Part 12 (1/2)

With the production of the oratorio ”Saul” in 1739, Handel initiated that series of works which not only had an untold influence on the musical instinct of the English people, but was destined to write his name in the book of the Immortals. Everything tended to his success.

His genius, colossal as it was, might have proved in vain, but for an unseen element that was to come to his aid and enable him to crown his career in a blaze of glory. This proved to be a resurgence of the old-time love of music amongst the ma.s.ses, that their Puritan upbringing had long tended to suppress, but which, under a religious guise, was ready to spring to life again.

Thus, crowds of people who would not go to hear music under ordinary conditions, would eagerly seize an opportunity to do so when presented to them under the aegis of Religion.

The spirit of the ”Messiah” penetrated their hearts, and helped to exorcise the sullen disposition towards anything approaching art that had become so characteristic of them.

Splendid as was the result of Handel's work not only in England but the world over, it must be admitted that the immediate effect on the English musician was disastrous.

He had long found it difficult to hold his own against foreign compet.i.tion, with the influence of the Court continuously exercised in its favour, but this overwhelming display of genius in a field in which he had hitherto regarded himself as una.s.sailable in his own country, seemed to be the one thing wanting to complete his discomforture and bring about his abdication.

This accomplished, it is unnecessary to insist upon the humiliations that were in store for him during the next hundred years. Suffice it to say that the ascendency of the foreigner was complete, and was exercised with an intolerance of native effort that seems inconceivable to us to-day. Not only did he occupy the princ.i.p.al official posts, but nearly every other of importance outside the Church, and even the festivals, which were, in most cases, originally organised in connection with one or other of the cathedrals, before long came under his sway.

To cite two examples, those of Birmingham and Norwich. The former has been conducted for over forty years, since the period of its inception, by Costa and Dr. Richter; whilst the latter has been directed for over half a century by musicians who were not only not Englishmen, but not even Christians. This grotesque situation was put an end to as recently as 1908, when Sir Henry Wood was appointed. This ascendency, encouraged by the wealthy cla.s.ses and contemptuously ignored by the general public, could but have a withering effect on native talent, and its parasitical influence undoubtedly hastened the decay of the once flouris.h.i.+ng tree of English music. Handel had many successors here, but no equals. However, so numbed had English musicians become, that nearly any foreigner with sufficient advertising ingenuity, could inspire them with a sense not far removed from awe.

For instance, without wis.h.i.+ng to be unjust to such claims on posterity as Spohr may have, we may well express astonishment at the great influence he undoubtedly wielded whilst living in London. His great ability as a performer on the violin, together with his skill as a writer for the instrument, first brought him prominently into publicity, but it was the production of his oratorio, ”The Last Judgment,” that made him a power in the land.

What chiefly contributed to the fascination his music exercised was a new feature in it that appealed to natures the stern sublimity of Handel's could not touch. This consisted of a dexterous use of chromatic harmony, combined with melody of ballad-like simplicity, which was well calculated to please the untutored ear. Even so robust a personality as Samuel Sebastian Wesley temporarily fell under the spell, though not for long, and afterwards, as if it were an act of expiation, wrote a Church service in which he reverted to the style of Orlando Gibbons. Spohr, however, was a genius, if not of an exalted order, but what are we to say when we take into consideration the position attained to by Costa in this country?

Surely English musical intelligence must have reached its nadir.

He was allowed for thirty years to exercise absolute sway over the festivals at Birmingham, and there produced, with every accessory of pomp and circ.u.mstance, his oratorios, ”Eli” and ”Naaman,” works in which you may seek for and fail to find a redeeming feature. Commonplace in idea, blatant in orchestration, theatrical in melody and primitive in contrapuntal effort, these things were, nevertheless, by the artifice of unscrupulous puffing, foisted upon the public as works of genius.

Yet at this very time there was living an English writer of great endowment, lofty character and true genius, whose music was comparatively neglected. Without making extravagant claims for Sterndale Bennett, it may be said, without hesitation, that his cantata, ”The Woman of Samaria,” contains music with which nothing that Costa and many others similarly exploited, wrote, could for a moment compare. To what extent indifference to English music and musicians was carried may be ill.u.s.trated by the fact that he was suffered to submit on an occasion to the insult of Costa's refusal to conduct one of his compositions, and this, without redress!

The day is coming when English composers will have to endure as much adulation as their predecessors did neglect. When that day arrives I hope they will show some consideration for the memory of William Sterndale Bennett. It was with sincere pleasure that many observed the inclusion of one of his overtures on the historic occasion of the production at the Queen's Hall in London of Sir Edward Elgar's first violin concerto.

This was a tribute payed to him by his greatest successor, and was worthy of the man who did it and the occasion which prompted it. Enough has been said to shew how complete foreign supremacy had become. Its days are now numbered, it is true, but the effect remains.

It is idle to suppose that the work of a few men, however gifted they may be, can undo in a decade what has taken two hundred years to accomplish. Only by patience and sustained effort in the direction of making students endeavour to _think_ English music rather than German, can any national character be developed.

This can be done by English masters only. It is evident that there is a spirit of revolt abroad against the position as it stands to-day. That a nation with four or five hundred years' musical history behind it should yet be in foreign leading-strings is as absurd as it is uncalled for, and national respect alone should insist on its suppression.

English musicians have recently shewn in manner absolutely convincing, that they can hold their own in any department of music, either as creators or exponents.

The north of England and the Midlands teem with men erudite and enthusiastic.

In Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and other towns they are ever in evidence, and it is mainly from these parts of England that the most striking of recent developments have come, and which give the greatest hope for the future. The fascination of a capital city and the apparently limitless opportunities for advancement naturally attract the consciously gifted young musician. He expects to be greeted on arrival with sympathy and encouragement, at least by people of his own race. He probably knows something of the history of music in London, but even that does not stay him.

His first experience is one of disillusion. He finds himself in an atmosphere of cosmopolitanism where the dominating influences are largely foreign, and if he enters one of the princ.i.p.al schools, he finds himself in a centre whence those influences largely radiate. If he elects to stay there, he will eventually emerge from it as an added unit to that vast army of foreign-taught Englishmen whose work has. .h.i.therto proved so abortive.

I would like to say here that there is not the least intention to cast reflections on the capabilities of these foreign teachers. Indeed, it would be a work of supererogation to insist upon the individual excellencies of many of them.

What words, for instance, could adequately portray the work of such men as Oscar Beringer or Johannes Wolff? to mention only two of them.

But that is beside the point.

What we have to consider is the wisdom or unwisdom of continuing a system that has obtained for a hundred years or so, and is still encouraged by the leading authorities. We may a.s.sume, or we ought to be able to a.s.sume, that what gave rise to it was a dearth of sufficiently competent Englishmen, and that the mission entrusted to the foreigner was to train the students up to his own high standard. Well, has he succeeded after his hundred years' trial? It is evident that in the opinion of these authorities he has not, else, why should Herr this be made to succeed Herr that, and Signor this, Signor that, with such monotonous regularity?

How much longer then is it intended to continue on these lines? If there are still no native musicians fit to hold these important posts (and this in the days of Elgar!), what a commentary on the system!