RECENT MUSICAL BOOKS.*

Scnuatasus once lamented how few real musicians could write, and bow few good writers were musicians. In this context Dr. Ernest Walker is a happy example of the conven- tional use of the familiar maxim recently discussed in our correspondence columns. We have already had occasion . to notice Dr. Walker's contributions to the new edition of Grove's Dictionary, and to animadvert on the uncom- promising and occasionally unjudicial temper of his com- ments. In the case of such a book as the one before us, however, such criticism is inapplicable, or not applicable to the same extent, and in any case criticism is largely dis- armed by the excellence of the contents. This short HistoTy of Music in England is not merely a masterly piece of condensa- tion, based on intimate first-hand knowledge of the available material, but from beginning to end it is written with a convic- tion which commands respect, and with an incisive energy and felicity of phrase which render its perusal a most stimulating literary experience. Lastly, though void of any approach to musical Chauvinism, the book is eminently calculated to minister to a well-founded pride in the part played by England

in the evolution of the art of music. Dr. Walker's history is - devoted to making good the notable assertion to be found on.

p. 20 :—" Though it suffered during the supremacy of the • Flemings the first of the many eclipses it has undergone, the • English school has never become extinct ; and its record of five • hundred continuous years is much the longest of which any nation can boast." The chapter on the great Madrigalian era is a masterly review of that wonderful period of musical efflorescence. The writer's enthusiasm never degenerates into - effusiveness. His characterisation is luminous, and by acute - comment and musical illustration he enables us to appreciate the distinguishing traits of the various composers. Nor is his . appreciation of Purcell and his contemporaries less generous - or discriminating. In dealing with the "crushing influence" of Handel on English music Dr. Walker writes with a severity that will not please all readers. But his attitude is by no means one of hostility to the great Saxon, as may be gathered from the following passage :— "After all, we must give Handel the credit for being, in a sense, the most courageous great composer who has ever lived; * (1) A History of Music in England. By Ernest Walker, M.A., D.Mus., Ealliol College, Oxford. Oxford : at the Clarendon Press. 17s. 6d. not.]—

(2) Leaves from The Journals of Sir George Smart. By H. Cox reed

C. L, E. Cox. London: Longs:sane and Co. ElOo. ed, net. ); Hor W*014.1:

By Ernest Newman. With 19 Illustrations. London: Mathuen and Mo.

Re. 13c1: net.1---(4) claide-Aehilie Debussy. By My:Afros *, Litintr , Mastaant Kunio &riga" London ; John Lana MN. notbj

he tried to base his title to immortality on a direct popular . appeal. In the process he threw away all chance of influencing the subsequent course of the art ; there has never been a corn- , poser of more than the merest second-class rank who owes him . anything really vital. And not only was he content, with his enormous powers, to stand absolutely out of the line of the great transmitters of the divine fire ; he was content to turn out huge masses of work; which, if he ever reflected for a moment, he must have known to be worthless, in a sort of patient certainty that sooner or later the inspiration would come. And when it did come, then we have the real Handel—the man on whose grave -even Beethoven said he would kneel bareheaded."

Dr. Walker's criticism of Sterndale Bennett reminds us of - von Billow's pregnant comment on his great contemporary and friend, Mendelssobn, of whom he said that be "began as • a genius and ended as a talent." In contrasting the actual • and potential achievements of Sullivan, Dr. Walker leaves out of consideration the factor of his delicate health, but his • estimates of Parry, Stanford, and Elgar strike us as admirable • specimens of legitimate frankness. In this necessarily hasty and imperfect notice we can only call attention to the writer's . extremely sane attitude on the burning question of folk-music, and his unhesitating eulogy of the Irish folk-tunes as, on the • whole, the finest in existence :— "If musical composition meant nothing more than tunes • sixteen bars long, Ireland could claim some of the very greatest composers that have ever lived For sheer beauty of • melody the works of Mozart, Schubert, and the Irish folk- . composers form a triad that is unchallenged in the whole range of the art."

