Introduction:
Thomas Dunhill’s ‘Sea-Music’ is
just the sort of article that needs contextualising. Although what he says is
largely still of interest and relevance, it may seem that he is exploring blind
alleys. The reader must realise that it was written in 1917 during the darkest
days of the First World War. Nowadays, the ‘patriotism’ in some of the text
would be anathema to more liberal minds. And the Royal Navy, although still the
fourth most potent force in the world, no longer ‘rules the waves.’ Other
nations may claim to ‘have possessed pre-eminently the qualities which go to
the writing of music of the sea’ including those that look towards the blue
Mediterranean. On the other hand, all except the most unhistorical mind can see
where he is coming from.
There are basically two approaches
to writing sea-music. The first is to create a musical picture of the sea
itself. The means to achieve this are manifold, but usually involve some
carefully chosen atmospherics designed to show the ocean in all its moods.
Mendelssohn certainly achieves this with his two overtures noted by Dunhill
below. Debussy has written what is probably the ultimate sea-music in his
justifiably famous La Mer. Here, he
has used the tools of musical impressionism and pointillism. Dunhill does not
seem to be impressed by this Frenchman’s music. Other composers have juxtaposed styles such as
Frank Bridge in his Suite: The Sea.
Here, themes are more important than effect, but Bridge as not been slow to
paint a musical picture where appropriate.
The second approach is to depict
humankind’s interaction with the sea.
This would cover the multitude of works that sing praise of sailors and
their doughty deeds, such as Stanford’s The
Revenge, Vaughan William’s Sea
Symphony and John Ireland’s song ‘Sea Fever’. Allied to this is the utilisation of sea shanties and other
nautical songs, as Mackenzie did in his Britannia
Overture. Here it is the recollection of the words that largely create
their effect. These works may or may not present sea-mood music.
Thomas Dunhill wrote this essay
before Arnold Bax premiered his ultimate sea-scape Tintagel in 1921, Benjamin Dale penned his magnificent tone poem
The Flowing Tide (c.1938) and clearly many years prior to William Alwyn’s The Magic Island (1952), which must
surely be one of the most impressive pieces of musical sea-painting in the
catalogue.
I have included minor edits to the text.
Thomas Dunhill:
Sea-Music, Monthly Musical Record July 2 1917
Sea-Music is of many kinds. Just
as the sea itself is ever varying in colour, revealing its changeful character
to us in blue exuberance or grey gloom, in quiet immensity or madly foaming
anger, so the music it inspires cannot be placed all into one category.
Most fine sea-music, however,
gives us in some measure the spirit of adventure, for the glamour of romance is
almost inseparable from our thoughts or the waters that cover the earth, and
the riving lives of those who ‘go down to the sea in ships.’ Mendelssohn’s
‘Hebrides’ and ‘Meerestille’ (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage) overtures [1]
have long been accepted as types of such music, though they strike us rather as
the impressions of a landsman visitor than as the natural outpourings of a man
with the blood of a sea-cradled race in his veins.
Of sea influences of a wilder and
more virile kind many instances will immediately spring to mind. Everybody will
recall the vivid sea-painting in Wagner’s ‘Flying Dutchman’, [2] and the less
primitive and more subtly expressed music which accompanies Isolde’s journey to
Cornwall- the song of the steersman and the hearty cries of the sailors as the
ship approaches its destination. [3] This is music as full of poetry as it is of
sea-salt, exactly fitting the environment, and as bracing and exciting as the
ocean breeze itself.
There is also wide scope for the
musician in the mystic, the dainty Faerie element, which Shakespeare has
expressed do completely in The Tempest
and elsewhere, in words which run themselves are almost music. This element, of
which the lines:
‘Thou remember’st
Since once I sat upon a
promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a
dolphin’s back,
Uttering such dulcet and
harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at
her song.
And certain stars shot madly in
their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid’s music,’
[4]
And the equally musical
‘Full fathom five my father lies;
Of his bones are coral made,’ [5]
are perfect types, has perhaps
been more aptly realized by musicians in their instrumental music than in their
vocal settings.
I think we may claim that British
composers have possessed pre-eminently the qualities which go to the writing of
music of the sea; and as befits an island nation whose sea-power has always
been an inspiration as well as a boast, our music has seldom been so good as
when it has dealt, either directly or indirectly with the waves which encompass
our shores, and the exploits of the mariners who have made our country famous.
