The English Musical Renaissance was a hypothetical development in the late 19th and early 20th century, when British composers, often those lecturing or trained at the
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...
, were said to have freed themselves from foreign musical influences, to have begun writing in a distinctively national idiom, and to have equalled the achievement of composers in mainland Europe. The idea gained considerable currency at the time, with support from prominent music critics, but from the latter part of the 20th century has been less widely propounded.
Among the composers championed by proponents of the theory were
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet (27 February 18487 October 1918) was an English composer, teacher and historian of music. Born in Richmond Hill in Bournemouth, Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is b ...
,
Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic music, Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was ed ...
and
Alexander Mackenzie. Writers who propounded the theory included
Francis Hueffer
Francis Hueffer (born Franz Carl Christoph Johann Hüffer; 22 May 1845 – 19 January 1889) was a German-English writer on music, music critic, and librettist.
Biography
Hueffer was born in Münster, Germany, on 22 May 1845 to Johann Hermann Hü ...
and
J A Fuller Maitland, while it received further promotion from the critics
Frank Howes
Frank Stewart Howes (2 April 1891 – 28 September 1974) was an English music critic. From 1943 to 1960 he was chief music critic of ''The Times''. From his student days Howes gravitated towards criticism as his musical specialism, guided by the a ...
and
Peter J. Pirie.
Conception
The term originated in an article by the critic
Joseph Bennett in 1882. In his review in ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' of
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet (27 February 18487 October 1918) was an English composer, teacher and historian of music. Born in Richmond Hill in Bournemouth, Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is b ...
's First Symphony he wrote that the work gave "capital proof that English music has arrived at a renaissance period."
[Eatock, p. 88] Bennett developed the theme in 1884, singling out for praise a now forgotten symphony by
Frederic Cowen
Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen (29 January 1852 – 6 October 1935), was an English composer, conductor and pianist.
Early years and musical education
Cowen was born Hymen Frederick Cohen at 90 Duke Street, Kingston, Jamaica, the fifth and last c ...
(the ''Scandinavian Symphony'') and equally forgotten operas by
Arthur Goring Thomas
Arthur Goring Thomas (20 November 185020 March 1892) was an English composer.
Life
He was the youngest son of Freeman Thomas and Amelia, daughter of Colonel Thomas Frederick. His elder brothers included Freeman Frederick Thomas, a noted cricket ...
(''
Esmeralda''),
Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic music, Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was ed ...
(''Savonarola'') and
Alexander Mackenzie (''Columba'').
[
The idea of an English musical renaissance was taken up by the music critic of '']The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'', Francis Hueffer
Francis Hueffer (born Franz Carl Christoph Johann Hüffer; 22 May 1845 – 19 January 1889) was a German-English writer on music, music critic, and librettist.
Biography
Hueffer was born in Münster, Germany, on 22 May 1845 to Johann Hermann Hü ...
, and his successor J A Fuller Maitland.[ The latter became the most assiduous proponent of the theory. His 1902 book ''English Music in the XIXth Century'' is subdivided into two parts: "Book I: Before the Renaissance (1801–1850)", and "Book II: The Renaissance (1851–1900)".][Burton, Nigel. "Sullivan Reassessed: See How the Fates", ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 141, No. 1873 (Winter, 2000), pp. 15–22] Fuller Maitland's thesis was that although "it would be absurd to claim a place beside Beethoven or Schubert" for earlier British composers such as Macfarren Macfarren is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Emma Maria Macfarren (1824–95), English pianist and composer, sister-in-law of George Alexander Macfarren
*George Macfarren (1788–1843), English dramatist
*George Alexander Mac ...
and Sterndale Bennett, it was not absurd to do so for his favourite British composers of the late 19th century.[ The ]Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...
, the centre of the renaissance theory, was founded explicitly "to enable us to rival the Germans".
