In the dance measures and fugues, after a few bars, one
has a premonition (begotten of oft-repeated and sometimes wearisome
experience) of what is coming, of the kind of thing that is coming; just
as in a Haydn or Mozart sonata one knows so well what to expect that one
often expects a surprise, and may be surprised if there is nothing to
surprise one. But in many of Purcell's largos, for example, the music
flows out from him shaped and directed by no precedent, no rule; it
flows and wanders on, but is never aimlessly errant; there is a quality
in it that holds passage to passage, gives the whole coherence and a
satisfying order. Emerson speaks of Swedenborg's faculties working with
astronomic punctuality, and this would apply to Purcell's musical
faculties. Take a scrappy composer, a short-breathed one such as Grieg:
he wrote within concise and very definite forms; yet the order of many
passages might be reversed, and no one--not knowing the original--would
be a penny the wiser or the worse. There is no development. With Purcell
there is always development, though the laws of it lie too deep for us.
Hence his rhapsodies, whether choral or instrumental, are satisfying,
knit together by some inner force of cohesion.
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