The words of the Ode as here given differ slightly from those which appeared with Dr. Parry’s Cantata, sung at the Leeds Festival and at the Purcell Commemoration in London last year.
Since the poem was never perfected as a musical ode—and I was not in every particular responsible for it—I have tried to make it more presentable to readers, and in so doing have disregarded somewhat its original intention. But it must still ask indulgence, because it still betrays the liberties and restrictions which seemed to me proper in an attempt to meet the requirements of modern music.
It is a current idea that, by adopting a sort of declamatory treatment, it is possible to give to almost any poem a satisfactory musical setting;[1] whence it would follow that a non-literary form is a needless extravagance. From this general condemnation I wish to defend my poem, or rather my judgment, for I do not intend to discuss or defend my poem in detail, nor to try to explain what I hoped to accomplish when I engaged in the work; it is still further from my intention that anything which I shall say should be taken as applying to the music with which my ode was, far beyond its deserts, honored and beautified. But I am concerned in combating the general proposition that modern music, by virtue of a declamatory method, is able satisfactorily to interpret almost any kind of good poetry.
Such questions are generally left to the musician, and it should not be unwelcome to hear what may be said on the literary side. I shall therefore state what appear to me to be impediments in the way of this announced happy marriage of music and poetry, and enumerate some of the difficulties which, it seems to me, must especially beset the musician who would attempt to interpret pure literature by musical declamation.