When we come to survey his work as a
whole, we shall be able to compare the three-part sonatas issued in 1683
with the sonatas in four parts published in the year after his death. We
shall learn that towards the end of his life he was a more magnificent
master, than he was when twenty-four years old. That is the most we can
see. We may observe ode after ode, it is true, but with regard to them
we ought to be able to take into account conditions and limitations of
which nothing is recorded nor can be known. This holds, also, with
regard to the theatre music. We can merely guess at what his employers
asked him to provide. We can never know the means they placed at his
disposal. One significant thing must be noted here: the music
itself--its style, spirit, even mannerism--affords us no trustworthy
clue as to when any particular piece may have been written. For ages the
biographical copyists have not ceased to marvel at a boy of fourteen
writing the _Macbeth_ music. It is silly rubbish, with which I believe
Purcell had nothing whatever to do. They marvelled at the immature
power latent in the music to _The Libertine_, which they supposed he
wrote in 1676.
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