THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18551, 28 November 1925, Page 15

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

HALF HOURS IN A LIBRARY. (specially warrrzH roa "thx pbbss.') By A. H. Gbinllxg. CXLL—OX THE POET LAUREATE. When the International Exhibition of 1802 was opened in London, and Tennyson's Odo was sung, one of the newspapers reported that the Poet Laureate was present "clothed in his green baize" ; this in reference to the well-known fact that the laurel of the noet is the "odorous bay." A feature of the Christehurch Exhibition of 1906-07 was the inclusion in the opening ceremony of an Ode. words bv Mr Johannes C. Andersen, music by Mr Alfred Hill; the Dunedin Exhibition has just been opened with a hymn. Tli is raises the question asked some years ago by Mr Robert Bridges, Poet Laureate, "What sort of words are best suited foi music, and what 6ort of setting they should have?" Few poets are in a better position to answer such a question, since Mr Bridges is a iki'l-d and accomplished musician; as a metrist he is among the most subtle of our time, learned even to diiiiculty, besides all which he is a scholar both in ancient and modern letteis. this is the considered opinion ot Dr. Herbert Warren, president of .Magdalen College, Oxford, and Professor of Poetry, as set forth in his biography of Bridges in the volume "Robert Bridges and Contemporary Poets": in the "Poets and Poetry of the .Nineteenth. Century." A lady friend, who is a devoted worshipper of Wordsworth and who has more recently acquired a veneration for Bridges, directed my attention to the following beautiful lines, intended as "A Picture of ihe ideal world of Delight created by Art:

Open for mc the gates of delight, The gates of tho garden of man's desire; Wncre spirits trucked by heavenly fire Have planted the trees of life — Their branches in beauty are spread, 'i'h t ;ir iruit divine To the nations is given for bread, And crushed into wine. To thee, O man, the sun his truth has given; The moon hath whisper'd in love her silvery dreams; Night hatli unlockt the starry heaven, The sea the trust of his streams: And tho rapture of woodland tpring Is stay'd in its flying; And Jjeath cannot Stins Its 'beauty undying. Fear and di&entwine v Their aching beams in colours fins; Pain and woe forego their might. After darkness thy lea-ping sight, After dumbness thy dancing sound, After fainting thy heavenly "flight, After sorrow thy pleasure crowned' O, enter the garden of thy delight, Thy solace is found. These three stanzas are taken from an "Ode for the Bicentenary Commemoration of Heury Purcell" by Robert Bridges, which, together with a preface on the musical setting of Poetry was published in 1896 by Elkin Matthews as No. 11 of "The Shilling Garland" series, and of which I am the proud possessor of a first edition. The preface is of interest to-day because there is a growing tendency to set many of the gems of modern poetry to music and by musicians the tendency has been encouraged as a relief from the trashy and silly words to .which in the past good music has been set. The Poet Laureate discusses the question from the literary side, at the same time being well informed from the musician's point of view. "It is a current idea," he writes, "that by adopting a sort of declamatory treatment it is possible to give to almost any poem a satisfactory musical setting; whence it would follow that a non-literary form is a needless extravagance." Mt Bridges is chiefly concerned in combating the general proposition that "modern music by virtue of a declamatory method is able satisfactorily to interpret almost any kind of good poetry." He proceeds to enumerate what appear to be impediments in the way "of this announced happy marriage of music and poetry," especially dealing with the difficulties which beset the musician in endeavouring to interpret pure literature by musical declamation. It is not possible to quote the argument as a whole, but the headings of each division may be given:

First, the repetitions in music and poetry are incompatible. Though some simple forms dependent on repetition are common to both, yet the general laws are in the two arts contraries. In P o ** repetition is avoided, in music it is looked if or. ... Secondly, the difficulty -which this difference occasions is much heightened by the method of declamatory exposition. . . • Thirdly, when a declamatory musical movement is once started, the musician has very few means of bringing it to a conclusion, ... , Fourthly, the very rhythms of poetry and choral music are different in kind. The rhythms and! balances of \erse are ■unbarred, tha rhythms of choral music are barred. ... „ , . i Fifthly, the most beautiful effects in poetry are obtained by suggestion. . . . Music is the stionger in the greater force 01 the emotion Taised. ... . Sixthlv, if this be true of,the highest poetio beauty, how will the declamatory method fare when it has to deal with the commonplaces .and ' l>are or even ugly words which are the weaknesses and u.*» kindnesses of language? ... Seventhly, the inflexions cf all speech are much more limited in character, number, and scope than those of the trained singing voice. Eighthly, in consideration of tne commonest difficulties which arist. in °e"i°S to music words which have not been specially contrived for it, it appears that, compared with a more purely musical way, the declamatory method is absolutely at a disadvantage.

