CHAPTER XIII
THE ENGLISH MUSICAL RENAISSANCE

I

The word renaissance when applied to English musical conditions from about 1870 onwards is convenient but slightly inaccurate. It gives us an easy group-symbol for a large and unexpected outburst of activity; but it does not either state or explain a fact. Re-naissance means 'a being born again,' and that implies previous death. But the flame of life had never quite died out in the country to whose first great composer (Dunstable) the modern world owes the invention of musical art.

In its church and choral music especially there had always been a flicker of life which at least once, in the reigns of Elizabeth and the first James, had blazed up into an astounding vitality. However, it was not to be expected that the nation could go on living at this white heat. The flame burnt itself down, but not out; and the embers of a national art that had once been great enough to light up the wide spaces of the world smouldered through the eighteenth century and far into the nineteenth.

The history of this ecclesiastical music might almost have been predicted. Its postulates are merely the isolation and selfishness of the English Church from the days of William and Mary to those of the Oxford movement. But there are some other factors governing the productions of 'secular' music; and these we must examine.

From about the time of Purcell's death onwards (1695) England was engaged in eating up as much of the world as possible. And the result was national indigestion. Already in Charles II's time there had been alarming signs of an after-dinner torpidity which could find pleasure only in the latest trickeries imported from France. The old healthy delight in music as the recreation of freemen was disappearing; and the Englishman, spending his long day in the conquest, the civilization, and the administration of his great empire, found himself in the evening too weary for anything but contemptuous applause.

Hence began the artistic invasion of England. The foreigner was quick to see his opportunity in the preoccupations of the nation. Over the sea he came in shoals, impelled partly by the very natural belief in his own nation as the source of all kultur, and principally by his interest in the pound sterling. And, once landed, there he remained. His motto was that of the old Hanoverian countess: 'Ve kom for all your goots.'

It is unnecessary in this place to detail either the methods or the pernicious effects of this unnatural domination. Händel was a great, good, and pure-minded man, but when he came to England in 1710 he came to be a curse and an incubus brooding over the English spirit for 150 years. Music very nearly died there and, when the corpse showed any signs of reviving, some foreign professor was always at hand to stifle its faint cries, or, if that was not enough, to do a little quiet blood-letting 'just to make sure.' Even in the third quarter of the nineteenth century England maintained men like Karl Halle (later Charles Hallé, and later still Sir Charles Hallé) who were content to accept position, affluence, and titles, giving in exchange bitter and persistent opposition to the creative art of their adopted country.

This deplorable state of affairs continued more or less down to the middle year of last century. About that time certain forces came into play which have markedly changed the social and artistic conditions of England. And only in this sense can we say that there has been such a thing as a renaissance or rebirth of music. Looked at from the twentieth-century end of the telescope the changes seem violent and unbelievable; but, if we put the glass down and walk through the country itself, we shall be forced to accept them as only a natural and inevitable broadening of the landscape.

The main fact on which we wish to dwell here is that between the years 1870 and 1915 England has been able to assert her nationality in music. And this is a matter of the deepest interest to all Americans who love their country. The preponderance of blood here is Anglo-Saxon and, though America has the advantages and disadvantages of a mixed population, she has yet to learn the lesson already learned by some other peoples, that only by the paths of nationalism can she scale the heights of internationalism.

In more ways than one America's 1915 is England's 1870. The American composer need not engrave this fact on his notepaper, but he may be recommended by a sincere well-wisher to keep it in his heart. On both the material and the spiritual sides it is true. Watch the orchestral players on a Sunday night at the 'Metropolitan.' They are the sons of the men who were playing in 1870 at Covent Garden. But since then the Englishman has asserted his personality; and to-day there is scarcely a foreigner in any first-class English orchestra. Again, read through the synopses of novelties in any season's concert programs here. How many are American? Almost none. A hundred million people owning half a continent with vast waterways, prairies, and mountain ranges—yet musically nearly inarticulate! There must be something wrong here.

