On Purity in Musical Art, Tr. by W.H. Gladstone

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 Excerpt: ... like middling composers, maintain an uniform level, but flag at times, when the spirit needs to recover from a great creative effort. Hume says somewhere that Frenchmen are like cucumbers, a nice fruit, but like the one to the other: Englishmen are like melons; five out of ten may be thrown aside as fit for nothing, but the rest taste all the more delicious. And so it often is with the works of really great composers, and young musicians will be led astray if they form their judgment from this or that piece, without taking trouble to acquaint themselves with their author in his entirety. I regard Palestrina as a very angel among composers; yet I possess six of his masses in which I find nothing of special note, while I consider his Missa Papas Marcelli a colossal work of art, and many of his other works as altogether unique and unsurpassed. The same may be said of Caldara, Lotti, Durante, and many others--even of Handel himself; for he composed rapidly, was often compelled to work, often mentally harassed, and for some years suffered from gout; so that his operas and oratorios (of course with some exceptions) may be likened to boxes containing jewels wrapped in cotton wool; and I can only pity those who impose upon themselves the unconditional duty of giving an oratorio of Handel's in its entirety, as if they were thereby achieving something wonderful. It is notorious that our performers, composers, and music-masters, are, as a rule, utterly ignorant of all works more than fifty years old. Whilst in all other pursuits--in poetry, in painting, in architecture, and the rest, we labour diligently to bring to light the collective productions of a great Past, to make them clear, and to bring them back to life; the masterpieces of the greatest musical composers ...