It closed with Purcell, and it is no hyperbole to say
the note that distinguishes Purcell's music from all other music in the
world is the note of spring freshness. The dewy sweetness of the morning
air is in it, and the fragrance of spring flowers. The brown sheets on
which the notes are printed have lain amongst the dust for a couple of
centuries; they are musty and mildewed. Set the sheets on a piano and
play: the music starts to life in full youthful vigour, as music from
the soul of a young god should. It cannot and never will grow old; the
everlasting life is in it that makes the green buds shoot. To realise
the immortal youth of Purcell's music, let us make a comparison.
Consider Mozart, divine Mozart. Mixed with the ineffable beauty of his
music there is sadness, apart and different from the sadness that was of
the man's own soul. It is the sadness that clings to forlorn things of
an order that is dead and past: it tinkles in the harpsichord
figurations and cadences; it makes one think of lavender scent and of
the days when our great-grandmothers danced minuets. Purcell's music,
too, is sad at times, but the human note reaches us blended with the
gaiety of robust health and the clean young life that is renewed each
year with the lengthening days.
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