Let us hasten to add that the brain-stuff of the American composer is just as good as the brain-stuff of any other composer. More than that, he alone of all his countrymen seems to be aware that the price of victory is battle and death in battle.

No one can say that England has yet conquered the world in a musical sense. Still her achievements are much greater than are generally recognized on this side of the Atlantic. The art-works which represent these achievements lie mostly on composers' shelves and in publishers' cellars, kept there partly by their own strangeness and partly by the timidity and self-effacement of their authors.

Already similar works are being produced in America; and it is therefore hoped that a consideration of the musical conditions and processes in England between 1870 and 1915 may be helpful to American composers. One may add that at the earlier date the outside English public was just as heavily ignorant and indifferent as the American public is now. In the one case the leaven came, and in the other is coming from within.

II

In a short sketch like the present it is not possible to discuss fully the changed social conditions which brought about the English musical renaissance. One must, however, mention two forces which, acting somewhat blindly on the individual, yet produced great effects in the mass. The first of these was the re-cognition that the man who mattered was the man of the soil. From this re-cognition sprang the whole folk-song movement—a movement whose depth and importance are still very little understood in America. The second is the growth of healthy liberal opinions and the partial reconsideration of the English caste-system. On this change the example of democratic America has undoubtedly had great influence. The result of this levelling upwards and downwards can be seen in the fact that, whereas prior to 1870 the English composer was generally a scallywag, now he is a gentleman.[77]

We have already said that England was never quite dead musically. To the outsider she may have appeared so, but it was really only a 'deep surgical anæsthesia.' And the analogy holds. She had been operated on so often by her German specialists that, as she came out of her sleep, she only very gradually began to ask herself whether, without another operation, she might not be able to find health by dismissing her doctors and changing her mode of life. Naturally it was a wrench to her to send the doctors packing; and her weak system almost, but not quite, refused her new diet of English bread and English water. In other words, if we divide the men of the English musical renaissance into three groups according to age, we shall find that the oldest group—to whom belongs all the honor of the spade—were almost to a man foreign-trained. Their main ideals were Joachim and Brahms, and their chief quarrel with the second and third groups—their pupils, be it said—was the quarrel between German technique and English.

To the most distinguished thinker of that school the correct way of writing a song is still the German way. The rest-of-the-world way is simply wrong. Race, feeling, national sentiment, all go for nothing. In effect he says: 'You may draw your water from a spring in Kent, in Maryland, or in Siberia; but it won't travel except in disused Rhine-wine bottles.' The proposition only needs stating to be condemned.

This is, in small, the attitude of the oldest group. But we must remember that most of them continually forget their treasonable theories and prove their loyalty to national ideals in their practice. It is not a complete loyalty, but it is one to which all respect and honor are due. We must not judge it by the tree of which it was itself the seed, but by the sickly undergrowth among which it managed to strike root. And this shrivelled stuff is represented to us by such names as E. J. Loder (1813-65), H. H. Pierson (1815-73), and W. Sterndale Bennett (1816-75). The last-named composer in especial is a striking instance of an able but weak personality overwhelmed by circumstance. When he was a student among the Germans his docility to their ideals won Schumann's approval. Returning to England, he found himself, so to speak, hanging in the air like an orchid—without roots. Naturally he withered away. And for many years England had the spectacle of her chief musician dribbling out smooth Anglo-German platitudes, while Germany herself was producing Lohengrin, Tristan, and 'The Ring.' Only one work of his has weathered the storm of the English musical revival—'The Naiads.' But, of course, neither he, nor Loder, nor Pierson had any closer connection with the English renaissance than the glow-worm has with the coming sun. All three of these men were as clever as any living American or English composer. They were all driven into indignant silence, sullen despair, or musical madness by the anti-national conditions of their time.

