Robert Bridges

“ Even the universally recognized fitness of the interpretation of a common measure in verse by the corresponding common measure in music depends much more on the power and satisfying completeness of the musical form in itself than on any right relation which obtains between words and music under these conditions. Where the poetry has a more elaborated rhythm there are two extremes, between which the musician’s manner of setting must lie. ”

“ From this general condemnation I wish to defend my poem, or rather my judgment, for I do not intend to discuss or defend my poem in detail, nor to try to explain what I hoped to accomplish when I engaged in the work; it is still further from my intention that anything which I shall say should be taken as applying to the music with which my ode was, far beyond its deserts, honored and beautified. But I am 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. ”

“ Makes live the wood, the flocking cries increasing,
Wrangling discordantly, incessantly,
While falls the night on them self-occupied,—
The long, dark night, that lengthens slow,
Deepening with winter to starve grass and tree,
And soon to bury in snow [48]
The earth, that, sleeping ’neath her frozen stole,
Shall dream a dream crept from the sunless pole
Of how her end shall be. ”

“ Eighthly, in consideration of the commonest difficulties which arise in setting 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. It can do nothing with parentheses or dependent clauses. The weak polysyllables, which have fit place in the diction and rhythm of verse, may be helped out by convention or by pure musical distraction; but declamation can only make them ugly. ”

“ One extreme, the musical, is that he should disregard the poetic rhythm for the sake of new musical ideas, which must of course add beauty and not do violence to the words: the other is that he should follow the elaborate poetic rhythm as nearly as possible. The method [xv] of declamation takes this latter extreme; it forbids musical independence, and prefers to identify itself with the poetic rhythm, which in good poetry represents an ideal cadence of speech: but this interpretation is really a convention and a make-believe, and at best only an ingenious translation ”

“ Whence it comes that the imitations of speech in declam [xviii] atory music have a tendency to fall into a comparatively small number of forms, which, even when most skilfully disguised, are easily recognized by an attentive ear, and soon weary with their sameness. The basis of declamatory music is in fact no broader than that of the old recitativo secco, and it would seem unreasonable to hope that any ingenuity in the superstructure can long disguise this, or save itself ultimately from the same condemnation. ”

“ He will not be satisfied by the assurance that the method will serve to introduce and explain poetry to some people who are generally indifferent to it; it will seem to him that the musician is laboring to introduce into pure vocal music the old dramatic crux,—that awkwardness from which it has, in its best forms, been beautifully free. ”

“ Since the poem was never perfected as a musical ode,—and I was not in every particular responsible for it,—I have tried to make it more presentable to readers, and in so doing have disregarded somewhat its original intention. But it must still ask indulgence, because it still betrays the liberties and restrictions which seemed to me proper in an attempt to meet the requirements of modern music.
It is a current idea that, by adopting a sort of declamatory treatment, it is possible to give [x] to almost any poem a satisfactory musical setting ”

“ It is certain that the final appeal is not to the first hearing of any large audience in this country. What sort of music is really in request may be judged from the repertories of our military bands and the programmes of the Royal concerts. Even the highest class concerts I have seen interlarded with unworthy items, which were rapturously received by the fashionable hearers who did not recognize the trap.
“The man that hath no music in himself
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;” ”

“ The apprehension and exhibition of the mood is generally considered a simple matter, but really it affords a wide field for subtlety of interpretation. I have, for the sake of simplicity, assumed that in their choral music the older musicians altogether disregarded the speech inflection of the phrase ”

“ Such a musical phrase will therefore, in proportion to its success, be more closely associated with the words, and cannot well be repeated unless the words are repeated, which the declamation forbids.
Thirdly, when a declamatory musical movement is once started, the musician has very few means of bringing it to a conclusion. There is the method of repetition, which does not suit the Ode, [3] and which on his own theory he is almost forbidden to use ”

“ V. The national intention gives way to wider human sympathies. Music here considered as the voice of Universal Love, calling and responding throughout the world. A national meaning also underlies, in respect of our world-wide colonization. [xxiv]
VI. Sorrow now invites Music; asserting her need to be the chiefest. The occasion being the celebration of Purcell’s genius, her complaint implies a call for some musical lament for his untimely death.
VII. Music replies with a DIRGE for the dead artist; offering no consolation beyond the expression of woe. ”