Purcell's music in hand, and soon put it all
right--turned it, that is, into a clumsy, forcible-feeble copy of
Handel. One could scarcely recognise Purcell so blunderingly disguised.
However, we now know better, and the _Te Deum_ stands before us, pure
Purcell, in all its beauty, freshness, sheer strength, and, above all,
naive direct mode of utterance. It looks broken, but does not sound
broken. Purcell simply went steadily through the canticle, setting each
verse as he came to it to the finest music possible. The song
"Vouchsafe, O Lord," is an unmatched setting of the words for the solo
alto, full of very human pathos; and some of the choral parts are even
more brilliant than the odes. The _Jubilate_ is almost as fine; but we
must take both, not as premature endeavours to work Handelian wonders,
but as the full realisations of a very different ideal. THE FOUR-PART
SONATAS.

In the last sonatas (of four parts, published 1697) the Italian
influence is even more marked than in the earlier ones. The general plan
is the same, but more effect is got out of the strings without the
management of the parts ceasing to be Purcellian. We get slow and quick
movements in alternation, or if two slow ones are placed together they
differ in character. Variety was the main conscious aim. The notion of
getting a unity of the different movements of a sonata occurred to no
one until long after. We learn nothing by comparing the various
sequences of the movements in the different sonatas, for the simple
reason that there is nothing to learn, and it may be remarked that for
the same reason elaborate analysis of the arrangement of the sections
which make up the overtures is wasted labour. The essential unity of
Purcell's different sets of pieces is due to something that lies deep
below the surface of things--he was guided only by his unfailing
intuition.

In these ten sonatas we have Purcell, the composer of pure music,
independent of words and stage-scenes, at his ripest and fullest. The
subjects are full of sinew, energy, colour; the technique of the fugues
is impeccable; the intensity of feeling in some of these slow movements
of his is sometimes almost startling when one of his strokes suddenly
proclaims it. There are sunny, joyous numbers, too, robust, jolly
tunes, as healthy and fresh as anything in the theatre pieces. The
"Golden" sonata is, after all, a fair representative. If the last
movement seems--as most of the finales of al