Parry and Stanford lived to see many results of their influence and example. No one, however, among the younger composers has produced a body of songs equal in importance to either of theirs. It seems as if the impetus they gave to song on classical lines has already spent its force ; if this is true, it is also true that no song composer has arisen with sufficient power and imagination, and, what is also essential, sufficient understanding of the funda mental needs of the voice, to convince the world that the new song is better than the old. The result is that though many musicians have written songs, only a few are song-composers. Of these latter Somervell (1863-1937) was one who followed the bent of his own genius and resisted the temptation to experiment with novelties that were alien to it. He produced a body of work character ized by sincere and tender feeling, instinct with a quiet beauty which is individual and charming. Larger qualities appear in the admirable cycle from Tennyson's Maud, in "The Shropshire Lad," "James Lee's wife," and "Love in Springtime" (the last named containing the singularly beautiful "Young Love lies sleeping"). "The Shepherd's Cradle Song," "Once at the Angelus," "When I am dead, my dearest," and "Weep ye no more, sad Fountains," "As through the Land" (2nd setting in Eb) and the dainty settings of some of Blake's Songs of Innocence, deserve to be remembered. They are real songs, grateful to sing and without pretentiousness or pose. Somervell has arranged many folk-songs, in Songs of the Four Nations (Cramer), and two volumes of Welsh Folk-songs (Boosey), with notable skill, taste and sympathy.
songs of Roger Quilter (b. 1877) are also grateful to sing, especially the settings of Shakespeare's lyrics and of seven Elizabethan lyrics; in the former "Blow, blow thou Winter Wind," and "It was a Lover and his Lass" and in the latter "Weep ye no more," "Damask Roses," and "Fair House of Joy," in spite of some syllabic inexactitudes, are specially good. A vein of wistful sentiment or quiet brooding as in "A Land of Silence," "A Last Year's Rose," pervades a good deal of his later work and appears too in his arrangement of "Drink to me only with thine eyes," in which the accompaniment is his own harmonic meditation on that lovely air and verse. In "To Daisies," "Now sleeps the Crimson Petal" and "Love's Philosophy," he has com posed three love-songs in different styles and of undoubted beauty. Vaughan-Williams.—A strong personality is felt in the songs of R. Vaughan-Williams (b. 1872), whose "Silent Noon" (Ros setti) holds a place among the masterpieces of lyrical song. He has composed many songs, all revealing imaginative qualities of an unusual order and unquestioned sincerity. He is bent on getting himself expressed at whatever cost, and has experimented in many styles, giving the impression that neither in the voice nor in the piano has he quite found the medium that he wants. Beauty for its own sake, the sensuous element in music, has little appeal for him; he is introspective rather than lyrical. There is something in his work that is elemental, and at bottom simple, as in the folk-songs of his country, of which he has arranged many with singular in sight. "Bushes and Briars" and "A bold young Farmer," are felt, not as arrangements, but as original work, so entirely has he ab sorbed their spirit (see his volume of Folk-songs from the Eastern Counties). The modal influences of the folk-song contribute much to the atmosphere which pervades the deeply impressive cycle Wenlock Edge (from Housman's Shropshire Lad, for tenor voice, string quartet and piano), and Five Mystical Songs (George Her bert) for solo, chorus and orchestra, of which the rapt intensity of "The Call" and the relentless force of "Antiphon" are equally arresting. Among his songs for voice and piano may be cited "Orpheus with his Lute," "The Roadside Fire," and others from the two volumes of Stevenson's Songs of Travel, "The Sky above the Roof," "The Mill Wheel" and "Linden Lea," which has the freshness of a folk-song. Whether the coming generation will set these aside and take to its heart the composer's later style, with its uncompromising modal polyphony, is an obvious question to ask and a dangerous one to answer.
In a survey of modern English song the salient fact is not that the store has grown so large, but that so many composers have contributed to it. It must suffice, therefore, to add to what has been written of individual composers a list of songs, necessarily incomplete, which have established their worth or deserve atten tion. Those which appear in a collection already published under
the auspices of the Society of English Singers, Fifty modern Eng lish songs (Boosey and Co.) are not included. The reader is reminded that songs of the most modern type are not under review.
