Studies and Memories Studies and Memories
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STUDIES AND MEMORIES STUDIES AND MEMORIES BY c. V. STANFORD LONGWOOD PRESS PORTLAND, MAINE Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Stanford, Charles Villiers, Sir, 1852-1924. Studies and memories. Reprint of the 1908 ed. published by A. Constable, London. 1. Music--Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Music- England. 3. Musicians--Biography. ML60.SB2SB 1976 78o'.B 76-22352 ISBN 0-B9341-023-3 Published in 1976 by LONGWOOD PRESS INC. 6 Exchange Street, Portland, Maine04111 This Longwood Press book is an unabridged republication or the edition of 1908. lihrary or Congress Catalogue Card Number: 76-22352 International Standard Hook Number: 0-89341-023-3 Printed in the United States of America NOTE My acknowledgmonts are due to the editors and proprietors of The Times, The Spectator, l'he Daily G-raphic, Tile Outlook, The Nineteenth Oentury, T.w Fortnightly. National, and OamWridge llet1iews, Tile OOf"flhill and lllufTag's Jfagazines, and the Leisu,'c HOI,." for kindly giving me permission to reprint articlfls which have already appeared in these periodicals. The ar.ticle upon ' National Opora' is now Ilrinted for the first time. c. V.S. PREFATORY LETTER My DEAR CnARLES GRAVES,-Having adopted your suggestion that I should reprint some papers, bio graphical and critical, which I have contributed to various periodicals during the last twenty-five years, I speedily found myself in the position rather of a critic than of an author. With the personal notices, con sisting mainly of matters offact, I had not much fault to find: with the critical it was far otherwise. For a man's opinions vary in a quarter of a century as do his bodily tissues, and upon many points I found myself as editor at loggerheads with myself as writer. I hold, however, that a collection of this sort, if it iB to have any value at all, must be a genuine reprint, and not a Bowdlerised or sterilised version of the original. Such freshness as comes from the pen of a writer who is keen at the moment of carrying out hie task, is lost in any process of cool and calculating reconsideration, and therefore I have left them alone (misprints and glaringly bad grammar excepted) in their original sin, such severity as is in them un eliminated, and such immature and hasty judgments as . crop up at intervals uncorrected by later ex perience. For the human failings of a writer some times throw a sidelight (however dim and flickering) upon the history and progress of the time: and therefore I have even included such a red-hot and frankly brutal article 88 'The Wagner Bubble,' not vII Vlll PREFATORY LETTER because I val~e my own diatribes, or because I want to trample aga.in upon the opiniollS which called it forth, but because it illustrates the difference of the estimation in which Wagner was held in this country in 1888 and 1908. Similarly, the transforma tion which the critical attitude towards what was c the new English school' in the eighties has undergone in twenty years, would scarcely be appreciated by my readers if some of my younger tiltings at the Powers that Were disappeared from these pages. This country has to thank YOll and a friend of yours for a phrase which, conceived in merriment, has the ring of a very vital truth. If you had given it to the world before some of these papers were printed, perhaps I, ill spite of my impetuous iURtincts, would have so far profit.ed by it as to make this volume too small to find a publisher. As, however, you are chief instigator of their reappearance, I have a lingering hope that you are acting up to the life maxim which you formulated in the words, C Wisdom while you wait.' As one of my oldest fHends, I am sure that you have not advised me in the Biblical spirit, which desires that the book should be the handiwork of an enemy. If you tum out wrong in your estimate of its value, I Can only hope that it will be a lesson to you that (without your gracious permission) you are saddled, willy-nilly, with its dedication. c. V. STANFORD. CONTENTS GENERAL STUDIES rAOB THB CASE FOR NATIONAL OPBRA 3 THE DBVBWPMBNT OF ORCHESTRAS IN ENGI.ANlJ 24 THB WAGNER BUBBLE 31 MUSIC IN BLEMBNTARY SCHOOLS (3 MUSIC IN CATHBDRAL AND CHURCH CIIOIRI'I 61 SOME ASPECTS OF MUSICAL CRITICISM IN ENGLANII • 70 THE ETHICS OF MUSIC-PUBLISHING IN BNGLAND 80 MEMORIES ALFR.JI:D, WRD TENNYSON • 89 BRNST FRANK . 99 A FEW MEMORIES OF JOHANNES BRAHM.S . 107 JOSEPH ROBINSON 117 JOACHIM . 128 CRITICAL STUDIES HUBBRT PARRY'S JUDITH. 139 SULLIVAN'S GOLDEN LEGE,VD 166 VlmDl'S FALSTAFF. I. 170 II. 184 " " THE MUSIO OF TIIB NINBTEENTH CENTURY 200 INDBX 210 Ix LIST OF ILLUSTUATIONS THE GERMAN OPERA nOUSE AT PRAGUE . To face page 16 ERNST FRANK 99 " JOIIANNE.