Purcell | Page 8

to use.
There is no distinguishing between the two styles. There are not two
styles: there is one style--the secular style, Purcell's style. Let us pause
a moment, and ask ourselves if any great composer has ever had more
than one style. Put aside the fifth-rate imitators who now copied Mozart,
and now Palestrina, and could therefore write in as many styles as there
were styles to copy, and not one of them their own. There is no
difference between the sacred motets and the secular madrigals of the
early polyphonists. Bach did not use dance-measures in his Church
music, but in the absence of these lies the entire distinction between his
Church and his secular compositions; the structure, manner and
outlines of his songs are precisely alike--indeed, he dished up secular
airs for sacred cantatas. The style of Handel's "Semele" and that of his

"Samson" are the same; there is no dissimilarity between Haydn's
symphonies and the "Creation"; Mozart's symphonies and his masses
(though the masses are a little breezier, on the whole); Schubert's
symphonies or songs and his masses or "The Song of Miriam";
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and the great Mass in D.
Purcell's style is largely a sort of fusion of all the styles in vogue in his
lifetime. The old polyphonic music he knew, and he was a master of
polyphonic writing; but with him it was only a means to the carrying
out of a scheme very unlike any the old writers ever thought of--the
interest of each separate part is not greater than the general harmonic
interest. Then, as he admitted, he learnt a great deal from the Italians.
From Lulli, through Humphries, he got declamatory freedom in the
bonds of definite forms, not letting the poet's or the Bible words warp
his music out of all reasonable shape. The outlines of his tunes show
unmistakably the influence of English folk-song and folk-dance. There
was an immense amount of household music in those days--catches,
ballads, songs and dances. The folk-songs, even if they were invented
before the birth of the modern key-sense, were soon modified by it:
very few indications can be found of their having originated in the
epoch when the modes had the domination; and the same is true of the
dances. The sum of these influences, plus Purcell's innate tendencies,
was a style "apt" (in the phraseology of the day) either for Church,
Court, theatre, or tavern--a style whose combined loftiness, directness,
and simplicity passed unobserved for generations while the big
"bow-wow" manner of Handel was held to be the only manner tolerable
in great music.
By 1680 Purcell's apprenticeship was at end. Early compositions by
him had been published in Playford's "Choice Ayres" in 1676 and 1679;
in 1677 he had been appointed "composer (to the King) in ordinary for
the violin, in the place of Matthew Lock, deceased"; but none of the
highest official posts were his. And we must remember that official
position was a very different thing in Restoration times from what it is
to-day. Nowadays the world is bigger and more thickly populated, and
men of intellect and genius scorn Court appointments and official
appointments generally. These are picked up by Court toadies,

business-headed persons, men belonging to well-connected
families--the Tite Barnacles of the generation. The men of power
appeal to the vast public direct. In Purcell's day there was no vast
public to appeal to. Concerts had scarcely been devised; no composer
could live by publishing his works. The Court, the theatre, the
Church--he had to win a position in one or other or all of these if he
wished to live at all. So in 1680 Purcell the master passed over the head
of his teacher, Dr. John Blow, to the organistship of Westminster
Abbey--that is, he was recognised as the first organist living. In the
same year he composed the first theatre pieces he is known to have
composed--those for Lee's Theodosius. (I disregard as fatuous the
supposition that in his boyhood he wrote the Macbeth music attributed,
perhaps wrongly, to Locke.) It was not for some time that he gained the
supremacy at the theatre which he now held in the Church. That very
trustworthy weathercock John Dryden, Poet Laureate, continued to
flatter others for many long days to come. In this same year he
composed the first of a long series of odes of welcome, congratulation
or condolence for royal or great personages, and about this year he
married.
CHAPTER III
During the first ten years of his mastership Purcell composed
much--precisely how much we can only guess. It was not until 1690
that he began the huge string of incidental theatre sets which were for
so long spoken of as his operas. Mr. Barclay Squire, to whom all who
are interested in