Bax, Five Irish Songs, of which "The Pigeons" is a masterpiece of delicate illustration ; E. C. Bairstow, "Orpheus with his Lute," "The Oak Tree Bough" (a grim picture), "I heard the learned Astronomer"; A. Benjamin, "Phyllis milking her Flock," "The Piper," "Diaphenia"; E. Bullock, Brittany; George Butterworth, Bredon Hill and other songs from A Shropshire Lad of which "Is my Team ploughing" is a gem ; also a volume of English Folk-songs (arranged) ; Granville Bantock, "Yungyang" and "The Feast of Lanterns"; M. Besly, "Time yon old Gypsy Man" and "Epitaph"; Frank Bridge, "Love went a-riding," "Go not, Happy Day," "Come to me in my dreams"; Olive Carey, "Melmillo," "A Rondel" and a volume of English folk-songs (arranged) ; B. J. Dale, "0 Mistress Mine" and "Come away death" (with viola obligato) ; Harold Darke, "Uphill"; Malcolm David son, "A Christmas Carol"; Thomas F. Dunhill, The Wind among the Reeds, a cycle (including "The Fiddler of Dooney" and "The cloths of Heaven") and "The Haymakers' Roundelay"; Frederick H. Cowen, "At the mid-hour of Night," "The Birthday," "Onaway, awake, Beloved"; H. Walford Davies, "When Childer plays," "The Bells of Bethlehem" and Songs of Innocence (Blake) ; Gustav Hoist, Hymns from the Rig Veda (especially "I, the Queen of all," "The Heart wor ships," and "Four Songs for Voice and Violin") ; a volume of "Folk songs from Hampshire" (arranged) ; Elgar, Sea pictures; Edward Ger man, "Who'll buy my Lavender," and "It was a lover and his lass"; Armstrong Gibbs, "Nod," "Silver," "The Fields are full," and the humorous "With Five Eyes"; Alan Gray, "Tiger, Tiger," and "Eleu loro" ; Ivor Gurney, two cycles Ludlow and Teme, The Western Playland (for tenor and baritone respectively, with piano and string quartet), "Edward" (Scotch ballad), "Spring," "Desire in Spring" and "Sleep"; Hamilton Harty, "The Rachray Man," "Lane o' the Thrushes," "A Drover"; W. H. Hadow, "Under the Hill" and "Bright is the Ring of Words"; Herbert Howells, "King David," "Mally 0" and Gavotte; Herbert Hughes, 2 vols. of Irish Country Songs (arranged) ; John Ireland, "Spring Sorrow," "If there were dreams to sell," "The Vagabond," and "Santa Chiara"; F. Keel, "My Sweet Sweeting," Salt Water Ballads (2 sets) and "Helen of Kirconnell," arrangements of "Elizabethan Love Songs" (2 vols.) ; Peterkin, "The Galliass"; Cyril Scott, "The White Knight"; Martin Shaw, "Hefle Cuckoo Fair," "Song of the Palanquin Bearers," "Cuckoo"; Thiman, "The Silver Swan" and "As Joseph was a-walking"; Ernest Walker, "Corinna goes a-maying," "Snowdrops," and "Bluebells from the Clearing" ; Gerrard Williams, "Song in Autumn" and "Moon"; Peter Warlock, "Lullaby," "Pigges nie" and "That ever I saw"; Charles Wood, "Ethiopia Saluting the Colours," "The dead at Clonmacnois," "At Sea," and "Denny's Daugh ter"; 25 Irish Folk Songs (Boosey) (arranged) ; Maude V. White, "To Mary," "Go, lovely Rose," "Absent yet Present," "So we'll go no more a-roving," and "Mary Morison." In Grove's Dictionary of Music Mrs. E. Woodhouse's article "Song," gives a full bibliography of the whole subject of song and folk-song, country by country. In the edition of 1928 further information will be found in the articles upon the chief composers of songs and in the cata logue of their works which in most cases is appended with dates. The following list is mainly of books which the present writer has found most useful: Ambros, Geschichte der Musik (1862-82) ; Reissmann, Das deutsche Lied (1861 ; rewritten as Geschichte des deutschen Liedes, 1874) ; Schneider, Das musikalische Lied (1863) ; Oxford History of Music (19oi—o5) vols. iii. iv. v. and vi.; W. H. Hadow, Studies in Mod ern Music, 2 vols. (1895-96) ; Parry, Art of Music (1897) ; Max Fried lander, Brahms' Lieder (1922) ; Oscar Bie, Das deutsche Lied (1926) ; E. Walker, History of Music in England (5907) ; Dr. Fellowes, The English Madrigal composers (1921) ; E. Dyson, The New Music (1924) ; Boehme, Altdeutsches Liederbuch (1877) ; Reimann's Das deutsche Lied, 2 vols. Das deutsche Geistliche Lied, 6 vols. ; Weckerlin, Echos du temps passé, 3 vols. (1855). (W. Fn.)