Britain may also boast of a vast
store of sea folk-music. Many of the Chanteys, or scraps of songs trolled by
sailors when at work, still survive. A very interesting collection of these, all
authentic and characteristic, has recently been given to us in a volume, edited
and furnished with accompaniments by Mr Cecil Sharp, and published by Schott
and Co. [6]
More than two centuries ago Henry
Purcell showed us that he understood the free and open-hearted character of sea-music,
if not quite all of its magic. His sailor chorus and dance in ‘Dido and Aeneas’
[7] are perfect examples of such art, so British in lilt that their association
with the sea-dogs of ancient Troy is almost too patently anachronistic. The
songs of Dibdin [8] and his school, more limited and more local in their scope,
portraying the jollity and adventure of the sailor type, rather than the direct
influences of the sea, may also be regarded as sea-music of national value.
In these more modern days we may
well boast of such a work as Mackenzie’s ‘Britannia’ overture, [9] which may be
regarded as an enshrinement of the Dibdin character in developed music of
artistic achievement, for it displays a real, if rather deliberate, sense of
breezy sailor humour, and is, moreover, particularly British in its appeal.
Few modern composers have felt
the call of the sea more strongly than Sir Charles [Villiers] Stanford. His
picturesque ‘Revenge’ [10] is a little masterpiece, which will always remain
representative. We know how highly it was rated by Tennyson himself, and poets
are notoriously difficult to satisfy with the settings composers make of their
works. In this case it is difficult to see how the heroism of the exploit and
the pride of British seamanship could have been better expressed in music.
Stanford’s art covers a wide range. He gives us many aspects of the sea, and
his storm is as convincing as his calm. The same qualities are evident in his
‘Songs of the Sea’ and ‘Songs of the Fleet’, [11] musical settings which never
fail to thrill us and make our pulses beat faster whenever we hear them.
Notes:
[1] Felix Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, also known as the Fingal’s Cave Overture was written in
1830 and subsequently revised in 1832. It was first performed in London on 14
May 1832, conducted by Thomas Attwood.
The music was inspired by a walking trip to the Western Highlands of
Scotland made by Mendelssohn and his friend Karl Klingemann during 1829. The
other overture that Dunhill refers to is ‘Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt’
(Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage), op.27. This was written in 1832 and was first
heard in Leipzig three years later, conducted by the composer. The literary
background to the work is two short poems by Goethe: The Calmness of the Sea
and A Prosperous Voyage. Edward Elgar quoted a theme from this overture in the
13th variation of his Enigma Variations.
[2] Thomas Dunhill is referring
to the dramatic sea music presented in the overture of Richard Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman (1843)
[3] I understand that Dunhill is
alluding to the solo sung by the Steersman in the Act I, Scene I of Tristan and Isolde where the he sings ‘Westwards
the gaze wanders; eastwards skims the ship.’
[4] William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act II Scene I
[5] William Shakespeare: The Tempest Act I Scene II
[6] Sharp, Cecil J., English Folk-Chanteys (London: Simpkin,
Marshall, Hamilton, Kent; Schott; Taunton: Barnicott & Pearce, 1914).
[7] Henry Purcell (1659-95). The
opera Dido and Aeneas was [probably] premiered
in 1689 at a boarding school for girls in Chelsea. It is a ‘grand opera’ in the
sense that there are no speaking parts. Dunhill is likely referring to the
song, ‘Come away, fellow sailors’ from Act III.
[8] Charles Dibdin (1745-1814)
was an assistant in a music shop, a novelist, a singer-actor and composer who
specialised in dramatic works. His reputation now rests on his ‘sea-songs’ with
the best-known being ‘Tom Bowling.
[9] Sir Alexander Mackenzie’s Britannia: Overture was first performed
in 1894. It became popular at the Proms, being performed at that venue 48
times. The overture makes use of the tunes ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘Jack the Lad’ and
three nautical themes devised by the composer.
[10] Charles Villiers Stanford’s The Revenge: A Battle of the Fleet was
first heard in 1886 at the Leeds Musical Festival. John Porte (Sir Charles V. Stanford, London 1922)
writes that ‘the spirit of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem gave [Stanford] one of
his natural elements, the atmosphere of the sea, in which some of his finest
works were to be cast’. This once popular work had ‘page after page…full of
fire and salt-sea vigour and strength.’ The music is more a story of the sea,
than a depiction of its moods.
[11] Charles Villiers Stanford’s Songs of the Sea and Songs of the Fleet are both powerful and
lyrical choral works setting poems by Henry Newbolt. The former was premiered
during the 1904 Leeds Festival and the latter at the same venue on 1910. They
have maintained a toehold in the repertoire, both recorded and concert, until
the present time.
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