Hubert Parry and Cyril Scott : two post-Victorian songwriters: with an introductory essay on the musical problems of Great Britain in the nineteenth century

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.