Abstract:
The following study is an attempt to assess the state
of song composition in England in the period between the nineteenth century and our own twentieth century. Generally
speaking it was a time of increasing musical activity – the second English musical Renaissance, as Frank Howes has
termed it. Although England failed to produce a vocal
composer of a status equal to the giants of Continental
Europe, nevertheless the most gifted indigenous composers
were by no means insignificant musical talents. The
failings of many were the failings of the period in general,
for the Victorian mores tended to impose severe limitations
on the work of both domestic and visiting composers. The
nineteenth century was a highly productive period – the age
of the three-volume novel and the oratorio – and this
productivity extended likewise to the field of song
composition.
The purpose of this study, therefore, is to examine the
manner in which composers responded to the limitations
imposed by the Victorian Age and reacted against in the period
immediately after it, and to this effect the solo songs of
two composers will be examined in detail: namely, those of
Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918) and Cyril Meir Scott (1879-1970). In view of the importance of the musico-sociological
background to this survey, the study will
commence with an examination of-contemporary attitudes in
Victorian Britain to art in general.
