Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/618

In this case the burden is sung continuously by the solo voice, but in other instances it is taken up by the chorus at the end of a solo song; or solo and chorus combine, as for instance in the burden of 'Sir Eglamore':—

To the present writer some characteristics of English airs appear to be—the absence of chromatic notes in the melody, and of modulations into distantly related keys in the harmony. The tonic and dominant, and occasionally the subdominant, are often the only chords used in harmonising the tune. Another and most characteristic feature is the frequent occurrence of diatonic passing notes. Of this peculiarity 'Rule Britannia,' or 'The bailiff's daughter of Islington' are good examples. A third is the constant habit of English tunes to begin with the dominant on the last beat of a bar, and either descend or ascend to the tonic for the first beat of the new bar, as in 'The hunt is up,' 'The British Grenadiers,' 'Rule Britannia,' and numbers more. The partiality of English composers for the leading note has already been noticed.

The 18th century was rich in popular songs; and for most of them, especially of those which were produced in its latter half, we are indebted to educated musicians. The immense popularity which some of them acquired and long retained would entitle them to be regarded as national songs. Viewed in regard to musical structure they are generally ballads. As a rule, they have an easy accompaniment, often nothing more than the melody harmonised, a marked and striking rhythm, and a simple pleasing melody repeated for each stanza. Very popular in his day was Henry Carey—probably the composer of 'God save the King'—who published a hundred songs and ballads under the title of 'The Musical Century'; and the gems of this collection, on which Carey's posthumous fame mainly rests, were 'Death and the lady,' and 'Sally in our Alley'—now oftener sung to the older tune of 'The Country lass.' William Boyce (born 1710) claims a recognition, if only for the spirited song 'Come, cheer up my lads' (Heart of Oak), which he wrote to Garrick's words in 1759. In the year of Boyce's birth, a still greater composer was born, namely Arne, whom a competent critic has adjudged to be the most national of all our songwriters. 'Rule Britannia' was written by Arne in 1740, as a finale for the masque of 'Alfred'; and passing thence from mouth to mouth, soon grew to be pre-eminent among national airs. Wagner has said that the first eight notes of 'Rule Britannia' contain the whole character of the English people. If this is so, we may well be proud of it. The obligations of the English people to these opera writers, and of the latter to them, have been reciprocal; for while some of the best national airs are due to their imagination, they in turn courted applause by the free introduction of current popular songs into their operas.^[1] In the same year with 'Rule Britannia' Arne produced his beautiful settings of the songs in 'As you like it'; and the songs in other plays of Shakspeare were afterwards treated by him with equal felicity. The most perfect perhaps of these is his 'Where the bee sucks' of 'The Tempest.' In later years, however, a change crept over Arne's style, and a change for the worse. He came to crowd his airs with florid passages in a way which is conspicuous in the songs of his opera 'Artaxerxes.'

Passing on, we come to William Jackson of Exeter, who was thirty years younger than Arne. A certain tameness and insipidity about most of Jackson's songs speedily relegated them to obscurity; but he had his hour of celebrity, and there was a time when no collection was deemed complete without his 'Encompassed in an angel's frame,' 'When first this humble roof I knew,' from Burgoyne's 'Lord of the Manor,' or 'Time has not thinned my flowing hair,' from Jackson's Twelve Canzonets. Among his contemporaries, but a little junior to him, were Thomas Carter, Samuel Arnold, Samuel Webbe, and Charles Dibdin; the last a patriotic ballad-writer rather than a musician. The pathos of 'Tom Bowling' has rescued it from neglect, but only by sailors are Dibdin's other songs remembered now. Their fate is intelligible enough, for they evince no real musical skill, and the words of most of them are poor. But however defective these songs may have been as works of art, they will always merit an honourable mention for the pleasure

1. Most indeed of the best songs of a period extending from Purcell's time down to the early part of the present century were once as it were embedded in dramatic pieces; but those pieces have faded into oblivion, while the songs have survived, without their original environment, in the favour of successive generations. As dramatic forms of song these compositions lie outside the scope of the present article, but as national and popular songs they come within it. A list of 40 operas, entirely set to current popular airs, and produced between 1728 and 1740, is given under English Opera, vol. 1. p. 489.