MUSIC.
THE CRITIC.
In music, as in other matters, each generation draws nourish. ment from traditions which are vital, by which may be under- stood those traditions which hold a double sanction, that of our own inmost approval as well- as that of the ages. Not every
tradition continues venerable. One may last a hundred years to die in the hundred and first. An emptied or hollow tradition is a more convention, unlovable and ultimately quite unloved, and a moment must arrive when those who once venerated it must laugh, or be laughed at, and those who deride it will do it good service. A small explosive, a friendly laugh, may do destructive wonders. But in some cases a public bombardment is needed. The foolish conventions of the theatrical world in 1779 were subjected to such a bombardment by Sheridan and by the public of Drury Lane whose aid he invoked- " To this a friendly, just and powerful court, I come ambassador to beg support "- and to whom in his prologue he addresses this appeal :— " Can he undaunted brave the critic's rage ? In civil broils with brotlier bards engage ? Hold forth their errors to the public eye ? Nay more, e'en newspapers defy ? " - Brother bards and critics would, being human, laugh with the best of them. For the stage has one inherent wholesomeness : while an unseen folly may waste a lifetime of effort, no seen folly can long survive. In the long run the public is a safe critic precisely because it is always able to enjoy a corporate laugh at its own follies. Social silliness can nowhere be more merrily counteracted than by an able society-entertainer.
Corny Grain could induce a Duke in his own drawing-room to laugh heartily at such quips as : " My dear Sir, please recollect that my family have not earned their living for the last five hundred years !" And Mrs. Dangle's gibe about the " misses and ma'ams piping hysteric changes on Juliets and Dorindas, Pollys and Ophelias ; and the very furniture trembling at the probationary starts and unprovoked rants of would-be Richards and Hamlets," would please nowhere so much as at Drury Lane.
It is in the same way appropriate that Sir Charles Stanford should invite opera-lovers at the Shaftesbury to laugh with him at the follies of opera, at the singing-actors " sliding their smooth semibreves and gargling glib divisions in their outlandish throats." For although the semibreves are possibly less smooth than in Mrs. Dangle's time, and though operatic singers are less called upon to gargle in public, the incongruities of opera go further than these things, and they still prove troublesome. There is an interesting prefatory note in the vocal score.
" This opera," writes Sir Charles, " is meant to be played as the original piece should be, in all seriousness. Any attempt to treat it farcically only spoils the humour of the play." In other words, the all-seriousness of Puff and his Tragedy is an essential part of the fun. Lack of humour seems to be the unfailing penalty of every form of egoism, and Puff with all his tribe are funny because they lack fun. The all-serious tragedy is as comic as the all-farcical could ever be ; indeed, the all-serious anything is unreal and unbearable till it evokes the very merri- ment it tried to exclude. Sir Charles bids us perceive that the all-serious opera is a thing of humour too, and that the humour will be spoiled if the singers are in league to caricature that which is already fully entertaining for its own sake. They must seem, like Puff himself, in dead earnest. To those who believe the case for the serious co-operation of music with drama to be overwhelming, and the case against the 'Conventions of Serious Opera (as we still are asked to enjoy them)—especially against the all-sung Tragedy—to be equally overwhelming, it has been a
particularly refreshing and hopeful thing to find a full current of genial laughter at certain features of operatic presentment, for such laughter always seems to signify a salutary inner force at work. Numerous are the happy moments of a hearing of The Critic. First the cacophonous Overture made up by the orchestra as they go along and lasting perhaps a minute, as concise an example of unity in diversity as the Shah or any one could wish ; then the clock-strike with the felicitous touches by which the composer spells expectancy between the strokes ; after this the charming tune to which Raleigh enters, so inevitable and familiar as to seem a direct quotation—that best kind of quotation, the fine phrase emerging spontaneously at the nick of time. The work is full of them; a notable one is the simple rhythmic tune to which Sir Christopher holds forth about " martial symmetry " and " glitering lines," and which recurs in the processions and always seems delightfully right. Then comes the "Auld Lang S3rne " ensemble, brimful of good spirits, in which English and Scottish flavours blend well until Leicester exclaims : " Them spoke old England's genius," and one feels that old Scotland really has the loudest say. Then the massive prayer to mighty Mars, who is implored (in best operatic diction caricatured) to " am-1-14-1st his vohotary now "—Sir Charles departing at least here from his own dictum. By very contrast the quartet music at the heroine's entry has a welcome dreamy sweetness. Tilburina's song to the flowers and birds—the " vulgar wall-flower," the " dapper daisy," the " chaffinch, bull-finch, gold-finch, green-finch " ! and her mad-song in the second act stand out for their felicity. They are aptness it elf, the blend of Sheridan and Stanford seems almost complete; the author's diction reacts upon the composer's as naturally as fuel makes a kettle sing. Then the Governor—splendidly acted, by the way—is a joy. His points are the more easily made for the simple reason that the notes given him are generally the con- versational quaver, not the smooth semibreve. When he announces that the father in him "softens," a fleeting touch of Wagner's pleading vein occurs when he adds the inspired decision that the " Governor is fix'd," a decisive scrap of Beethoven clinches the musical discourse as naturally, possibly as sub-consciously, as a " literary gent " might quote Shake- speare. In music this subtle power to quote the precisely right phrase is rarer far than that of inserting a bar of Ein feste Burg at the word " Protestant."
Yet another interesting variety of assimilated quotation occurs in the finale, where at the approach of Drake a blend of " See the Conquering Hero " and "Rule, Britannia " fleetingly recalls both tunes, while actually it is neither, and distils their associated significance admirably. There is excellent fun over the operatic love duet ; the duel and death of Whiskorandos are Sheridan enhanced ; the suave Brahms-like tune for Thames, in the final masque could hardly be more happily flowing than it is. More need neither be praised nor mentioned. The facts to record are that a timely and notable work is there ; that it seems immediately accepted and enjoyed for what it is ; that it attains high distinction not in newness but in aptness, in unerring grip of tradition, in masterly ease of expression. When Sherldan's sparkling dialogue is not enhanced or is imperfectly preserved, it would seem due to the pative defects of opera, the tiresome old disparity between length of syllable in song and speech.
H. W. D.
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