Contrast their output with that of the seven musical children whom the fairy-stork brought to the rebirth of English music. Their names and natal years are: Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842), Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847), Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848), Arthur Goring Thomas (1851), Frederic Hymen Cowen (1852), Charles Villiers Stanford (1852), and Edward William Elgar (1857). These seven men then—all German-trained except Elgar and Thomas—yet draw a large part of their vitality from the soil on which they were bred. One only needs to hear an Irish Rhapsody of Stanford, a big chorus of Parry, or a gay little song of Sullivan to become aware of a 'new something' in art. And, if the American reader be inclined to doubt this 'new something' at a first hearing, he may be earnestly advised to ask himself this question: 'What would be my first impressions of a symphonic poem by Strauss if that were my first introduction to a German art-work?'

The fertility of all these composers is so amazing that any attempt to catalogue their works would stifle the rest of this volume. Songs, operas, symphonies, sonatas, variations, church music, and choral works all pour forth in an endless stream. Under the one heading, 'works for voice and orchestra,' Parry has 33 entries. Stanford's opus numbers approach 150, and he begins with 7 operas, 7 symphonies, incidental music to 5 plays, and 27 'orchestral and choral works.' Cowen has written 4 operas, 4 oratorios, 6 symphonies, and 18 cantatas; and that is only the beginning of his list. It is plainly impossible even to hint at this enormous mass of material. We must content ourselves with a rapid glance at the distinguishing features of each composer.

Sullivan, the man who endeared himself personally and musically to a generation, needs no introduction. His work is practically summed up in the words 'Savoy Opera.' And these words stand everywhere for melodic charm and fancy, delicate humor, and exquisitely finished workmanship. On the more æsthetic side we owe him a lasting debt 'for his recognition of the fact that it was not only necessary to set his text to music which was pleasing in itself, but to invent melodies in such close alliance with the words that the two things became (to the hearer) indistinguishable.' His long series of works beginning with 'Contrabandista,' 'Cox and Box,' and 'Trial by Jury' continued through 'Patience,' 'Pinafore,' 'The Mikado,' 'The Yeomen of the Guard,' 'The Gondoliers,' and others, till his death interrupted the composition of his last work, 'The Emerald Isle.' It must be added that both in his simple concert songs and in his choral music Sullivan enjoyed a wide popularity. This is now waning. Of his larger concert works 'The Golden Legend' and the overture 'Di Ballo' possess the greatest vitality.

Mackenzie, who succeeded Macfarren (1813-87) as principal of the Royal Academy of Music, is a man of forceful character. Like Sullivan, he was trained in Germany and came back a brilliant contrapuntist with wide, far-reaching musical intentions. Familiar with every nook in the orchestra, he has produced a mass of concert and opera music all characterized by great technical dexterity and a certain continual color and warmth. More than once the present writer has been surprised by some particularly modern stroke of his orchestral expression and, after ascribing it to the influence of the most neo of neo-continentals, has discovered that Mackenzie was doing it before its supposed author was born. It is a common word in London that Stanford and Mackenzie spend their evenings reading each other's full-scores, both missing out the German parts. Of Mackenzie's works the best known are the violin 'Benedictus' and 'Pibroch,' the orchestral ballad La Belle Dame sans Merci, the cantatas 'The Story of Sayid,' 'The Cottar's Saturday Night,' 'The Dream of Jubal,' and, finally, the ever-popular overture 'Britannia.'

The English public connects Parry's name mainly with his colossal choral writings and with his directorship of The Royal College of Music. That, however, by no means exhausts the list of his activities. In the realms of song, of symphonic and chamber music, he has shown an astonishing fertility. His productions are marked throughout by a boundless contrapuntal skill based very decidedly on the old order of things. To his heroic mind forty-part writing is probably very much what four-part writing is to the rest of mankind. A sort of hard-knit sincerity and a lyrical grandeur pervade all his works. One feels that, if Milton's father had had his son's genius, he would have been a seventeenth-century Parry. Of humor he has none, but in its place a constant cheerfulness characteristic of a certain very good type of Englishman. His best-loved work is undoubtedly 'Blest Pair of Sirens.' But after that we must mention 'The Glories of Our Blood and State,' L'Allegro ed il Pensieroso, 'Lady Radnor's Suite,' the 'Symphonic Variations in E minor,' and the beautiful series of 'English Lyrics.'