It is not too much to say that Dr. Walker never goes out of . his way to express enthusiasm unless it is fully warranted.

We cannot, however, endorse his disparagement of "Rule, Britannia" as a "comparatively undistinguished strain." Did not Wagner declare that the whole spirit of British patriotism was to be found in its opening phrase ? In taking leave of what is the best book on the subject that has yet been published we may add that Dr. Walker's caustic footnotes are a constant source of joy to the reader.

Sir George Smart, who died forty years ago at the age of

ninety-one, was a very good specimen of the English Sepal- mister. Coming of a musical family, he began as a choir- boy, mastered half-a-dozen instruments, specialising as an organist, established an influential and lucrative connexion as

. a teacher of singing and the pianoforte, and probably con- - ducted more Festivals than any other English musician of his • time. His diaries reveal a curiously matter-of-fact mind, and, in view of the immense number of interesting people whom he knew, the banality of his impressions is quite remarkable.

Still, the book is not without its value as a faithful, if prosaic,

• record of a long life illuminated by some shining moments. It

• must always be remembered to the lasting credit of Sir George • Smart that he was one of the few Englishmen who recognised the genius of Beethoven in his lifetime. He consistently - championed his cause, and actually undertook a pilgrimage to Vienna in 1825 to ascertain from the composer personally the • exact times of the movements of his symphonies. Beethoven greeted him with great cordiality, and the record of their intercourse, though it adds little to what we already know, is animated by a spirit of genuine hero-worship. One reads with a real thrill of Beethoven's intervention during the performance of one of his own quartets :—"A staccato - passage not being expressed to the satisfaction of his eye, for alas, he could not hear, he seized Holz's violin and played the passage a quarter of a tone flat." They parted excellent friends, and in return for the present of a diamond pin Beethoven wrote him a canon (reproduced in facsimile at p. 124) with an inscription which is perhaps Sir George Smart's surest title to immortality :—" Written on the 16th • September 1825 in Baden when my dear talented music artist and friend Smart (from England) visited me here. Louis von Beethoven." Here, and here almost alone, there is a touch of emotion in the narrative,—e.g., Smart speaks of his return to Vienna from Beethoven's house "exhausted with pleasure." Smart retained his admiration of Beethoven till the end of his life, and the last chapter in the book describes his trip to Bonn at the age of seventy to attend the unveiling - of Beethoven's statue in 1845. His relations with Mendelssohn were equally friendly, and Weber was his guest at the time of his death in 1826. As organist of the Chapel Royal, Smart wan constantly brought into contact with members of the

Royal family—he gave lessons to Princess Charlotte—and

the latter pages of this ingenuous recital are enlivened by some really diverting anecdotes illustrative of their attitude towards music. Perhaps the best story in the book, however, is o Mrs. Siddons :— "On July 4th, 1827, I went to the Earl of Darnley's at Cobham Hall, to meet Mrs. Siddons and Miss Wilkinson, now kn. Groom. During the evening a gentleman came to Mrs. Siddons and said— 'Madame, I beg your pardon for asking so rude a question, but in consequence of a wager allow me to ask your age: She replied, Seventy-eight years old: `Damme!' said he, have lost,' and he abruptly went away. Mrs. Siddons immediately said—' Puppy!' ' Very true,' I observed, but why did you tell him you were so old?' She replied, 'Whenever a lady of an uncertain age, as it is termed, is asked how old she is, she had better add ten or more years to her age, for then the enquirer goes away saying, "What a fine old woman ! " " Mr. Ernest Newman's elaborate monograph on Hugo Wolf is divided into two parts,—the first dealing with his life, and the second with his works. The former makes of necessity very painful reading. Hugo Wolf, who was the son of an unsuccessful Styrian leather-merchant, was denied the qualities which make either for success or content. His school life was unhappy, he was dismissed from the Vienna Conservatoire for insubordination, and his temperament rendered it absolutely impossible for him to make a livelihood by teaching, hack- work, or musical criticism. He insulted his pupils, made enemies by his mordant pen, and when he did get an engage- ment as assistant to a distinguished Kapellessister, proved himself quite incapable of attending to the duties of his post. He had a genius for quarrelling with or wounding the suscepti- bilities of everybody, including those who were dearest to him. Yet the fidelity and generosity of his friends—with very few exceptions—remained unimpaired by these shocks. They rescued him from privation and poverty, placed their houses at his disposal, organised performances of his works, provided funds for their publicatien, formed themselves into a society for fostering and cherishing the sensitive plant of Wolf's genius, and, in short, displayed an amount of tact, consideration, and devotion for which it would be difficult to find a parallel in all the annals of magnanimity. That is the bright side of a record which in its personal aspect is one of almost unrelieved gloom. Wolf hardly ever tasted of happiness save when in the white-heat of creation, and these spells of furious produc- tive energy alternated with long periods of exhaustion and sterility in which he despaired of the return of inspiration. The strain of his last effort completely deranged an over- wrought brain, and at the age of thirty-seven he was placed under restraint, discharged after four months, and in less than a year consigned to the Lower Austrian Asylum in Vienna, where, although everything was done to lighten his sufferings, his condition went steadily from bad to worse until his release by death in February, 1903.

