Professor C. Hubert Parry, whose last work, "Job," has been so
enthusiastically received and criticised by the musical world, composes
according to the nature of the composition on which he is engaged.
"There are a hundred and fifty different kinds of work to be done in
composing," he says, "and they vary in accordance with its being a big
work like a symphony or an oratorio, or an opera, or a little thing
like a song or a pianoforte piece. Then, what one wants may come into
one's head when walking or driving, or in bed--anywhere, indeed, but in
front of the paper it has to be written on. Then there is the general
scheme to be considered, which usually comes first, and has to be
thought out in big, cloudy way, out of which the details emerge into
distinctness by degrees, and often want doing over and over again."
Like many another composer, Mr. Parry prefers the morning for the
mechanical part of the art, viz., the work of scoring and writing down
and getting into order those ideas which have already been conceived.
"As far as new ideas and schemes are concerned," he adds, "I am glad
enough to take them at any time of the day they are so obliging as to
come."
It is wonderful how chary the English composers are of answering the
question as to whether or no they consider their countrymen a musical
race. It seems a subject on which they fear to express an opinion,
and either treat the matter with silence or, like Sir Joseph Barnby,
content themselves by saying "We're on the mend." Not so Mr. Parry,
however.
"I consider," he says, "that the English are naturally the most musical
race in the world, except the Germans. It would take a good many
pages to explain my opinion, as it is obviously contrary to all the
received and accredited traditions, so I will not attempt to justify
it at present beyond saying that I don't mean that the race is gifted
with any natural facility, but that taking it all round there is more
appreciation of what is genuinely and wholesomely good--Beethoven,
Bach, Haydn, Brahms, Handel (at his best), Mozart, and the great
madrigalists and so forth--than in any other country except Germany.
The fact that the English people have no great taste for opera is all
in their favour."
Mr. Parry concludes with a few remarks on the merits and demerits of
writing "to order." "Certainly no one could turn out anything worthy
of the name of art," he says, "if he had it on his mind that he was
writing under pressure; neither will any man do anything really good
when he is thinking more of the money payment, or suiting managerial
ideas, than of the thorough working out of his own devices. But
this should not be confounded with a man's undertaking work that is
thoroughly congenial to him when he has plenty of time to carry it out
honourably. If the Philharmonic Society or Richter ask a composer to
write them a symphony, they put at his disposal a magnificent orchestra
for the interpretation of anything that he may have to say in that
line; or if the committee of any great festival invite a composer to
write them an oratorio several years before it is wanted, they put at
his disposal a splendid chorus and soloists, and all the resources a
man can desire. With such opportunities, I should have thought a man
had a better chance of being inspired to some purpose than if he were
pottering about just when the humour took him."
I am fortunate enough to be able to give here, in facsimile, a bar from
the original first score of "Job."
[Illustration: C. Hubert Parry]