MUSIC
THE Renaissance Society has recently celebrated the tercentenary of the birth of John Blow with a festival of his music. Blow was Purcell's master, and was succeeded by his pupil as organist of Westminster Abbey. His whole fife was .given to the writing and Performance of that specifically English "cathedral music "—anthems, services and motets which were the glory of the restored Anglican rite in the palmy days following the restoration of the monarchy. and still to this day continue to be written, though now in a semi- traditional, academic form. He wrote only one stage work, Venus and Adonis, and his secular output consists largely of about thirty odes written for special occasions such as Royal birthdays, Saint C,ecilia's Day and the New Year. Most of Blow's church music is written in a simple homophonic style, and his contrapuntal essays have been said to exhibit "an unrequited love of polyphony." He' was, in fact, primarily a melodist and thus in sympathy with thd new ideals of the age in which he lived, a modern. Certainly thd church music sung by the Renaissance Singers at St. Maryleboriq Church on July 2nd was wholly English, and wholly Anglican, iq temper and showed none of the brilliance or " levity " to be found in the music of a contemporary like Pelham Humfrey who had , studied in France. A "saintly grey" and a perfume of John Ingle-) sant characterised this sober, easy, workmanlike music, and the Renaissance Singers did its unpretentious beauty justice.
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The appearance of yet another execrable player of Chopin—ha might just as well have a number as a name—and his enthusiast reception by a crowded, hall has made me wonder whether ti Chopin tradition has died an unspectacular death, just a hundred' years after the composer himself. The Poles themselves arc some of the worst offenders, though Makuzynski sustains his country'4 honour at a high, if not the highest, level. On the purely technica; side exaggerated pace, lack of tone variety and, most of all, a complet misunderstanding of the famous tempo rubato are almost universa faults. Chopin is not an alternatively brilliant and sentimcnta salon-composer ; and if the principle of tempo rubato is one of discreet robbing and compensation, nine out of ten players rob Peter without a thought of paying Paul. As far as interpretation is con4 cerned a tearful emotionalism contracted in the school of Rach4 maninov takes the place of Chopin's romantic nobility and tender-I riess, while the great heroic moments of his large-scale works are regarded simply as occasions for harder and ever harder hitting.
It is a commonplace that Chopin is an aristocratic composer, not because he wrote for aristocratic audiences (which is not wholly true) but because his music has the qualities which we connect in everyday life with breeding. It has perfect balance or, to rescue a word fallen among American women's clubs, poise. It can be grand without being grandiose and wear an amount of ornament which would make any more plebeian music appear vulgar. It has the supreme gift of naturalness, whether in intimate conversation or in the highest flights of eloquence and a deceptive simplicity even in moments which, technically, abound in subtleties. Without an understanding of these qualities—and breeding is everywhere at a discount—pianists reduce Chopin's music to what it was consideret; to be during the years of reaction, pretty tunes and showy passages. to be executed with a maximum of brilliance and at top speed.
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The second Spanish ballet at Covent Garden, Del Amor y de 44 Muerte, is rather too like, though inferior to, Infanta in plot: Tumanova and Skibine play the same drama of thwarted love and dream fulfilment in another Spanish setting. But Granados' music is charmingly evocative, and the whole ballet moves easily and pleasantly. I stand open to correction, but I could not believe in Ana Ricarda's Spanish dancing which seemed to me more royalist than the king.
MARTIN COOPER.
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