It enables us to understand why this golden age did not last. Whatever the brilliance, and even, at moments, the genius of the music of Purcell's age, it had no roots; above all, it had no soil wherein to strike its roots. The most intelligent and most highly educated public to be found in England, and that which had the greatest love of art, was sincerely interested only in an excessively restricted class of music, which was based on and really derived from poetry: a vocal chamber music for one or two voices, consisting of dialogues, ballads, dances, and poetic songs. Herein lay the essence and the intimate savour of the musical soul of England.[1] All British music that sought to be national had perforce to find its inspiration herein; and the best that it has produced is perhaps in reality that which, like certain pages of the delightful Purcell, has best preserved its fragrance of tender poetry and rustic grace. But this was a somewhat shallow foundation, a very scanty soil for the art; the form of such music did not lend itself to extensive development; and the musical culture of the country, though fairly widespread, yet always skin-deep, would not have permitted of such development.
And beyond this small province of English songs and ballads—which has remained almost intact until our own days,—we see the dawn, in Pepys' Diary, of the Italian invasion which was to submerge the whole.
- ↑ I am not speaking here of English religious and choral music, which, under the Restoration, produced works of great breadth, and always retained a noble dignity of style, without possessing a truly national character.
