MUSIC.
The First Set of Madrigals; composed by JOHN
Printed for the members WILBYE.
of the Musical Anti- Dido and "Eneas, an Opera; composed by HENRY
guarian Society. PURCELL.
THESE works, which form the second and third numbers of the issues of the Musical Antiquarian Society, are curiosities. They are curious in themselves, and their fate is equally curious. Belonging to the two brightest sem of England's musical fame, they are now placed within the reach of the present generation for the first time. We have more than once said, that " so long as the Madrigals of Wilbye and many of the Operas of Purcell remain unpublished, we must abandon all claim to be regarded as a musical nation." This is one of the points at which we have laboured, and we have lived to see it accomplished. The reproach is beginning to pass away, and the present generation to show itself worthy to inherit such a bequest as the genius of W1LBYE and PURCELL has left to their country. We must notice these works in their order.
The first, and, till now, sole edition of WILBYE'S first set of Madri- gals, was published in 1598; and, according to the universal practice, in six separate books. The process of reducing these to score is a tedious and laborious one. Bars were unknown, and our ancestors delighted in an accumulation of clefs :Ahree being used for the treble voice, and, as far as appears, merely according to the whim of the composer ; two for the bass ; the usual C clefs for the altos and tenor ; and sometimes, in the five and six-part Madrigals, others for the quintus and sextus parts. In every way the notation is as bewildering to modern eyes as possible. The few copies that remain of the old sets are, to the multitude, like books written in short-hand, which skill and practice only can render legible. Even the most practised eyes would despair of being able to use them for singing. Then the keys in which they are printed are often not the keys in which they were intended to be sung. Sometimes a whole set will be printed in the same key. These, by examining and comparing the several parts of each, have to be transposed into keys suited to the compass of their respective voices. The madrigal then assumes its perfect shape and form, and out of the apparent chaos arises a composition symmetrical iu all its parts and fair in all its pro- portions.
This task has been committed to the care of Mr. THREE; and, we hardly need add, performed with eminent care and accuracy. Those who see the original set side by side with the beautiful volume before us, will hardly recognize their identity. In his preface, the editor states, that " the present edition has been scored from the original set, substituting such clefs as are now used for those which have become obsolete, and adopting the G clef throughout for the treble voices." This plan, we presume, will be followed in all the subsequent publica- tions of the Society. It is desirable to render every work as generally legible as possible, consistently with an adherence to correctness. In many modern publications the G clef is so used as to render the score a chaos. This folly will not be committed by such musicians as Mr. TURLE. The volume contains a fac-simile of the original titlepage, and the dedication—" To the Right Worshipfull and vaderous
Sir Charles Cavendish"; over which we leave antiquaries to revel. But WILBYE'S Madrigals are not destined merely to occupy a place in a collector's library, they will be widely welcomed and largely used by singers. The young Madrigal Societies East and West of Temple Bar, the Madrigalians of Bristol and Norwich, of Manchester and Liverpool, will clap their hands ; yea, young and old will "rejoice and sing aloud with exceeding joy."
Turn we now to Dido and d'Eneas ; a work which gives more extra- ordinary indications of musical genius than any other which it has been our fortune to meet with.
"It is the composition of one," to quote the words of the introduc- tion "who as ahoy in the Chapel Royal, and afterwards r_s the organist of introduc- tion, Abbey, derived his early impressions and his maturer
knowledge of his art from the Church. To the employment of music OD the stage he must have been almost a stranger ; for although his celebrated contemporary Lock had been employed as a dramatic com- poser, yet the construction of such a work as Dido and ./Eneas must
have been to Purcell a novel and an experimental labour. At the time of its appearance in 1675, the opera of Italy was in its infancy ; and, judging from the specimens of it which have reached us ante- cedent to the appearance of Dido and 2Eneas, its author could have de- rived little assistance from these, even if he had been able to examine them. Henry Purcell was nineteen years old when he produced this Opera."
We find in this work indications of that perfect knowledge of har- mony in its most complicated forms which we lately noticed in some of its author's sacred compositions: these are thrown in, as it were, in sport ; as if to show that fetters to him were no bondage—scarcely an incumbrance. Who would expect to find the most pathetic song in the opera built upon a ground bass, or that from such monotony would arise the most touching accents of grief, every word finding in the music its most perfect expression ? The opera is constructed according to the Italian model, the dialogue being throughout in recitative : and here again, who would look for the most perfect forms of this kind of writing (then almost novel, and imperfectly understood even in Italy) from a Chapel-boy, one who had spent his young life in daily inter- course with the pages of TALUS and .113YR.D P Or who could have anti- cipated from one so trained, and to whom the performance of an opera Must have been a thing unknown, the acutest perception and the most felicitous employment of music on the stage? Subsequent composers, with ample means and accumulated models of excellence, have made successive strides towards excellence in various departments of their art, but we know of no leap like that of PURCELL in this opera. Com- paring the result with his means, his education, the degraded state of music in his time, the absence of any example or model either to guide or to warn, and its composition would seem, antecedently, impossible.
The opera, which previously existed only in MS., is edited by Mr. MACFARREN ; who has exercised great care and sound judgment in the execution of his difficult and interesting task. As no copy of it ex- isted unblemished by the errors of copyists, no inconsiderable skill was necessary in order to produce a correct one ; for PURCELL was often a bold experimentalist in harmony ; and, applied to his compositions, the task of conjectural emendation is an unusually difficult one. The MS. copies have no divisions into acts or scenes : these Mr. MACFARREN has supplied, as well as descriptions of the scenes, and such other stage-directions as seemed necessary. We have, in conclusion, to express'our best thanks to the professional gentlemen who have gratuitously devoted the requisite time and atten- tion to the accomplishment of an object so long needed and desired, as the rescuing front oblivion, perhaps from destruction, compositions which are the pride and ornament of our country.
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