Goring Thomas was an Englishman who, with the help of great natural talent and of long residence in France, almost performed the miracle of successfully changing his nationality. Of course, he had to pay the price; and it was heavy. After burning incense at the altar of French ideals he came back to a country where grand opera was only an annual importation symbolical of financial respectability. He might have done Sullivan's work better than Sullivan. But the fates were inexorably against him. He did not even get a knighthood. Imagine Saint-Saëns caught young and studying Handelian counterpoint at the Royal Academy of Music; or Stravinsky doing 'fifth grade harmony' at the Royal College of Music with his eye on the organ-loft at York Minster or the conductor's seat at the Gaiety as possible goals of his ambition. Either instance will give the curious reader some idea of Thomas's difficulties, social and psychological. One must add that he cannot be denied great charm of manner and a strong selective gift both in his melody and harmony. He had all the Frenchman's talent for recognizing dramatic effect and securing it swiftly. His best-known works are 'Esmeralda,' 'Nadeshda,' and 'The Swan and the Skylark.'

Cowen is a West Indian Jew. His artistic activities, however, have mainly centred round London and Glasgow. In the former place he has conducted the 'Philharmonic,' and in the latter the Scottish Orchestra. As a composer he has been both over-blamed and over-praised. His blood undoubtedly gives him facility, adaptability, and a somewhat detached viewpoint. These qualities, academically praised by the Anglo-Saxon, yet excite in England a certain half-envious distrust when actually exercised. For instance, the English musician does not care two raps about the style of composition commonly called 'ye olde English'; but he thinks it scarcely proper that Cowen should be able to write in that style so well. Again, in his heart of hearts the professional man probably thinks that King David's ultimate object in writing Psalm 130 was the afternoon service at Westminster Abbey; and here, too, Cowen's pen causes some uneasiness. On the other side of the picture we have had the composer figuring with the public for years as a miracle of charm, grace, and delicate fancy. A fair view of Cowen would probably show him as a composer somewhat isolated from his fellows, naturally inclined to the lighter side of life, and perhaps more anxious for the laurel than for the dust. His easy yet punctilious technique is shown in a long list of popular works. Of these the most successful are his two sets of 'Old English Dances,' the orchestral suite 'The Language of Flowers,' the overture 'The Butterflies' Ball,' the 'Scandinavian,' 'Welsh,' and 'Idyllic' symphonies, and the choral works 'Ruth,' 'The Rose Maiden,' 'The Sleeping Beauty,' and the 'Ode to the Passions.'

Stanford and Ireland contribute respectively to English musical life and to the empire what a penn'orth of yeast does to a basin of dough. As far as one may judge the ferment cannot be stopped. Its chemical constituents are wit, clarity, and humor, all combined by a delightful ease and precision of technique. Stanford's scores are models of elegant reticence and their 'form' is beyond reproach. In all his work one notices a constant refusal to accept gloom for poetry. He is a musical Oliver Goldsmith of the nineteenth century. No one has done more for the preservation, the arranging, and the publishing of Irish folk-song. Among the best-known of his works are his comic opera 'Shamus O'Brien,' his 'Irish Rhapsodies,' his 'Variations on an English Theme,' and his many fine string quartets and quintets. In the realm of song-literature both original and arranged he has a great record; much of his church music is by now classic on both sides of the Atlantic; and he has made a very special success with his striking Choral Ballads. In these last three departments one may mention his 'Cavalier Songs' and his 'Songs of Old Ireland'; his Services in B-flat, A and F; 'The Revenge,' 'The Voyage of Maeldune,' 'The Bard,' and 'Phaudrig Crohoore.'

