[2] Since the above was written and in type I have read Mr. Ernest
Walker's most interesting book, "Music in England," which contains a
valuable chapter on the discords found in the music of Purcell and of
earlier men.


THE ODES AND CHURCH MUSIC.

Some of the later odes are notable works. Perhaps the St. Cecilia ode of
1692 is, on the whole, the finest. Like the earlier works of the same
class, in scheme the odes resemble the theatre sets, though, of course,
there are neither dances nor curtain tunes. All that has been said about
the stage music applies to them. The choruses are often very
exhilarating in their go and sparkle and force, but I doubt whether
Purcell had a larger number of singers for what we might call his
concert-room works than in the theatre. The day of overgrown, or even
fairly large, choruses and choral societies was not yet; many years
afterwards Handel was content with a choir of from twenty to thirty.
Had Purcell enjoyed another ten years of life, there is no saying how
far he might have developed the power of devising massive choral
designs, for we see him steadily growing, and there was no reason why
the St. Cecilia ode of 1692 and the _Te Deum_ and _Jubilate_ should have
remained as the culminating points. The overture to the 1692 ode is
unusually fragmentary. I see no indication of any superior artistic
aspiration in the fact that it consists of six short movements; rather,
it seems to me that Purcell was, as ever, bent on pleasing his
patrons--in this case with plenty of variety. Still, one movement leads
naturally into the next, and scrappiness is avoided, and the music is of
a high quality and full of vitality. Purcell frequently set a double bar
at the end of a section, and makes two or more numbers where a modern