Ernest Ford - A Short History of English Music

The three principal causes that led to the decline and practical extinction of English music were the Reformation, the indifference of a foreign Court, and the settlement in England of large numbers of foreign musicians, among whom was one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time, the German, George Frederick Handel. The two latter causes may be said to be the complement one of the other.

Of these three hostile influences, the Reformation and all that it involved was, overwhelmingly, the most fatal in its effect, for it struck at the root foundation; it killed the very soil that gave birth to the plant. The first blow it inflicted on music – and in those days that meant English music, not as now – and it was a deadly one, was its suppression in the services of the Church. To grasp to the full the significance of this act, one must recall some of the salient features of national life that had existed for centuries.

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A country that has taken its music at the hands of the foreigner for three centuries can scarcely be called musical.

In its original meaning, the term implied a cheerful and righteously joyful sense of living. Its popular significance after three centuries of Puritanism, rather inclines to alcoholic elation.

The leading note is a semi-tone lower than the keynote, and is essential to the modern scales, both major and minor.

More familiarly known as shawn.

"Short Apologies of the School of Abuse," London.

The word ballad comes from Ballare , to dance.

"Shakespeare in Music." Louis C. Elson. L. C. Page & Co., Boston.

Cockle hat and staff were distinguishing marks of a pilgrim.

It may be mentioned that there are numerous variations of these, as of all traditional melodies.

Burton: "Anatomy of Melancholy," 1621.

William Chappell's "Music of the Olden Time."

"That will draw three souls out of one weaver" is a line of peculiar interest.

Although it shows a distinct lack of reverence, it is quite typical of the spirit of the time. The "weavers" were mostly Calvinist refugees settled on the East Coast, whose austere manners and mode of life made them a constant source of ridicule to the people among whom they had taken shelter.

The imperious will of the Tudor monarchs had, hitherto, prevented the dissemination of Calvinism in England, and so, to the boisterous, happy-go-lucky temperament of the Elizabethan Englishman, the ostentation of religious phraseology, added, probably, to their quaint pronunciation of the language, made them at once a butt of scorn and contempt.

The expression used, too, by the clown "By'r lady" shows that Protestantism had as yet made little inroad on the life of the people. It is worthy of note that it was from this part of England sailed the first batch of emigrants to the new world in the "Mayflower," now immortalised in history.

A canon is a form of composition in which a melody is started by one voice and followed by another, one or more bars later (or even less) in strict imitation of it.

Novello & Co.

Since the above was written I read in the Evening News , November 24, 1911, the following words from a lecture delivered by the Dean of St. Paul's:

"In its present state" (the Church of England) "it was the product of a political compromise, which was so framed as to include Catholics who would renounce the Pope, and Puritans who were not anarchistic on principle. It was officially Protestant and disliked the name. Ever since the Reformation the reformed churches had been in a state of uncertainty, like a Dotheboys Hall after it had expelled its Squeers, full of earnestness and deep conviction, but undecided as to what kind of church they wanted, how it ought to be governed, what the conditions of membership ought to be and where the seat of authority should reside."

A cadence is the end of a musical phrase.

A tablet to his memory in Westminster records, in touching language, that he "has gone to that Blessed Place, where only his harmony can be exceeded."

He died of consumption.

There is a conflict of authorities on this point, but it may be taken for granted that he was but little, if any, older at the time.