Elgar's advantage over the other six members of this group lies, not merely in his comparative youth, but in the fact that he began his serious and prolonged husbandry after the others had done the ploughing. Practically self-educated, he set out with the very noble determination to conquer the world unaided except by his own brains. What this determination means in a densely populated, imperialistic country like England probably very few Americans can realize. From his home in Malvern and later in London he began to issue a series of works, few in number as the men of his generation counted these things, but of unsurpassed poetical quality. His earlier work, such as 'King Olaf' and 'Caractacus,' met with no very wide appreciation; but, with the appearance of his 'Enigma Variations,' his 'Sea Songs,' and his beautiful oratorio, 'The Dream of Gerontius,' came general European recognition. His present unassailable position in England may be gauged from the fact that his oratorios—saturated with the Roman Catholic spirit—are welcomed even in the English cathedrals. Nor are the Deans and Chapters incensed thereby. Of his other works—such as the overtures 'In the South' and 'Cockaigne,' the 'Pomp and Circumstance' marches, the two enormous Symphonies, the Violin Concerto, and the oratorios 'The Kingdom' and 'The Apostles'—it is not possible to speak here in detail. All Elgar's work is characterized by great sincerity and purity of intention. He is an ample master both of harmony and counterpoint; while his sense of orchestral decoration is astonishing. One must in fairness add that he has often been charged with a certain indecision and melodic indefiniteness. These are perhaps national traits; and the gravamen of this charge may be lightened as Teutonic standards of judgment become less and less generally enforced.

Before leaving this group of composers we must mention the fact—already hinted at—that their general education and social level is undoubtedly high as compared with that of their predecessors. This point need not be elaborated. But its effect is seen in the publication of various volumes dealing with the æsthetic and historical sides of music. Of these, Hubert Parry's two great volumes on 'Johann Sebastian Bach' and 'Style in Musical Art' are easily first. Only second to them is the same author's work on 'The Seventeenth Century' contributed to the 'Oxford History of Music.' And he has three or four others to his credit. Stanford has published two delightful books of memoirs and a short treatise on 'Musical Composition.' Frederick Corder, besides a considerable list of compositions, has produced three volumes, of which the best-known is 'The Orchestra and How to Write for It.' The awakening taste for musical study at this period can perhaps be best appreciated by considering the wide popularity of Ebenezer Prout's dry, stubborn volumes on musical technique.

Finally, in order to complete the list of names associated with this movement, one must add John Stainer and George Martin, both of St. Paul's Cathedral; Walter Parratt, the distinguished 'Master of the King's Musick'; and Frederick Bridge of Westminster Abbey. Of the dozen men named above ten received titles from the Sovereign.

III

The members of the second and third groups shared with Elgar the advantages of much improved musical conditions. After twenty-five years' hard work the older generation of composers had educated the country to a wider, deeper, and purer appreciation of music. They had even arrived at a tacit understanding with their countrymen that an Englishman might, under certain conditions, be able to compose. Of this understanding their pupils took immediate advantage. Let us see of what these improved conditions consisted.

In 1880, outside the provincial church festivals, orchestral opportunity for the English composer meant a few concerts conducted by August Manns at the Crystal Palace and a few more given by the London Philharmonic Society. To-day there is a larger number of first-class orchestral players in London than in any other city in the world.

To a large extent this is the result of the insatiable London appetite for musical comedy performed with a beauty and lavishness unknown in America. For the orchestral player who cannot live by symphony work alone can live by symphony and theatre work combined. The number of orchestras both metropolitan and provincial has thus increased enormously. The percentage of English works played has also increased, though there is still room for some improvement in that respect.

In London alone there are, besides the Covent Garden Orchestra—the Royal Philharmonic, the Queen's Hall,[78] the London Symphony, the New Symphony, and the Beecham. All of these can and do tackle successfully the most modern music. A certain number of excellent amateur orchestras, such as the Royal Amateur, the Stock Exchange, and the Strolling Players, testify to a wide interest in this form of music. Outside London there are permanent orchestras at such places as Bournemouth, Brighton, Glasgow, Harrogate, Liverpool, Manchester, and Torquay.

