MUSI C.
MUSIC IN HYDE PARK.
TEE League of Arts is one of the surprising results of the musical renaissance in England. Its production last year of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in Hyde Park was a great popular success: and on July 2nd of this year on the same site, a natural amphitheatre on the north side of the Serpentine, it produced the incidental music to Dioclesian. A pageant was substituted for the rather too lengthy play of Betterton, and the songs and choruses and orchestral music were performed by students of Morley College under Mr. G. Hoist. Diociesian when it was first produced in 1690 was not a financial success, but at least it won the praise of Dryden. In the dedication of Amphitryon, pub- lished in the same year, he speaks of Dioclesian and its composer in these words, "We have at length found an Englishman equal with the best abroad. At least my opinion of him has been such, since his happy and judicious performances in the late opera." Although not on the same level as Dido and Aeneas, which must be placed among the great operas of the world, Dioclesian is worthy of revival. We believe that the performances of it by Morley College are the first since 1784. Indeed, it has been remembered only for the air, "What shall I do to show how much I love her ? " which found a place in The Beggars Opera. The choruses are short, and with two exceptions not among the best of Purcell's work, but the dances and interludes are delightful. The most remarkable of them is the Chaconne in the second act, which, although technically a surprising feat, a canon for two flutes on a ground bass, is also of great beauty. The first and second flutes were placed some distance apart—that the canon might be better appreciated—and between them two sets of dancers danced, also in canon. (For the benefit of non-musical readers, I would explain that a canon in two parts is a strict imitation of one melody by another voice which enters at a certain time distance after the first—the round is a species of canon. A ground bass, of course, is a short tune constantly repeated which forms the bass of the composition.) It is impossible to praise too highly Mr. Hoist's splendid work at Morley College.
On July 9th the League of Arts gave two performances of
Mr. Martin Shaw's little opera, Brer Rabbit and Mr. Fax. Mr. Shaw's music, while very charming, has not the whimsical pathos which distinguishes MacDowell's few pages of piano music inspired by the Uncle RelllUB stories. The wooded slope in Hyde Park, however, was an ideal setting, and the opera was well produced. Nothing could have been more effective than the frog-dance in which some half-dozen livid green " frogs " frolicked under the trees, or the scene in the forest when Brer Rabbit dines with the Deer King and is much perturbed by the " skeeters." The dialogues in Brer Rabbit were arranged from the Joel Chandler Harris stories by the late Mrs. Percy Dearmer. On the remaining Saturdays of this month the League of Arts is giving a series of concerts of Sea Songs and Chanties in Hyde Park at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. ; the idea is excellent and deserves to be well supported. No doubt, when the League is on a safe financial footing, it will produce other British operas of merit ; I would particularly suggest Mr. Rutland Boughton's The Immortal Hour, of which Londoners at present know little.
C. H.
Previous page
