546 Sir Alexander C. Mackenzie [May 28^ 



with popular and comic songs makes that most excellent fooling 

 which only wise men may safely indulge in. 



Here is our old friend the " Perfect Cure " dovetailed in a Bach 

 Fugue, passing through " Rule Britannia " into Sullivan's " Lost 

 Chord." There is method in the madness, for the words run : 



" Though you make a bad beginning, still you somehow 

 muddle through : 

 And from e'en your latest error read how good may 

 come to you." * 



Now, while all this splendid nonsense contains nothing set down 

 in malice, the gay irresponsibility also serves to deal out an occasional 

 hard knock at some prevailing musical tendencies, cleverly imitated 

 and, so to speak, " nailed to the counter " ; as if to say, " I can be 

 just as crazy as anybody, when I like." 



Dodgson or Calverley have done nothing better. 



Come we now to that purposeful sequence of what may only be 

 called " appeals " for brotherhood among the peoples, in which both 

 poet and musician speak and sing so earnestly, and the idealist urges 

 the belief that highest happiness is to be found in the individual 

 endeavour — for others' sakes. 



That the life that is worth living is a dedication ; that the spirit 

 should ])e girt for whatever may befall, is practically his own 

 summing up of the meaning of the Fourth Symphony (revised in 

 1910). 



" Finding the Way " is its significant motto. And its detached 

 movements are headed " Looking for it," " Thinking about it," 

 " Playing on it," and finally " Girt for it." 



The more comprehensive title " Life " would have fitted that 

 work, as well as the Fifth Symphony of 1912 — so far as I am aware 

 his last and most effective effort in purely orchestral music. In the 

 latter the same intention is predominant, and evidently not to be 

 dismissed from the composer's mind. 



The linked movements are thus sub-divided : " Stress," indicating 

 revolt against the tragedy of life, bringing in its train suffering and 

 distress. Then " Love," in which lies true hope of healing, human 

 love calling and answering. Thirdly, *' Play," also having its 

 genuine province, and the inexhaustible instinct of humanity for 

 fun and humour its share in helping. The last movement is 



* The " Acharnians," written as late as 1914 — not many months before 

 the declaration of hostilities — is now of peculiar interest. 



In the final bars you will hear, simultaneously, scraps of the " Meister- 

 singer," the " Marseillaise," an old comic song called '■' An Norrible Tale 

 I have to teU," and, as the curtain descends, "Die Wacht am Rhein" with 

 our " British Grenadiers " on the top of it. 



Coming events did certainly cast their shadows before. 



