MUSIC AND MEN.*
THE critical and biographical studies which Sir Charles Stanford has collected together from among his contributions to periodicals during the last five-and-twenty years will be welcomed alike by lovers of music and by lovers of what is perhaps best described by the fine old-fashioned word "humanity." Music is the moat esoteric and the moat exacting of the arts; and doubtless it is for this reason that musicians have been, with few exceptions, more self-centred and aloof, more withdrawn from the common ways of life, than their brother-artists. Sir Charles Stanford is certainly one of the exceptions, for his pages everywhere display the varied sympathy and the practical good sense which can only be gained by a wide conversance with the world. He is a true humanist, and, whether he is discussing general problems connected with the musical development of the nation, or criticising the works of modern composers, or relating his reminiscences of distinguished men, there is always the same breadth of outlook, the same refinement of taste, and the same engaging undercurrent of humour. The easy and • Studies and Memories. By C. V. Stamford. illustrated. Lonion A. Constable and Co. [7e. 6d. net.]
unpretentious style adds to the charm of the book, which one puts down with the feeling that one has been enjoying some good conversation.
Probably the majority of readers will turn first to the series of biographical papers recording Sir Charles Stanford's recollections of Tennyson, Brahms, Joachim, and others.
The glimpses which these papers afford of the personal characteristics of some of the most eminent men of the last generation are deeply interesting, and one can only wish that these admirable sketches had been drawn upon a larger scale. Sometimes, indeed, our curiosity is aroused only to be sadly disappointed. Who does not long to bear more of that "almost Socratic discussion in Coutts Trotter's rooms at Trinity (anno 1877)" between Joachim, Browning, and Grove on the subject of Beethoven's posthumous quartets ? One can imagine that Joachim was the Socrates, but one would like to know what he said and what Browning thought.
However, we are given some excellent specimens of Joachim's terse and witty speech, such as his reply when asked in 1900 whether he was a Pro-Boer: "I was ; but I changed my views when I saw that they were ready, and you were not." The paper on Brahms, too, is full of good things. " Prosit Abrahams!" Max Bruch exclaimed on one occasion, in chaffing reference to Brahms's supposed Jewish descent (in reality he was a pure Teuton), and received immediately the crushing retort : " Prosit Baruch !" Two interesting portraits of the great composer give additional point to the essay, the charming presentment of Brahma in boyhood contrasting forcibly with the photograph of him in later life, with the massive jowl and beard, the vast brow, and the leonine hair.
Brahma, says Sir Charles Stanford, "could look like Jupiter Olympus at one moment, and like Falstaff the next, but the Jupiter never seemed to suffer in the end." No less interest- ing are the pages on Tennyson, containing as they do some valuable observations upon the musical instinct of the poet. A remarkable instance is also given of Tennyson's faultless ear in poetry. In Goethe's " Kennst du das Land"
"he only disliked one line-
' 0 mein Beschiltror,
of which he said, 'How could Goethe break one's teeth with those z's, while the rest is so musical ?' Curiously enough, it is now known that Goethe erased Beschiitzer,' and substituted Geliebter.' "
Among the critical studies there are some informing and discriminating notices of nineteenth-century music, and an amusing article, written in 1888, in defence of Wagner. The essays on "Music in Elementary Schools" and on "Music in Cathedral and Church Choirs" deserve the attention of all who have the interests of English music at heart. It is reassuring to learn that many of the suggestions contained in the former paper have been put into practice. Let us hope that that upon our choirs may bear equally good fruit. Writing less than ten years ago, Sir Charles Stanford had a sad tale to tell of the neglect of our old masters—Purcell, and Gibbons, and Byrd, and Wesley—in favour of bad modern composers :—
" The net result," he says, "of the record I have studied shows that the proportion of works given [in our Cathedrals] is five modern to one ancient. A lamentable history this. As well might we bring up the children of our age upon three-volume novels, providing them with five sensational books for every one of serious or solid value."
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