ENGLISH MUSIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The series of volumes on " Music in the Nineteenth Century " under the general editorship of Mr. Robin H. Legge makes an excellent start with Mr. J. A. Fuller-Maitland's English Music in the Nineteenth Century (Grant Richards, 5s.) Dividing his work into two books, entitled respectively " Before the Renaissance " and " The Renaissance," Mr. Fuller-Maitland traces the gradual emergence of native art from the foreign domination, reviews the achievements of the emancipators, and concludes his survey with a chapter on "Drawbacks and Prospects." In a work of such modest dimensions—under three hundred pages of good- sized type—covering so extended a period, and treating not merely of composers but singers and players as well, a writer, if he indulge in criticism, must inevitably be somewhat dogmatic, and be content to state conclusions rather than set forth at length the reasons that have led him to form them. With all of Mr. Fuller- Maitland's estimates few readers will agree. It may be objected, again, that he has not succeeded in conveying the requisite shades of approbation in dealing with the work of composers of varying orders of merit. But the art of discriminating praise is perhaps the hardest of all. Let it suffice if we say that a great deal of information is packed into a small compass, and that we are glad to find Mr. Fuller-Maitland lending an anticipatory endorsement to the views recently expressed in the Spectator as to the neglect of native composers. " In music, as everybody knows, it is doubly necessary to humour the English public, who still decline to admire any- thing that does not sound familiar, with repeated representa- tions." In the last chapter, again, Mr. Maitland indulges in some very straight speaking with regard to the methods of con- cert agents,—methods which would seem to justify the adoption
of self-protective measures by singers and players similar to those adopted by industrials in the world of trade.
Previous page