The Poet Laureate goes on to say that the musician's difficulty is much increased by the necessity of pleasing large audiences, and speaking of the Homeland, he adds:—"lt is ™rtain that the final appeal is not to the first liearing of any large audience m this country. What sort of music is really in request may bo judged from the repertories of our military bands, ana the programmes of the Royal concerts. Even the highest class concerts 1 have seen interlarded with unworthy which were rapturously received by the fashionable hearers who did not recognise the trap. 'The man who hath no music in himself Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils' and these were the stratagems to obtain his spoils. It is possible enough that an audience may enjoy having commonplaces vociferated at them with orchestral accompaniments: but that is nothing. To the musician, the poet will say that he is surprised to find a term, which is considered a reproach in poetry, esteemed as the expression of the best means of its interpretation. To call a poem declamatory or rhetorical is to condemn it: and music is naturally less rhetorical than speech, so that m a declamatory interpretation of poetry music would seem to abnegate its own excellence for the sake of a yialrty foreign to itself, and repudiated by the art which it is seeking to heighten. He will not be satisfied by the assurance that the method will serve to introduce

and explain poetrv to some people who are generally indifferent to it: it will se " n to him that the musician is labouring to introduce into pure vocal music the old dramatic crux, that awkwardness from which it has in its best forms been beautifully free. Because in the musical drama that must be sung, which should be spoken, why try to make that seem to be spoken which should be sung."

It may not be generally known that in 1899 Mr Bridges published a hymn book of his own. "Tho Yattendon Hymnal." It was in 1882 that the Poet Laureate, who had taken the medical course with the M.B. degree at Oxford, and who afterwards held several hospital appointments, being on the staff of St. Bartholomew's, and the Children's Hospital in Great Ormonde street. London, decided to give up London and medicine, and to retire to the country. He selected the county of Berkshire, and he made his home at Yattendon on the downs above Pangbourne. The ''Yattendon Hymnal" is a most original volume, based on his own personal experiment and experience with his rustic choir in the parish church on the Berkshire Downs. It is described as "Hymns in Four Parts, with English words for sintjing in Church, edited by Robert Bridees." In the preface he makes acknowledgment to his friend Mr Henro Ellis Wooldridge, some time the Slade Professor of Fine Art for. the music. One hymn from the hook. No. 82. may lie quoted as a sample of the quality of the rest:

My heart is fill'd with longing And thick tho thoughts come thronging Of my eternal home; Tha.t all desire fulfilleth And wo© and terror stilleth: Ah, thither fain, thither fain would I come. Creation knows no staying, And with'the world decaying May love iteelf decay; Yea. as the earth growi Her erace and beauty moulder, Her joy of life passetli, passeth. away. But Thou, O Love supremest, Who man from woe redeemest, My Maker, Thee I pray, My_ sou! with night surrounded, Above the abyss surrounded, Lead forth to light, lead to Thy Heavenly day. It is worthy of, remark that in "Songs of Praise," a new and modern hymnal, just issued by the Oxford University Press, no fewer than fourteen hymns from "The Yattendon Hymnal" are included, several of wbiVh, however, are translations by Mr S.-idges from the original Latin. In a preface, the compilers of "Songs of Praise" make a comment which has bearing upon the Poet Laureate's already quoted remarks concerning the relation of words To music, and vice versa:— Our English hvmns, few of which are earlier than Dr. w"atta, and,most of which were the product of the Victorian era, have not been altogether worthy ot tho English. Bible and the English Prayer Book; and the bulk of the tunes to which they were sung illustrated a period ot British music whioh the musreians of today are anxious to forget, and which, fortunately for our reputation, has been superseded by a national levival that has now given our music a foremost place in Europe again. It is therefore a hopeful sign that ail our recent hymnals have shown courage in replacing many -weak and poor hymns by words and music more v/orthy of our great traditions. The remarkable versatility of the Poet Laureate is seen in an address delivered in October, 1916, before the Swindon Branch of the W.E.A. On this and other things I may have something to say next Saturday. Meanwhile I conclude with the comment made by Harold Monro, in his book on "Some Contemporary Poets." "Mr Robert Bridges, we are told, accepted the Laureateship on his own terms, and it is certain that, in his almost) complete abstention from the composition of ceremonial odes, or of artificial complimentary poems, as by his con; tinued concentration on the theory and practice of his own proper art, he has restored much dignity to the office, besides adding a significance which it had not previously possessed. When a newspaper photographer called on Mr Bridges, the Laureate leaned back in his easy chair, and lifted his feet high on to the mantelpiece: in that pose he appeared on the front page of a daily picture paper. After Horatio Bottomley, with customary Impudence, had tried in Parliament to cast ridicule on Mr Bridges, the Laureate was again visited bv the Press. His comment on the incident was said to be 'I don't care a damn.' TSor need he. His poetry will he read and enjoyed as long as the Enilish language is written and understood."