During the past forty years much of the finest pre-Restoration service music has come back into the cathedral repertoire. So many are the distinguished scholars who have contributed to this welcome revival that one hesitates to single out any by name. Nevertheless some small tribute must be paid to Dr. Fellowes who has been responsible for publishing so much music of the period and who has written several valuable historical studies, including one on the subject of English Cathedral Music. As Dr. Fellowes pointed out in this very book, however, there is still much to do before a definitive survey of pre-Restoration church music can be attempted. Many sources have yet to be collated and much music scored. With this in mind I began some time ago to catalogue the contents of all the known sources of early seventeenth century anthems. I would like this evening to discuss one or two points which have resulted from my work, all of which are connected, directly or indirectly, with the anthem.

Half a century ago jazz was an obscure, regional American music. Today it can reasonably claim to be an international idiom. Jazz took shape in the southern part of the United States, the result of a fusion between Negro blues, ragtime and military march music, and for the past sixty years it has followed a pattern of development almost exactly similar to that of European music, but undertaken at a much more hectic speed. First came the beginning, in folk song. Next followed a polyphonic period, a period during which jazz evolved the New Orleans style of playing, with its improvising front line of trumpet, clarinet and trombone. The 1920s saw the introduction of written arrangements: on the one hand the organization of New Orleans jazz into a dramatic pattern by Jelly Roll Morton, the first authentic jazz composer; on the other, an increasing preoccupation with harmony, reflected in the growth of eleven- and twelve-piece ensembles. But for genuinely orchestral writing, jazz had to wait a few years longer, until Duke Ellington came to maturity as a composer, using timbres that were peculiar to the Ellington orchestra, building his scores around the talents of individual musicians.

It is almost a tradition that Musica Britannica editors come before you to tell you of the music they have unearthed. But tonight I shall not talk to you about No Song, No Supper as it has already had three broadcasts and for some of you may have lost its novelty. It is the only English opera by Storace that survives in full score, but delightful though it is, it is not really typical of Storace's work as a whole. So I propose to limit myself to Storace's full-length operas (No Song is a short opera, an afterpiece), and I hope to show you that he aimed to write a type of opera much more akin to Il Seraglio than to any ballad opera, that he introduced the Viennese classical style into our theatres, that he introduced the ensemble with action and the extended finale into our operas, and that he had more sense of the theatre than any other English opera composer of the eighteenth century.

The Modern student who sets out to gain a clear idea of the concept of tragedy in the age of Shakespeare is dependent on two kinds of sources: those of the living theatre, its playwrights and extant dramas; and the reflections of Elizabethan literary sages concerning the nature of tragedy. The force of humanism in the second half of the sixteenth century was such that ancient precedent pervades both the actual plays and contemporary critical writings. Before proceeding to an examination of Shakespeare's use of song in his mature tragedies, particularly with respect to Othello and Hamlet, I want to consider the role of music in the Elizabethan theatre generally.

I cannot pretend that the adjective ‘cavalier’ in my title has much significance beyond colouring what would otherwise have been an even more drab title. Nevertheless, I believe that ‘cavalier’ is perhaps a fair description of the most important song-writers of the period; Nicholas Lanier, the Lawes brothers and John Wilson (if not of the probably pro-Cromwellian Colemans); and their performing and listening public, including the occasional roundheads. As in other spheres, the musical origins of the developments later in the century can be traced to the early part of the reign of King James I. Many surviving manuscripts as well as printed collections leave little doubt that the Italian madrigal—not monody—was well known in England from 1588 onwards. The only monodies printed here were those in Robert Dowland's Musical Banquet (1610) which included two by Caccini, one by Megli, and one anonymous piece. Notari's book of 1613 was also printed in England, though probably composed in Italy for the most part. Neither of these books can have exerted much influence, although Caccini's ‘Amaryllis’, which Dowland printed, became popular.

The title of this paper is intentionally ambiguous. It is meant to be taken in its most obvious sense as a reference to Elgar's Variations. But it also implies a discussion of the composer's personality. The two topics are inevitably linked, and one throws light on the other. I cannot promise a brilliant illumination, and it is better to say straight away that I offer no startling revelations. But I hope it may be possible to suggest trains of thought which others can work on. In a sense this is an interim report. I have been thinking about this subject now for several years, and I expect to go on thinking about it for a good many years to come. There might be an argument for suspending judgment until my own mind is clearer. But as I still cannot see daylight at the end of the tunnel I thought it would be worth while to set down what ideas I have on paper and subject them to the scrutiny of a critical audience.

A Rondellus is a round; a rota is a canon at the unison. The rondellus is much the senior of the two, though in some of its moods it does not at all behave like a venerable relic of the Middle Ages. But that is what it is, and in its early life it had a respectable place in the music of the church. It is true that during some of that time one might have heard rounds sung in every ale-house, but if so nobody bothered to write them down, and the first printed collection is no earlier than 1609.