of his, that tendency to write
picturesque melodies as well as picturesque movements, compelled him
to treat the voice as he treated any other instrument, and he writes
page on page which would be at least as effective on any other
instrument; and as more can be got out of the voice than out of any
other instrument, and the tip-top song-writers got all out that could
be got out, it follows that Purcell is below them. But only the very
greatest of them have beaten him, and he often, by sheer perfection of
phrase, runs them very close. Still, Mozart, Bach, and Handel do move
us more profoundly. And an odd demonstration that Purcell the
instrumental writer is almost above Purcell the composer for the
voice, is that in such songs as "Halcyon Days" (in "The Tempest") the
same phrases are perhaps less grateful on the voice than when repeated
by the instrument. The phrase "That used to lull thee in thy sleep"
(in "The Indian Queen") is divine when sung, but how thrilling is its
touching expressiveness, how it seems to speak when the 'cellos repeat
it! There are, of course, truly vocal melodies in Purcell (as there
are in Beethoven and Berlioz, who also were not great writers for the
voice), and some of them might almost be Mozart's. The only difference
that may be felt between "While joys celestial" ("Cecilia Ode" of
1683) and a Mozart song, is that in Mozart one gets the frequent
human touch, and in Purcell the frequent suggestion of the free winds
and scented blossoms. The various scattered songs, such as "Mad Tom"
(which is possibly not Purcell's at all) or "Mad Bess" (which
certainly is), I have no room to discuss; but I may remark that the
madness was merely an excuse for exhibiting a series of passions in
what was reckoned at the time a natural manner. Quite possibly it was
then thought that in a spoken play only mad persons should sing, just
as Wagner insists that in music-drama only mad persons should speak;
and as a good deal of singing was required, there were a good many mad
parts. Probably Purcell would have treated all Wagner's characters,
and all Berlioz's, as utterly and irretrievably mad. Nor have I space
to discuss his instrumental music and his instrumentation, but must
refer shortly to the fact that the overtures to the plays are equal to
Handel's best in point of grandeur, and that in freedom, quality of
melody, and daring, and fruitful use of new harmonies, the sonatas are
ahead of anything attempted until Mozart came. They cannot be compared
to Bach's suites, and they are infinitely fresher than the writings of
the Italians whom he imitated. As for Purcell's instrumentation, it is
primitive compared to Mozart's, but when he uses the instrument in
group or batteries he obtains gorgeous effects of varied colour. He
gets delicious effects by means of obligato instrumental parts in the
accompaniments to such songs as "Charon the Peaceful Shade Invites";
and those who have heard the "Te Deum" in D may remember that even
Bach never got more wonderful results from the sweeter tones of the
trumpet.
VII.
Having shown how Purcell sprang from a race of English musicians, and
how he achieved greater things than any man of his time, it remains
only to be said that when, with Handel, the German flood deluged
England, all remembrance of Purcell and his predecessors was swiftly
swept away. His play-music was washed out of the theatres, his odes
were carried away from the concert-room; in a word, all his and the
earlier music was so completely forgotten that when Handel used anew
his old devices connoisseurs wondered why the Italians and Germans
should be able to bring forth such things while the English remained
impotent. So Handel and the Germans were imitated by every composer,
church or other, who came after, and all our "English music" is purely
German. That we shall ever throw off that yoke I do not care to
prophesy; but if ever we do, it will be by imitating Purcell in one
respect only, that is, by writing with absolute simplicity and
directness, leaving complexity, muddy profundity and elaborately
worked-out multiplication sums to the Germans, to whom these things
come naturally. The Germans are now spent: they produce no more great
musicians: they produce only music which is as ugly to the ear as it
is involved to the eye. It is high time for a return to the simplicity
of Mozart, of Handel, of our own Purcell; to dare, as Wagner dared, to
write folk-melody, and to put it on the trombones at the risk of being
called vulgar and rowdy by persons who do not know great art when it
is original, but only when it resembles some great art of the past
which they have learnt to know. It was thus Purcell worked, and his
work stands fast. And when we English awake to the fact that we have a
music which ought to speak more intimately to us than all the music of
the continental composers, his work will be marvelled at as a
new-created thing, and his pieces will appear on English programmes
and displace the masses of noisome shoddy which we revel in just now.
It will then be recognised, as even the chilly Burney recognised a
century ago, failing to recognise much else, that "in the accent of
passion, and expression of English words, the vocal music of Purcell
is ... as superior to Handel's as an original poem to a translation."
Though this is slight praise for one of the very greatest musicians
the world has produced.
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