PREFACE
Reading edition
This book is not, in any sense, technical.
It is an attempt to give a simple and rational, though in a volume of this size, necessarily incomplete, account of events that have led to the complex state of music existing in England at the present time.
Should it offer nothing to the musician or historian, I hope it will be found of interest to the general reader.
The desire to make each chapter as complete, on the subject with which it deals, as space would permit, has necessitated a certain amount of repetition, but I trust that the object will condone the fault.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.Music Before and During the Reformation1
II.Music Before and During the Reformation—(continued)20
III.Early English Composers47
IV.The Decline of English Music67
V.Musical Education in England93
VI.Progress of Orchestral Music125
VII.Oratorio in England150
VIII.Opera in England176
IX.Distinguished Musicians in England during the Nineteenth Century201
X.General Survey244
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Henry PurcellFrontispiece
PAGE
Queen Elizabeth32
Calvin76
G. F. Handel, by Hudson154
Sir Arthur Sullivan228
Sir Edward Elgar246