A Short History Of English Music Part 8

[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 membership 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 worship, 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-worship 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.

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me, h.e.l.l might afford my miseries a shelter; Therefore, h.e.l.l keeps her ever-hungry mouths all Bolted against one.

Hard lot! encompa.s.sed with a thousand dangers, Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors, I'm call'd, if vanquish'd! to receive a sentence Worse than Abiram's.

Him, the vindictive rod of angry Justice, Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong; I, fed with judgment, in a fleshy tomb, am Buried above ground."

Cowper was born a little more than a hundred years after the death of Shakespeare, and about seventy after that of Cromwell. In Shakespeare's time it is certain that Puritanism had made little way in England, or there would have been far more reference to it than is suggested in his works. He mirrored the spirit of his age and country, and it mattered little whether he placed the scenes of his plays in an Italian city or "on the coast of Bohemia," the life depicted in them is that of England and the spirit embodied that of the robust Elizabethan age. Such reform as had taken place in the Church was little calculated to affect the character or temperament of the people, and although it is quite within ordinary knowledge that there were a considerable number of people already who had accepted the extreme doctrines that were later to so terribly transform the national character, they had then no more influence in the country than the Spiritualists have to-day, in the twentieth century. Once, however, they had taken root they spread with appalling rapidity, until by Cowper's time they had gained an ascendency over the minds of the people that the verses just quoted do but fairly indicate.

It was in the reign of James I. that Puritanism began to a.s.sert itself in a manner that at all foreshadowed what was to come, and it is a gratifying thought that Shakespeare did not live to see the England, that he had loved and so glorified by his genius, bend under the burden of the foreign intrusion that was to completely alter the aspects of her life as he had known them. A vital aid doubtless accrued to the movement through the constant influx of Calvinist refugees from the North of Europe, mainly Scandinavians, who were warmly welcomed and aided by Anne of Denmark, wife of the King.

It is curious to note how many movements of anti-national character that have taken place in England since the time of the Tudors have had the support of the reigning house. Happily such days are past. It must be granted, however, that it was as natural on the part of Anne to grant shelter to her own country people, whether in Scotland or England, as it was on their part to seek it at her hands.

To whatever causes the spread of Calvinism may be due, its effect on the nation generally was deplorable, and on music, particularly, absolutely fatal.

The gloomy fanaticism that its teaching engendered not only prompted the entire suppression of music of every kind, wherever possible, but made it become an object of loathing and contempt, and what was found impossible to achieve by legislation was effected by local tyranny. In the conventicles that sprung up all over the country, music was pointed to as the ally of G.o.dlessness in its worst and most reprehensible form, and its use a thing that put the offender outside the pale of religious life.

It needs little consideration to appreciate the result such teaching must necessarily have had on people who had come to accept these views as a revelation of Divine will.

Its effect was, simply, not only to deaden, but to obliterate the very sense of the art among the ma.s.ses--that art, too, that had been, formerly, one of the glories of England.

In other directions, the results of this fanatic spirit are more concretely shewn, and the terrible evidence that the ancient churches of the country supply is sufficient to cause a shudder to the more tempered spirit of later ages.

Practically, every one of these standing buildings affords evidence of the ruthless and destructive spirit that animated the authorities, and encouraged the common people and soldiery of the Commonwealth period to the utmost license in church desecration. The shocking and stupid brutality of the excesses perpetrated is, at once, a proof of the ferocious spirit that had been aroused, and the unappeasable hatred towards everything that could, in any way, suggest Catholic teaching or influence. When one reads of these atrocities, cold-blooded and calculated, they bring to the mind rather the sacking of ancient Rome by the Huns than the acts of civilised Englishmen living after the age of Shakespeare and Bacon.

The n.o.blest ornaments that the nameless monk-architects had raised to the glory of G.o.d, and the unceasing call to the piety of those living after, became a special mark for vengeance.

To break down the altars, smash to fragments the sculptured representations of the Saviour, the Holy Virgin or the saints, was a source of gratification, and the occasion of licentious jest.

For the destruction of musical instruments and the burning of ma.n.u.script music, we owe them--not grat.i.tude.

To make a bonfire of vestments, and everything that was capable of absolute extinction by the agency of fire, was an occasion of ribald mirth and revelry.

To put the glorious cathedrals, the undying evidence of the splendour of Catholic devotion and enthusiasm, to the basest uses was their common habitude.

The turning of the n.o.ble cloisters, that had been the pious and unceasing work of so many years to build, into stables for the horses of Cromwell's cavalry was only one feature of many other and even more hideous acts of vileness that were not only accomplished, but approved of.

On these one would rather not dwell. The words horror and indignation seem infantile to express the emotions called forth by the contemplation of such things.

After all this, the smashing of the old and beautiful stained gla.s.s windows, sorrowful as it may make us, seems of comparatively little consequence, unique and of priceless value as they were. It is, nevertheless, inevitable to think with wondering awe of the awful waste of the inspired work of centuries.

There are yet, and we may well be thankful for it, a few remains of the extraordinary beauty of the artistic work of the monks of old. The Lady Chapel of Gloucester Cathedral is a striking example. It was finished only a few years before the Reformation, and was more fortunate than the majority of such buildings, inasmuch as, although the traces of mutilation are evident, the beauty of the work of the monk-artist can yet be seen and appreciated.

That the work of destruction was carried out to the fullest extent of their means by these iconoclasts is proved by the general absence of remains. It is only an occasional chance, such as the digging of foundations of a building on the outskirts of a cathedral city, as happened not long ago, that leads to the discovery of mutilated fragments of statues, broken arteries of altars of untold age, and powdered remains of stained gla.s.s, that even modern skill admits its inability to equal, which can give us real and tangible evidence of the wealth of beauty and pious effort that must have been stored up in those marvellous old buildings.

The spirit that could guide to the destruction not only of such things as the eye alone could perceive and appreciate, but of so intangible and defenceless a thing as music, must indeed have been insatiable. The majestic strength of those venerable fanes, that seem to defy the flight of ages, was theirs to successfully resist such enemies as they then had to encounter, and though they were, to some extent, destined to suffer in the conflict, yet such wounds as they received were not altogether incapable of healing.