Among conductors who have at one time or other interested themselves in English music may be mentioned Henry J. Wood, Granville Bantock, Godfrey, Thomas Beecham, Balfour Gardiner, Landon Ronald. And this leaves out of account the theatrical conductors, the older musicians most of whom have conducted either at the Royal Philharmonic or at some provincial festival, and the conductors of choral societies, such as George Riseley, Frederick Bridge, Allen Gill, Henry Coward, and Arthur Fagge.

The second point which calls for notice is the folk-song movement, which has forced composers to reconsider some of the fundamentals of their art and at the same time has furnished them with a mass of material on which to work. We must remember that, from the early middle ages until the present day, the traditional music of Europe (folk-song) has continued to flow in a sort of underground stream, while the written or professional music has been the main official waterway. The two have constantly joined their currents, and at times the underground stream has actually been in advance of the river overhead.

The important point is that, in England and Ireland at any rate, the folk-song, orally transmitted, has practically evolved as a separate art-form with its own ways and means of expression. And the outstanding feature of the movement is the recognition of this art-form as a thing of beauty, of vitality, and of necessity to the nation. One might make a very fair division of English composers into those who do not use folk-tunes, those who do for cheque-book reasons, and those who do because they must.

In England the missioners of this movement came only just in time. When they visited the country and seaboard towns of such counties as Norfolk and Somerset they found the art of folk-singing unknown except to the oldest inhabitants. Luckily, however, these sturdy grandfathers kept in their minds a great treasure of folk-song, and it was from their lips that our present collections were made. With this work the name of Cecil Sharp will always be honorably joined. There is now very little chance of folk-song dying, but, as everywhere else, the genuine folk-singer is practically extinct.

Irish folk-song has been the subject of conscious literary enquiry for nearly two hundred years. And this is not to be wondered at when we consider that, of all folk-song, it is first in musical charm, variety, and depth of poetical feeling. In this department the most important recent contribution by far is Stanford's monumental edition of the complete 'Petrie Collection'; but, besides that, he has restored and arranged Moore's 'Irish Melodies' and has published two volumes containing altogether eighty Irish songs and ballads with accompaniments. Both in Wales and Scotland there has been a similar but less important activity.

Before concluding this hasty sketch of the English folk-song movement we must point out that its effect on English composition was only gradually felt. The men of the second group had been too strictly trained in the tradition of the elders to feel quite comfortable under the new dispensation. They acknowledged but evaded its power. Their successors, on the other hand, viewed it, not as a curious archæological discovery, but as a living spring from which they could draw their vitality.

The two most eminent names in the second group of composers are undoubtedly Frederic Delius (b. 1863) and Granville Bantock (b. 1868).

The former was born in Bradford, lived for some time in the United States, and finally after long residence and marriage in France became almost a foreigner. Blessed with abundant means, he has always been able 'to cherish his genius' and let the world go hang. When he reappeared in England it was as a solitary stranger unknown even by name to his co-evals. And this sudden reappearance on the wave-crest of a vigorous English propaganda was not made the subject of loud-voiced enthusiasms. His brilliant talents excited a perverse misunderstanding; and he had to live down a certain sore opposition from his contemporaries, many of whom had for years been struggling in the Cave of Æolus to blow up the very wind that sent him into harbor. These are happily things of past history, and he is now accepted by the world as a tone-poet of great power and originality. Of his works—most of which owe their present popularity to the exertions of his friend Thomas Beecham—one may note 'Paris,' 'Brigg Fair,' 'Appalachia,' 'Seadrift,' 'Dance Rhapsody,' and his great 'Mass of Life.' Of his operas, neither 'Koanga' nor 'A Village Romeo and Juliet' seems to have made a pronounced success.