English Musical Renaissance - Conception

Conception

The term originated in an article by the critic Joseph Bennett in 1882. In his review in The Daily Telegraph of Hubert Parry's First Symphony he wrote that the work gave "capital proof that English music has arrived at a renaissance period." Bennett developed the theme in 1884, singling out for praise a now forgotten symphony by Frederic Cowen (the Scandinavian Symphony) and equally forgotten operas by Arthur Goring Thomas (Esmeralda), Charles Villiers Stanford (Savonarola) and Alexander Mackenzie (Columba).

The idea of an English musical renaissance was taken up by the music critic of The Times, Francis Hueffer, and his successor J A Fuller Maitland. The latter became the most assiduous proponent of the theory. His 1902 book English Music in the XIXth Century is subdivided into two parts: "Book I: Before the Renaissance (1801–1850)", and "Book II: The Renaissance (1851–1900)". Fuller Maitland's thesis was that although "it would be absurd to claim a place beside Beethoven or Schubert" for earlier British composers such as Macfarren and Sterndale Bennett, it was not absurd to do so for his favourite British composers of the late 19th century. The Royal College of Music, the centre of the renaissance theory, was founded explicitly "to enable us to rival the Germans".

Fuller Maitland regarded Stanford and Parry as the pre-eminent composers of the renaissance. Both were upper-middle-class Oxbridge graduates, like Fuller Maitland, and both were professors at music colleges. The writer Meirion Hughes describes Fuller Maitland's world as one of insiders and outsiders. Fuller Maitland rejected British composers who did not conform to his template, notably Sullivan, Elgar and Delius. Hughes wrote: "Sullivan's frequent forays into what was viewed as the questionable realm of operetta removed him from the equation at once. Elgar was never a contender, with his unacademic, lower-middle-class background coupled with progressive tendencies, while "Fritz" Delius was simply not English enough." The same writer suggests that Fuller Maitland's aversion to Sir Frederic Cowen was due to anti-Semitism.

A major concern of the movement was the collection and preservation of English folk songs. Stanford, Parry and Mackenzie were all founding members and vice-presidents of the Folk-Song Society from 1898. This was another barrier between the renaissance movement and outsiders. Sullivan and Elgar regarded folk music as neither important nor interesting, and Elgar was further distanced from the renaissance set by his antipathy to English music of the Tudor and early Stuart periods, which Fuller Maitland and others were enthusiastically propagating.

Those identified as leading composers of the musical renaissance theory achieved positions of power and influence in the musical world. Mackenzie became principal of the Royal Academy of Music; and at the Royal College of Music, Parry succeeded George Grove as director, and Stanford was professor of composition, with pupils including Arthur Bliss, Frank Bridge, Herbert Howells, Gustav Holst, John Ireland and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The composer Sir John Stainer wrote, "Parry and Stanford are rapidly getting absolute control of all the music, sacred or secular, in England; and also over our provincial Festivals and Concert societies, and other performing bodies."