MUSIC 

 STYLE IN MUSICAL ART. 1 



BY SIR CHARLES H. H. PARRY 



(Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, Professor of Music, University of Oxford, 

 since 1899; Mus. Doc., LL.D. b. in 1848; educated at Eton and Exeter Col- 

 lege, Oxford. Director Royal College of Music, 1894. Among his composi- 

 tions are Music to the " Birds " and " Frogs " of Aristophanes; Judith, an 

 oratorio; Ode for St. Cecilia's Day; The Lotus Eaters; Job; King 

 Saul; Magnificat; Kong of Darkness and Light. Author of Studies of 

 Great Composers; Evolution of the Art of Music; Summary of Musical His- 

 tory; and Music of the Seventeenth Century.] 



It must be confessed that one can hardly think of style in man or 

 nature or art without being importunately haunted by a familiar 

 French proposition, which conveys to the superficial mind the view 

 that manner counts for more than man. No doubt the familiar 

 ' Le style c'est I'homme ' compares unfavorably with the more ancient 

 saying ' By their fruits ye shall know them/ but it is probable that 

 it was not intended to attribute so much importance to externals as 

 the aptitude of men for misunderstanding things which are too tersely 

 stated leads them to infer. There are thousands of things by which a 

 man's nature may be gauged besides style. Everything that is part 

 of him may in some sense be a gauge of him. Just as a great 

 naturalist has been said to be able to reconstruct some unknown 

 animal from a single bone, men say you can tell a man's nature by 

 the shape of his nose or his hand, or the expression of his mouth, 

 by his walk, by the tone of his voice. Everything may serve the 

 quick-witted as a basis of inference, though all may not be equally 

 trustworthy. Style is mainly an external attribute a means to 

 an end, and in no wise comparable to actual qualities of character 

 or action in man, or the thought embodied in what is said in poetry, 

 or the idea embodied in art. But it is an essential. It is present in 

 everything which has real vitality, and in every moment of art's 

 existence. And as it is infinitely variable in relation to the condi- 

 tions in which artistic work is presented, it serves as a very compre- 

 hensive means of inferring the genuineness either of man or of 

 artistic work. 



i This lecture was originally delivered in Oxford. 



