Chapter I: Preface

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
REFORMATION 1

II. MUSIC BEFORE AND DURING THE
REFORMATION--(_continued_) 20

III. EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS 47

IV. THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH MUSIC 67

V. MUSICAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND 93

VI. PROGRESS OF ORCHESTRAL MUSIC 125

VII. ORATORIO IN ENGLAND 150

VIII. OPERA IN ENGLAND 176

IX. DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS IN ENGLAND
DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 201

X. GENERAL SURVEY 244

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HENRY PURCELL _Frontispiece_

PAGE
QUEEN ELIZABETH 32

CALVIN 76

G. F. HANDEL, BY HUDSON 154

SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN 228

SIR EDWARD ELGAR 246

SHORT HISTORY OF MUSIC IN ENGLAND