Mr. Newman's elaborate analysis of the songs, operas, and other compositions of Hugo Wolf is based on an intimate acquaintance with the scores which is only possible in a thoroughly accomplished musician. From his estimate of Wolf as the foremost song-writer of all time it is possible to dissent energetically; but there is no gainsaying the ability and enthusiasm with which he supports his claim. He is an uncompromising but a convinced partisan. For the rest, the tone and temper of his book may best be judged from the passage in which he sums up Wolf's character and the significance of his premature and tragic end :—

"His occasional harshness of manner and speech was merely part of the fundamental sincerity of his nature ; wherever art was concerned he went straight for the truth, in his opinions as. in his music. He had a horror of sentimentality, of pose, in life as in art; and he was merciless to it no matter where or when he met it. His candour inevitably brought him enemies ; but we have only to look round the circle of his friends to see that it was a personality of no ordinary charm that could command the willing devotion of so many men of high character and of

such various dispositions No feeling but one of the most poignant pity can fill us when we think of the gnawing misery of his life and the brutal, senseless tragedy of his end. The gods no doubt mean well, but their technique is bad. Nature is not so prodigal of brains of the first order that she can afford to Bing them to the rubbish-heap in this blind and wasteful way. Since the death of Schubert there is no musician whose premature end has been so truly irreparable a loss to art." '

We have on many occasions expressed our objection on general grounds to the issue of biographies of living celebrities, musical or otherwise, while they are still in mid-career. Subject to this reservation, we can cordially commend Mrs. Liebich's genial and enthusiastic sketch of the most advanced living representative of French music. One fact clearly emerges from these pages. M. Debussy is not only a remark- able composer, he has at his command a singularly vivid, suggestive, and witty prose style,—witness this admirable and characteristic condemnation of unnecessary applause :—

Saches done bien qu'une veridique impression de beaute no ponrrait avoir d'autre effet quo le silence. Enfin, voyons ! quand vow assistez la Merle quotidienne qu'est la mort du soleil avez- yeas jamais en In pensee d'applaudir ? Vous m'avonerez quo c'est pourtant d'un developpement un pen plus imprevu quo toutes vos petites histeires senores?'

Excellent, again, is his pen-portrait of Richard Strauss:— " He is tall, and has the ingenuous and decided manner of those great explorers who have made their way through the territories of savage tribes with a smile on their faces."

Weingartner reminds Debussy of "a brand-new knife ; his gestures partake of a quasi-rectilinear eloquence; then all of a sudden his arms make relentless signals which evoke a bellowing from the trombones and drive the cymbals dis- tracted." Last, and most amusing, is the remark that Grieg's music gives him the "charming and bizarre sensation of eating a pink bonbon stuffed with snow."