Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/102

Rh 90 MUSIC [HISTORY. made wider and wider application of the principle he had exemplified, and displayed in their works its utmost power of expansion. Three of the world s greatest musicians may be cited to show the force owned by genius of piercing to the utmost depth of a natural law, while having but their own delicate sense of propriety to restrain them within its bounds. Henry Purcell and his two colossal successors, George Frederic Handel (1685-1759) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), wrote every combination of musical notes that down to our own latest times has ever been employed with good effect ; and the more the works of these masters are studied the more are they found to foreshadow the supposed novelties in harmony employed by subsequent artists. This refers but to the technical materials of which their music is wrought ; it is impossible in the present article to discuss fully the form and excellence of their works. Purcell. PurcelFs voluminous and superb works for the church, his many compositions for the theatre, his countless con vivial pieces, and his far less numerous instrumental writ ings are now but little known, and the ignorance of the age is its loss. They have a wealth of expression that cannot be too highly esteemed, and a fluency of melody that proves the perfect ease of their production. The idiom of the period in which they were written is perhaps a par tial barrier to their present acceptance, and the different capabilities of instruments and of executants upon them of those days from the means at a modern musician s com mand make the music written in the earlier age difficult sometimes to the verge of possibility, and yet weak in effect upon ears accustomed to later uses. 1 Handel. Handel s music has never, since he wrote, been wholly unknown or unloved, at least in England. He was engaged to come hither as a dramatic composer because of his Con tinental renown ; this was immensely increased by the large number of Italian operas he wrote for the London stage, but, excellent of their kind as are these, the change of structure in the modern lyrical drama unfits the wonted witnesses of the works of the last hundred years to enjoy the com plete performance of those of earlier time, and hence we hear but detached excerpts from any of them. It is upon Handel s oratorios and his secular works cast in the same mould that general knowledge of his mighty power rests, and these are a monument that cannot perish. The Messiah and Israel in Egypt are didactic oratorios, with which may be classed L &amp;lt; Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Mo derate, and Alexander s Feast. The others were defined by himself each as an &quot; oratorio or sacred drama,&quot; and Ads and Galatea, Semele, and Hercules are similarly con structed. Esther (his earliest English oratorio) and Ads and Galatea were composed for performance in the mansion of the duke of Chandos in 1720 and 1721, and were publicly produced with the author s sanction in 1732, but then, as was expressly notified, without dramatic action. Their success established the class of work and form of representation in English use, for, though Handel subse quently wrote Italian operas, he from time to time engaged a theatre for the performance of complete works in concert wise, and yearly composed some new piece for production in this manner. In 1741 he visited Dublin, taking the Messiah, which had been written with a view to the occa- 1 Here must be denned the chromatic genus in its modern applica tion, which is signally exemplified in this master s music ; it admits of notes foreign to the signature of the key, but which induce no modu lation, or, in other words, change of tonality. Notes expressible only by accidentals are as essential to the chromatic scale of any prevailing key as are those elemental in the diatonic scale which are indicated by the key- signature. Chromatic chords were ised by Purcell and his nearest followers, chromatic passing-notes (notes that form no portion of chords) came little into use until after the middle of the ISth century. sion, and this masterpiece was first heard on the 13th April 1742 in the Irish capital. The reverence with which the work is regarded in England all but equals that for its subject, and the countless repetitions of its performance have made it so familiar to all hearers that the unversed in musical knowledge, little less than the profoundest musicians, feel its sublimity and listen to it with such awe as no other work of art induces. No master has ever excelled Handel in verbal declamation (as at the descent on the last word of &quot; sheds delicious death &quot; in the air of Acis, at that on the last word of &quot;so mean a triumph I disdain &quot; in the air of Harapha, and the extraordinary use of an almost toneless low note of the tenor voice on the last word of &quot;He turned their waters into blood&quot; in Israel in Egypt}, m poetic expression (as in the choruses &quot; He sent a thick darkness &quot; in Israel, and &quot; Wretched lovers &quot; in Ads and Galatea}, or in dramatic characterization (as in all the personages in Jephiha, who are each distinguished from the others far better in their musical than their verbal phraseology) ; but the quality in his music which compels the epithet sublime is the broad, simple grandeur of the choral writing, which, rich in the devices of counterpoint, never fails in clearness, never in the melodious flow of each of its parts, and is hence as pleasant to executants as it is perspicuous to auditors. He wrote under the sway of contrapuntal law, from which theorists had not yet defined the exceptions, but the force of his genius broke occasionally through its despotism, and so, in his works as in PurcelPs, the principle of fundamen tal harmony and the application of the chromatic element are freely demonstrated. 2 Bach was one of a very large family of musicians, who Bach, for two centuries practised the art, in many instances with great success ; the family glory culminated in him, and was scattered among his many sons, in whom it became ex tinct. Bach was a more assiduous student than either his predecessor or his contemporary who are here classed with him. It was later in life than they that he issued his earliest works, for his youthful renown was more as a player than as a producer. Having no theoretical instructor, he made searching study of all the music of earlier times and of his own. 3 Whatever Bach learned of the principles of counter- 2 A custom of the age is largely and, we now feel, sadly exempli fied in Handel s art legacies, namely, the writing in many instances but an outline of the score which was to be filled up extemporaneously by a player on the organ or harpsichord with counterpoint that is necessary to the effect, and even essential to the idea. So long as the composer lived to make these improvisations, we know they added interest and we doubt not they added beauty to the music ; but after- organists lack the ability or courage or both to supply the deficiency. Mendelssohn wrote for Israel such an organ part as he would have played in the performance of the oratorio, diffidently deliberating on what originally was trusted to the fortune of the moment, and the like has rarely been done by other musicians for other works. Mozart wrote for the Messiah, Acis, Alexander s Feast, and the Ode for St Cecilia s Day wind-instrument parts comprising such matter as might have been played on the organ had one been in the hall wherein these pieces were first performed in Vienna ; but they modernize the char acter and often alter the idea, while they complete and perhaps adorn the music. That these parts exist, and that their merit induces their adoption when the works are performed, have been a licence for the production of &quot;additional accompaniments&quot; to many a masterpiece of Handel, when such genius as Mozart had has not inspired the writer. The former custom and the later licence are both to be deplored, particularly in our age, when with regard to other arts the aim prevails to purify the works of older time from additions by strange hands that have accumulated to disfigure them. 3 Among the masters from whose example he deduced his own principles, some of the most famous are Girolamo Frescobaldi of Fer- rara (c. 1587), his pupil Johann Caspar Kerl (1628-1693), Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707), Johann Jacob Froberger, another pupil of Frescobaldi (ob. 1667), Georg Muffat (ob. 1704), whose son was even more prolific and perhaps more noted than he, Johann Pachelbel, Georg Boehm, and most probably Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741), whose work on counterpoint, Gradus ad Parnassum, was the text-book by which both Haydn and Mozart taught, and is still held iu high respect.