Music
The Neglect of Purcell
Is spite of the activities of scholars, the enthusiasm of a few professional singers and players and the existence of a Society bearing his name, Henry Purcell is still the most neglected of great composers. By the ordinary music-lover, performance of his music is still regarded as being in the nature of an unprofitable penance. This applies equally to his operatic, dramatic and church music. The greater part of that music is to be found only in the unwieldy edition of the Purcell Society, each volume of which costs one guinea and weighs about four pounds. In most eases, that is to say, would-be performers must first copy out the music by hand, then go out into highways and byways and compel people to come in and listen.
Doubtless the apathy which is shown towards Purcell's music is frequently due to the stilted and artificial texts which he sometimes set. Indeed, some of his most charac- teristic airs are associated with words which even in relation to their time can only be judged as puerile. And in the case of the operatic music, indifference is increased by the fact that the average listener fails to hold in mind that, in its early stages, opera bears little resemblance to its later manifestations. In the preface to Albion and Albanius, Dryden begins this definition : " An opera is a poetical tale or fiction represented by vocal and instrumental music, adorned with scenes, machines and dancing," and continues by pointing out that the characters in opera are generally supernatural, and that therefore the drama, escaping the restrictions of human nature, " admits of that sort of marvellous and sur- prising conduct which is rejected in other plays."
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas certainly answers to this de- scription, but people who habitually think of opera in terms of the ordinary repertory, do not readily recognize Dido as an example. Theirs is the loss. For, although there is nothing in the work to satisfy those who like their opera grand, there can be no doubt that the music is essentially of the theatre. Numbers of people who have heard Dido's song, " When I am laid in earth," only as an item of a song recital, have no idea of the significance of this music in relation to its context. It is one of the surest and most compelling effects in all opera. Yet it seems that nothing will persuade the English public to admit Dido to the company of Verdi, Wagner and Puccini : not even of Mozart.
When the work was given its first German production at Miinster, in March 1927, it was hoped that its success there would result in a revival of interest in England, just as the early success of Gerontius at Ditsseldorf was seconded in this country, although at first it had been given a dubious reception at Birmingham. But, in the case of Dido there was no revival. Whenever the opera is given at Sadler's Wells and elsewhere it is attended by a few students of the period, and by those who have a vague idea that Purcell was very likely an eighteenth-century composer and that therefore Dido may prove to be another Beggar's Opera.
Purcell's music for Dryden's comedy, Amphitryon (which was produced by the Norwich Players not long ago) again reveals with what aptitude he could write for the theatre. It is not to be expected that Dryden's tribute to the com- poser will carry any weight with audiences of the twentieth century. Nevertheless it is interesting to recall his words. Like many another poet he was not altogether in favour of collaborating with a composer. Amphitryon was offered as a trial. The result is clear in Dryden's dedication at the beginning of the play : " But what was wanting on my part, has been abundantly-supplied by the excellent composition of Mr. Purcell ; in whose person we have at length found an Englishman equal with the best abroad." Thereafter Dryden accepted Purcell as a worthy associate and even went so far as to cramp his verses, " making them rugged to the reader that they might be harmonious to the hearer." This generous waiving of poetic licence had reference to the patriotic opera King Arthur (1691), in which the famous Frost Scene marks one of Purcell's highest attainments in theatre music.
As for instrumental music, Purcell continued that English Fantasy tradition of which Thomas Mace wrote so eloquently. In Purcell's examples (which have been transcribed by M. Andre
Mangeot and the late Peter Warlock) the formal elements have been transcended and a high plane of imagination reached. Like some of the Fantasies of his forerunners, Purcell's are the expression of a peculiarly aloof and intense quality of inspiration, a quality which is not precisely en. countered again in English music until Vaughan Williams. His Tallis Fantasia is a late and almost miraculous flowering of a tree that was thought to be dead.
Most unreasonable of all is the indifference shown to Purcell's church music. It is but a little thing to ask that his anthems and services should be more frequently given in choirs and places where they sing daily. When, a few months ago, the Westminster Abbey Special Choir devoted a whole service of Purcell's music to his memory, one could not but be impressed by the imaginative power and variety of Purcell's mind, especially as the service also included examples of his instrumental music.
The public is not altogether to blame for the neglect of this great composer. Not only are performances of Purcell scarce, but there is singularly little literature upon the subject to encourage an interest in his music. Until recently the only direct studies were those of William H. Cummings (1881), Dennis Arundell (1927), and Henri Dupre (1927), the last having been published in French and later translated into English. To these can now be added a valuable little book by A. K. Holland (published by George Bell at six shillings). Mr. Holland gives a very clear account of Purcell's place in the English tradition and without indulging in hero-worship expounds the actual music in such a way as to stir up a curiosity to hear more of it. Perhaps the B.B.C. will satisfy that curiosity. It would be appropriate to follow the Elgar Festival with one to commemorate Purcell and another in honour of Byrd, and so proclaim the three greatest among
Previous page