Fuller Maitland regarded Stanford and Parry as the pre-eminent composers of the renaissance. Both were upper-middle-class Oxbridge
Oxbridge is a portmanteau of Oxford and Cambridge, the two oldest, wealthiest, and most famous universities in the United Kingdom. The term is used to refer to them collectively, in contrast to other British universities, and more broadly to de ...
graduates, like Fuller Maitland, and both were professors at music colleges. The writer Meirion Hughes describes Fuller Maitland's world as one of insiders and outsiders.[McHale, Maria]
Review: ''The English Musical Renaissance and the Press 1850–1914: Watchmen of Music'' by Meirion Hughes
''Music and Letters'' (2003) Vol 84 (3): pp. 507–09 Fuller Maitland rejected British composers who did not conform to his template, notably Sullivan, Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
and Delius
Delius, photographed in 1907
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius ( 29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934), originally Fritz Delius, was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he resisted atte ...
. Hughes wrote: "Sullivan's frequent forays into what was viewed as the questionable realm of operetta removed him from the equation at once. Elgar was never a contender, with his unacademic, lower-middle-class background coupled with progressive tendencies, while "Fritz" Delius was simply not English enough."[ The same writer suggests that Fuller Maitland's aversion to Sir Frederic Cowen was due to anti-Semitism.][
A major concern of the movement was the collection and preservation of English ]folk songs
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has be ...
. Stanford, Parry and Mackenzie were all founding members and vice-presidents of the Folk-Song Society
The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS, or pronounced 'EFF-diss') is an organisation that promotes English folk music and folk dance. EFDSS was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dan ...
from 1898. This was another barrier between the renaissance movement and outsiders. Sullivan and Elgar regarded folk music as neither important nor interesting, and Elgar was further distanced from the renaissance set by his antipathy to English music of the Tudor and early Stuart period
The Stuart period of British history lasted from 1603 to 1714 during the dynasty of the House of Stuart. The period ended with the death of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, Queen Anne and the accession of George I of Great Britain, King George I ...
s, which Fuller Maitland and others were enthusiastically propagating.
Those identified as leading composers of the musical renaissance theory achieved positions of power and influence in the musical world. Mackenzie became principal of the Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...
; and at the Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...
, Parry succeeded George Grove
Sir George Grove (13 August 182028 May 1900) was an English engineer and writer on music, known as the founding editor of ''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians''.
Grove was trained as a civil engineer, and successful in that profession, ...
as director, and Stanford was professor of composition, with pupils including Arthur Bliss
Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (2 August 189127 March 1975) was an English composer and conductor.
Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army. In the post-war years he qu ...
, Frank Bridge
Frank Bridge (26 February 187910 January 1941) was an English composer, violist and conductor.
Life
Bridge was born in Brighton, the ninth child of William Henry Bridge (1845-1928), a violin teacher and variety theatre conductor, formerly a m ...
, Herbert Howells
Herbert Norman Howells (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983) was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.
Life
Background and early education
Howells was born in Lydney, Gloucest ...
, Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...
, John Ireland
John Benjamin Ireland (January 30, 1914 – March 21, 1992) was a Canadian actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in ''All the King's Men'' (1949), making him the first Vancouver-born actor to receive an Oscar nomin ...
and Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...
.[Carnegie, Moir, rev. Rosemary Firman.]
"Mackenzie, Sir Alexander Campbell (1847–1935)"
Dibble, Jeremy
"Parry, Sir (Charles) Hubert Hastings, baronet (1848–1918)"
and Firman, Rosemary
"Stanford, Sir Charles Villiers (1852–1924)"
all in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 21 September 2011 The composer Sir John Stainer
Sir John Stainer (6 June 1840 – 31 March 1901) was an English composer and organist whose music, though seldom performed today (with the exception of ''The Crucifixion'', still heard at Passiontide in some churches of the Anglican Communi ...
wrote, "Parry and Stanford are rapidly getting absolute control of all the music, sacred or secular, in England; and also over our provincial Festivals and Concert societies, and other performing bodies."