<; BRAHMS (.ET. 60) 107 " JOHANNES BRAHMS (.ET. 20) lOR " JOSEPH ROBINSON .. 117 JOSEPH ROBINSON AND JOHN STANFORD 122 " JOSEPH JOACHIM (.£T. 30) • 128 " xi GENERAJ~ STUDIES A THE CASE FOR NATIONAL OPERA THE question of founding a National Opera in this country with a permanent home in the Metropolis has in recent years advanced several degrees towards its inevitable fulfilment. The Memorial to the London County Council l with the signatures of men of all sides in politics and all interests in social questions, both musical and non-musical, marked the first step. The careful consideration given by the Council to the Memorial, the evidence it called, and the report it issued (admitting the need for such an institution) marked the second. This was the first occasion when the project had so far come within the range of prac tical politics as to be treated by a representative public body with serious inquiry and with obviously sympathetic interest. There was no question that the educational value and civilising influence of such a great artistic plan was thoroughly realised even by men who had no practical knowledge of or personal enthusiasm for music in itself. They were awake to the fact that every other European country of import ance poBBCssed Buch institutions, and preserved them, and therefore that the collective wisdom of the Con tinent had gauged the value of it as a means of elevat ing and educating the masses of its people. They saw States far poorer in resources and population than onr I The text is printed at tho end of this paper. 3 4 THE CASE FOR NATIONAL OPERA own valuing and perpetuating a; priceless possession which was denied to England. The result was, as it so often is in this country, a pious opinion. The Com mittee of the Council went so far as to advise the reservation of a plot of suitable land for the erection of an Opera House, but they called public attention to the fact that the State, while providing for other arts, 'devotes hardly any funds to music,' and pointed out that it would be fair to expect it at least to co-operate in such an undertaking. Shortly afterwards a sum of over £300,000 was expended by the Council upon the Thames Steam boats, mostly now for sale; and the estimated deficiency on this year's working is over seventy-five per cent. in excess of the sum required to provide a subvention for a National Opera House. Of these figures I will speak presently. Meantime we at any rate did get a favourable opinion: to have got it at all was a gain, and is an asset for future use. How are we to use it 1 In order to discuss the question with any thorough ness we must look back at the musical policy of other countries and at that of our own. It will be found that without doubt England has been putting the cart before the horse. Elsewhere tho N atioDal Stage is founded first, and the schools for training succes sions of artists for it afterwards. The date of Lulli'a control of the State Opera in Paris was 1672, that of the foundation of the Conservatoire was 1795. Eng land has begun by providing the schools to educate artists, and founds no institutions to employ them when they are educated. We are beginning to reap tho mevita.ble harvest of this short-sighted policy. THE CASE FOR NATIONAL OPERA 5 At the present moment the enthusiasm and awaken ing of the last twenty years in musical art is at a height ill this country which has not been known for centuries. From folk-music to the most complex modern forms of composition, from great choral festivals with bodies of singers unrivalled in any other country, to the country competitions, which prove the interest felt throughout the land, every department of the art is advancing with the sole exception of the one branch which the rest of Europe has rated as the most important of all, dramatic music. For not only is it the most direct in its appeal to every class, but it gives the maximum of employment and incentive to the profession, as weH as to many other crafts, scenic, poetic, and scientific. If we do not soon provide this outlet for the talent and genius of the country, the result will soon he felt in the schools, not perhaps so much in quantity as in quality. When the rising generation who gain scholarships and educate them selves up to the mark of public performance find out in increasing numbers every year that they have nothing to look forward to at the end of their train ing, they will ad vise their successors to adopt other more remunera.tive and less disappointing occupations, and the schools founded for serious and professional training will become happy hunting-grounds for amateurs.