Part 8 (1/2)

[15] Since the above was written I read in the _Evening News_, November 24, 1911, the following words from a lecture delivered by the Dean of St. Paul's:

”In its present state” (the Church of England) ”it was the product of a political compromise, which was so framed as to include Catholics who would renounce the Pope, and Puritans who were not anarchistic on principle. It was officially Protestant and disliked the name. Ever since the Reformation the reformed churches had been in a state of uncertainty, like a Dotheboys Hall after it had expelled its Squeers, full of earnestness and deep conviction, but undecided as to what kind of church they wanted, how it ought to be governed, what the conditions of members.h.i.+p ought to be and where the seat of authority should reside.”

[16] A cadence is the end of a musical phrase.

[17] A tablet to his memory in Westminster records, in touching language, that he ”has gone to that Blessed Place, where only his harmony can be exceeded.”

[18] He died of consumption.

[19] There is a conflict of authorities on this point, but it may be taken for granted that he was but little, if any, older at the time.

CHAPTER IV

THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC

Three princ.i.p.al causes leading to decline--Reformation the princ.i.p.al one--The plain-song and the people--Gradual transition in mode of living--Effect of Calvinistic teaching--Excesses of the Commonwealth soldiery--Facts as to life of Calvin--Effects of change of dynasty--The Stuarts and music--The Restoration and resulting excitement--England rid of the Stuarts--Jonathan Swift a Church dignitary--First appearance of opera in England--Handel and Italian opera--He leaves England--Returns and devotes himself to oratorio--Effect on the people--Its influence on native composers--Ill-effects of imitation--Necessity of relying on native inspiration--Vincent Novello--Novello and Company--Services to English music--Revival--The Wesleys, Samuel and Samuel Sebastian--Conclusion.

The three princ.i.p.al causes that led to the decline and practical extinction of English music were the Reformation, the indifference of a foreign Court, and the settlement in England of large numbers of foreign musicians, among whom was one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time, the German, George Frederick Handel. The two latter causes may be said to be the complement one of the other.

Of these three hostile influences, the Reformation and all that it involved was, overwhelmingly, the most fatal in its effect, for it struck at the root foundation; it killed the very soil that gave birth to the plant. The first blow it inflicted on music--and in those days that meant English music, not as now--and it was a deadly one, was its suppression in the services of the Church. To grasp to the full the significance of this act, one must recall some of the salient features of national life that had existed for centuries.

We have seen how intimately bound together were the lives of the Church and the people; how the very existence of either seemed dependent on the solidity of their union; or, at least, how inseparable a part the services of the Church were from the daily life and occupations of the common tillers of the soil, who formed the majority of the population.

Music, in the early days to which we now refer, was a living force and a vital attraction to the peasantry, who, although perhaps unable to understand the significance of the elaborate ceremonial that characterised mediaeval forms of wors.h.i.+p, were able to join in the singing of the plain-song that was ever, as far as research can guide us, an essential element in the rites of the ancient Church.

Here let me say, we must utterly discard from our minds any thought of the n.o.ble and ornate music of the Ma.s.s, the product of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These works were written for performance by highly trained singers in the employ of bishops or abbots governing the cathedrals or monasteries, possessing sufficient wealth to command their services, and were listened to by a cla.s.s of people far removed from those under our present consideration. Such music would, indeed, be far more remote from their understanding than that sung at St. Paul's Cathedral to the ordinary agricultural labourer to-day.

No, it was the simple strains of the plain-song that they knew, understood and loved.

To them, religion and music were as one, and happy were those who drew their last breath before the new and fantastic doctrines that were destined to change the whole life and spirit of the people came into actual effect.

The transition from the old life to the new was a slow one, notwithstanding the authorities, but once brought about and accepted by the people, with that tenacity so characteristic of the English race, they not only absorbed but put into practice tenets that, a century before, would have been abhorrent to them. That this is, unhappily, true, the horrible excesses tolerated during the Commonwealth period are more than sufficient proof.

The hideous teaching that music and every other form of art was devil-wors.h.i.+p became accepted by those who, but not long before, were the very incarnation of joyous, righteous life, as a revelation that had only come in the nick of time for their salvation. To suppress every longing for it, any memory of it, even, was considered a duty and the indulgence in it a sin, though clothed in ecclesiastical garb. The strength to resist the yearning for that which for so many ages had been, to say the least, one of the greatest sources of consolation and happiness to them, they counted a righteousness, and the more these poor people suffered, the greater was their a.s.surance of ultimate safety. The loss of music to the English in those early Calvinistic times must have been one of the most bitter of the many miseries they had to endure.

It is impossible to think without pity of the transition from the gay, exuberant and, possibly, irresponsible life that had been theirs for centuries, to the fearful search after the salvation that their days and nights were mostly spent in dread of losing.

Should this appear exaggerated, let us turn to the writings of the poet, William Cowper: we shall find ample confirmation.

It may be said, ”Why cite a man who is known to have had fits of temporary insanity?” The answer is simple. The melancholia from which he suffered and which led him, on more than one occasion, to attempt to commit suicide, was the outcome of his belief in the terrible doctrine of Pre-destination, and the ever-present fear that he was among those destined to eternal doom.

This is how he writes:

”Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion, Scarce can endure delay of execution-- Wait with impatient readiness to seize my Soul in a moment.

d.a.m.n'd below Judas; more abhorr'd than he was, Who for a few pence sold his holy Master!

Twice betray'd, Jesus me, the last delinquent Deems the profanest.