E-text prepared by Steven Gibbs
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
WILLIAM BYRDE ... HIS MASS
OUR LAST GREAT MUSICIAN (HENRY PURCELL, 1658-95)
BACH; AND THE "MATTHEW" PASSION AND THE "JOHN"
HANDEL
HAYDN AND HIS "CREATION"
MOZART, HIS "DON GIOVANNI" AND THE REQUIEM
"FIDELIO"
SCHUBERT
WEBER AND WAGNER
ITALIAN OPERA, DEAD AND DYING
VERDI YOUNG, AND VERDI YOUNGER
"THE FLYING DUTCHMAN"
"LOHENGRIN"
"TRISTAN AND ISOLDA"
"SIEGFRIED"
"THE DUSK OF THE GODS"
"PARSIFAL"
BAYREUTH IN 1897
A NOTE ON BRAHMS
ANTON DVORÁK
TSCHAIKOWSKY AND HIS "PATHETIC" SYMPHONY
LAMOUREUX AND HIS ORCHESTRA
Many years ago, in the essay which is set second in this collection, I wrote (speaking of the early English composers) that "at length the first great wave of music culminated in the works of Tallis and Byrde ... Byrde is infinitely greater than Tallis, and seems worthy indeed to stand beside Palestrina." Generally one modifies one's opinions as one grows older; very often it is necessary to reverse them. This one on Byrde I adhere to: indeed I am nearly proud of having uttered it so long ago. I had then never heard the Mass in D minor. But in the latter part of 1899 Mr. R.R. Terry, the organist of Downside Abbey, and one of Byrde's latest editors, invited me to the opening of St. Benedict's Church, Ealing, where the Mass in D minor was given; and there I heard one of the most splendid pieces of music in the world adequately rendered under very difficult conditions. I use the phrase advisedly—"one of the most splendid pieces of music in the world." When the New Zealander twenty centuries hence reckons up the European maste