[Illustration]

This “word-painting,” it must be noted, is of the very essence of Purcell’s art, at any rate in vocal music.  Suggestions came to him from the lines he was setting and determined the contours of his melody.  He always does it, and never with ridiculous effect.  Either the effect is dramatically right, as here; or impressive, as in “They that go down to the sea in ships”; or sublime as in “Full fathom five”; and whatever else it may be, it is always picturesque.  The shivering chorus was an old idea in Purcell’s time, but the sheer power of Purcell’s music sets his use of it far above any other.  It should be observed that none of the principals sing in these “operas”:  they couldn’t.  It is true that many singers, thorough musicians—­Matthew Locke, for instance, and Purcell’s own father—­were also actors, or at least spoken of as actors.  But it is evident they must have been engaged only for the singing parts, which were insignificant as far as the plots of the plays were concerned, though prominent enough in the spectacle or show, and therefore in the public gaze.  When all the enchanters and genies, good and bad, have done their best or worst in King Arthur, the speaking characters finish up their share and the real play in spoken lines; then the singers and band wind up the whole entertainment in a style that was probably thought highly effective in the seventeenth century.  After the last chorus—­which begins as though the gathering were a Scotch one and we were going to have “Auld Lang Syne”—­there is a final “grand dance,” one of the composer’s vigorous and elaborately worked displays on a ground-bass.

[1] Poor Grabut’s fall was most lamentable. (His name, by the way, is spelt Grabu, or Grabut, or Grebus.) Pepys records that when “little Pelham Humfreys” returned from France he was bent on giving “Grebus” a lift out of his place.  He most certainly did; and the case ought to be a warning to humbugs not to set their faith in princes.  He had jockeyed competent men out of their places, and by 1674 he was himself ousted.  He sank into miserable circumstances; and by the end of 1687 was dead.  James II.—­who was a much more honest paymaster than his brother—­apparently paid up all arrears the Court owed him.  His impudence must have been boundless; for he dared to measure himself not only against thorough workmen like Banister, but even men of genius like Humphries and Purcell.  His audacity carried him in the end no further than a debtor’s prison; and had he been paid only the value of his services, he might have died there.

Before making some general observations on the stage music, I wish to give a few instances of Purcell’s power of drawing pictures and creating the very atmosphere of nature as he felt her.  Let me begin with The Tempest.  The music is of Purcell’s very richest.  Not even Handel in Israel in Egypt has given us the feeling of the sea with finer fidelity.  Unluckily, to make this show Shakespeare’s play was ruthlessly mangled, else Shakespeare’s Tempest would never be given without Purcell’s music.  Many of the most delicate and exquisite songs are for personages who are not in the original at all, and no place can be found for their songs.