T. A. Arne as an Inventor of Musical Form. 203 



has a truly Mozartean flavour. This opera is inscribed to 

 the Queen. The dedicatory address is in the fulsome 

 verbiage of the time. Arne as an author would not be a 

 success to-day. 



One branch of Arne's music (the Harpsichord Lessons) 

 I have not touched upon, my purpose, as I have said, 

 being to speak of Arne as an inventor and leader of 

 musical thought, and not to detail his biography. But 

 of these seven dainty sonatas as they are called, one — 

 No. 6 — contains a movement which also exhibits (in a 

 most condensed and epitomised, but perfectly definite 

 manner) the modern binary form. Arne's MS. scores were 

 to a large extent destroyed in the fire which occurred at 

 Covent Garden in 1808, but his oratorio, "Judith," is in the 

 British Museum. One wonders how his oratorios would 

 have fared had there been no Handel. The present Oxford 

 professor of music has, I believe, expressed the opinion that 

 the influence of Handel was adverse to the growth of British 

 art, and there is no doubt this view is correct, and has very 

 special reference to Arne. Arne was a bold man — his 

 autograph lying here shows that, — and he did the work of 

 a man who was not only bold but possessed of great genius. 

 The words used in a letter I received the other day from an 

 eminent musician are so apt, and so correctly estimate Arne 

 and his work, that I quote them. My friend says, " Arne's 

 advancement in the use of forms and detail arose not only 

 in his quickened talents, but in his impulsive daring nature 

 as a writer of music. It was prescience rather than know- 

 ledge which was the moving spring." Of late years much 

 has been said and done in furtherance of a school of real 

 English opera, but as yet we do not seem to have quite 

 found the composer who is to regenerate us. We want a 

 man whose name may be linked with those of Purcell and 

 Arne, who must, like them, be an innovator and inventor, 

 and who, whilst assimilating and adapting Continental 

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