Dissention
Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
in his capacity as a music critic mocked the notion of an English musical renaissance led by Parry, Stanford and Mackenzie, describing their works as "sham classics"[ and characterising them as a "mutual admiration society":
The musicologist ]Colin Eatock
Colin Eatock is a Canadian composer, author and journalist who lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Life and career
Eatock was born in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1958, and attended the University of Western Ontario, McMaster University and The University of Tor ...
writes that the term "English musical renaissance" carries "the implicit proposition that British music had raised itself to a stature equal to the best the continent had to offer"; among the continental composers of the period were Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...
, Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
, Dvořák, Fauré, Bruckner
Josef Anton Bruckner (; 4 September 182411 October 1896) was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist best known for his symphonies, masses, Te Deum and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-Germ ...
, Mahler
Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...
and Puccini
Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long lin ...
. That idea was controversial at the time and later, though it retained its adherents well into the 20th century. Eatock notes that as late as 1966, Frank Howes
Frank Stewart Howes (2 April 1891 – 28 September 1974) was an English music critic. From 1943 to 1960 he was chief music critic of ''The Times''. From his student days Howes gravitated towards criticism as his musical specialism, guided by the a ...
, successor to Hueffer and Fuller Maitland at ''The Times'', stated that the English musical renaissance was "an historical fact".
In 1993, Robert Stradling and Meirion Hughes argued that the proponents of the movement were "a self-appointed and self-perpetuating oligarchy" based at the Royal College of Music in London. Grove, Parry, and Vaughan Williams were "the dynastical figureheads of the renaissance establishment."[Onderdonk, Julian. "The English Musical Renaissance, 1860–1940: Construction and Deconstruction," ''Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association'', September 1995, pp. 63–66] Stradling and Hughes contended that this élite was single-minded to the point of ruthlessness in promoting its conception of British music, sidelining all native composers who did not conform to its aesthetic views.[ The composer ]Thomas Dunhill
Thomas Frederick Dunhill (1 February 187713 March 1946) was a prolific English composer in many genres, though he is best known today for his light music and educational piano works. His compositions include much chamber music, a song cycle, '' ...
wrote that when he was a student at the Royal College under Parry "it was considered scarcely decent to mention Sullivan's name with approval in the building". Elgar, about whom Fuller Maitland wrote tepidly, was hailed by Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...
as "the first progressive English musician."
The contention of Fuller Maitland and others that the "English musical renaissance" had brought British music into the world class is in contrast to the title of a 1904 book by the German writer Oscar Adolf Hermann Schmitz: ''Das Land ohne Musik: englische Gesellschaftsprobleme'' – "The Land without Music: problems of English society".
Further reading
The classic histories of the English Musical Renaissance are:
* Frank Howes
Frank Stewart Howes (2 April 1891 – 28 September 1974) was an English music critic. From 1943 to 1960 he was chief music critic of ''The Times''. From his student days Howes gravitated towards criticism as his musical specialism, guided by the a ...
. ''The English Musical Renaissance'' (London: Secker & Warburg, 1966)
* Peter J. Pirie. ''The English Musical Renaissance'' (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1979)
* Michael Trend. ''The Music Makers: The English Musical Renaissance from Elgar to Britten'' (New York: Schirmer Books, 1985)
* Hughes, Meirion and Stradling, Robert. ''The English Musical Renaissance: Construction and Deconstruction'' (1993), revised 2nd ed. as ''The English Musical Renaissance 1840-1940: Constructing a National Music '' (2001)
* Karolyi, Otto. ''Modern British Music: The Second British Musical Renaissance'' (1994)
Notes and references
;Notes
;References
Sources
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* {{cite book , last= Stradling, first=Robert , author2=Meirion Hughes , year=2001, title= The English musical renaissance, 1840–1940: constructing a national music , location=Manchester, publisher= Manchester University Press , isbn= 0-7190-5829-5
English music