form in the sense that word conveys nowadays; there is no unalterable
scheme of movements such as there is in the Haydn symphony, and within
each movement there is no first subject, second subject, development and
recapitulation. All that had to be worked out nearly a century later.
The set forms of Purcell's day were the dances. The principle of
Purcell's sonata form is alternate fast and slow movements. Nothing more
can be perceived; there is nothing more to perceive. Sometimes he
commences with a quick piece; then we have an adagio or some slow dance;
then another quick piece. In other cases the order is reversed: a slow
movement may be followed by a slower movement. He makes great use of
fugue, more or less free, and of imitation, and, of course, he employs
ground-basses. The masculine strength and energy, the harsh clashing
discords, are not less remarkable than the constant sweetness; and if
there is rollicking spring jollity, there are also moments of deepest
pathos. There is scarcely such a thing as a dry page. It is true that
Purcell avowed that he copied the best Italian masters, but the most the
copying amounts to is taking suggestions for the external scheme of his
sonatas and for the manner of writing for strings. He poured copiously
his streams of fresh and strong melody into forms which, in the hands of
those he professed to imitate, were barren, lifeless things. Many of
these sonatas might almost be called rhapsodies; certainly a great many
movements are rhapsodical. In set forms one has learnt from experience
what to expect. In the dance measures and fugues, after a few bars, one
has a premonition (begotten of oft-repeated and sometimes wearisome
experience) of what is coming, of the kind of thing that is coming; just
as in a Haydn or Mozart sonata one knows so well what to expect that one
often expects a surprise, and may be surprised if there is nothing to
surprise one. But in many of Purcell's largos, for example, the music
flows out from him shaped and directed by no precedent, no rule; it
flows and wanders on, but is never aimlessly errant; there is a quality
in it that holds passage to passage, gives the whole coherence and a
satisfying order. Emerson speaks of Swedenborg's faculties working with
astronomic punctuality, and this would apply to Purcell's musical
faculties. Take a scrappy composer, a short-breathed one such as Grieg:
he wrote within concise and very definite forms; yet the order of ma