OLD-WORLD MUSIC IN VOGUE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 6 January 1923, Page 4

OLD-WORLD MUSIC IN VOGUE.

By Marcato.

"Tudor music" nuas itself suddenly ' in vogue. For the best part of "300 years it was neglected. Then for a few years it was a happy hunting- ] ground of a few specialists. ±$ut now—within the past year or so, and particularly within the past few months—it has become a fashion, a vogue of smart drawing-rooms. j The amateur singer puts aside his modern balads, and even his Brahms and Schumann, in favour of the lutesongs of the year 1600. The very word "lute-song" exercises a spell, one would say, and the cleverest people go j to the fountain-head of Tudor music— • i;he_ British Museum—and make their own copies from the original editions. i Then there is Tudor piano music— '■ not written, of course, for the piano but for the "virginals'"—and nothing could be smarter in these days than a spinet or a harpsichord on which to tinkle the pieces of Farnaby, John Bull and Orlando Gibbons. But a piano will serve. There is to be a whole series of "oldworld'] concerts in London this winter at which the harpsichord will replace i the piano, and the singing of madrigals and the dancing of sarabands will be relished by ail in the movement. Some measure of affectation there may be in this sudden "Back to 1600" movement, but it would be a mistake not to allow that at bottom there is a i genuine and natural impulse. j | Partly it is a reaction against the "'torrentjal" orchestral music of Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Scriabin. Partly [ it is a realisation that the world's mas- j ters of music in 1600 A.D. were Eng- j j lishmen, and that we as a nation have i scandalously neglected our heritage of j their dainty, exquisite art. { j. Simple as some of this music may j { look on paper—the lute-songs, for in- J , stance, and the keyboard pieces—ft is I '. not altogether easy to get back to the spirit of 1600. Those who play the : lute ask for tz*ouble; the instrument , has a charming name, but a rebellious ' nature. j i But the art of arts is madrigal sing- j ing, and this is no matter for a passing \ j fad. It asks for tlie care and devo-j . tion of string-quartet playing. | j The party of madrigalists known as . ; "The English Singers" have shown j London concert-goers what it means, j If the Tudor music vogue sets the ama- j teur singers of Kensington and St. I John's Wood and Chelsea imitating ' that model it will mean more than a change in musical fashions—it will mean a step up in musicianship wherever it is done. The fact is that while there is a trace of "faddishness" in reviving the dances and the musical instruments of Gjueen Elizabeth's Court, the vocal music of those times stands safe above any flux of fashion. It has only to be known for its unsurpassable quality to tell. Two zealous scholarly musicians of to-day, Dr. R, R. Terry and Dr. E. H. Fellowes, are mainly responsible that it is restored, to knowledge, and thus are indirectly responsible for the present "boom" in those circles where the cry always is for some new thing. i