THE EARTHLY PARADISE

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 25 August 1909, Page 80

THE EARTHLY PARADISE

— Morris'-e Masterpiece.—

Morris, with his tremendous energy, was able to complete between 1865 and 1870 that tremendous tapestry of music which ho oiled "The Earthly Paradise," a tapestry, woven of over 42,000 lines of rhymed verse. The^ first part of the work was published in 1868. The theme of "The Earthly Paradise" is the simple desire of man to escape cleath, and hi 6 non-recognition of the facti tibat his little lile perhaps owes its aweefcnese to its bervity. The beauty and sweetness of the tales composing the work are dependent to a certain extent on the profound sadness of their setting-, which is provided by tho prologue, the exquisite interludes; the »pilogue, and ihe farewell salute to Chaucer, with their perpetually recurrent burden in a hundred varied forms : Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,

I cannot earn the burden of your fears, Or make quick coming death a little thing,

Or bring- again the pleasure of past year?. Not for my words shall ye forget your tews. Or hope again for aught that I can say, The idle singer, of «n empty day. ■ The prologue tells how in the MiddleAgeo certain adventurers took ship* from a land stricken with the Black Death and tfiaileS.. across the Atlantic in search of an "Earthly Paradise," where they believed! they might' escape death altogether. They find not that deathless country, but a nameless city in a daefjjuit sea inhabited by, Greeks, descendants *"" of early Greek voyagers who bad settled there m despair of ever seeing their native land! again, and! had preserved in their isolation the pure and living traditions of early Greece. The mediteval voyagers who happened on this white fairy city, with its marble palaces .ajncl temples of tiio a-ti/oi-ervt gocfe, oro oE Norse,, Germanic, and Breton origin, familiar with the mediaeval chronicles and tales.

They recount their adventures to the elders of that Greek city. They are regarded by the elders with pity and love, as a link between themselves and the old world they have lost, and this feeling supplies the motive for the series of taWJs with which they regale_one another after the fashion of the Canterbury Pilgrims. Even taken out of their setting, most oT these stories are as beautiful as "The Life and Death of Jason," but taken in their setting, as they ought to be, for the whole work is * single masterpiece of poetio design, they become something more. There is an interplay between them and the pass* ing pageant of lives and loves and seasons. Mr Noyes, in his work on. Morris in the "English Men of Letters" series, ,6ay6: "These gloriouely-eoloured tapestries hanging upon the walls of that silent golden palace of song criticised human life as does the 'Ode or a Grecian Urn.' "—New York Sun.

MOZART: WAGNER.

Mozart realised his ideal and left the wiorld a. legacy which is imperishable^ Wagner realited his^ — or thought he did— and we should be deficient in gratitude if we failed to remember this. The Mozarfc ideal of music and drama is quite difterenb from the Wagner ideal of drama, and music. With a far simpler and more plastio apparatus • Mozart's characterisation, of his men and women is superior to Wagner's more elaborate machinery and more ambitious scheme of characterisation.

The Wagnerian librettos are deadly. Hia whole plan of {seating fable and myth, while ingenious ''and poetio in intention, bears the fatal hall mark of artificiality and ie crowned with doctrinal disquisitions endpolitical preachments. la a word^ Wagner the pamphleteer ofteni overshadows Wagner the artist.

Think of that tedious book of the "Ring" — which some uncritical ones- have compared! to Browning's "Ring and the Book" !— with its infernal ethics, its manufactured barbarics, and its awful lengths! Not even in the tawdry "Rfenzi." the orude "Dutchman," the clumsy "Tannhauser," or the sloppy "Lohengrin" has Richard Wagner committed such errors against the canons of taste, drama, poetry, as in. the "Ring." — James Hunneker.

A FAMOUS SCOTCH MUSICIAN.

Sir Alexander Mackenzie, who has beer* elected president of an International Musical Society which was' recently formed in Vienna, is tha-t somewhat mixture— a Scotsman and a great musician. Sir Alexander was born in Edinbuxg, but 'went to Germany to study music- e-t^the eairly age of- . nine. While there he became thoroughly acquainted with the works of the great masters, and also with the German language, and it is said that on. one occasion he arrived in Scotland from Hamburg and did not remember enough of his mother tongue to enable him to call a cab". Sii? Alexander has been a hard worker all his life, and although he has met with mOTO than the usual share of success, his experience at a certain giris' college will earn him the sympathy of most people—especially of dwellers in flats. B3 was teacher of the piano there, and sometimes eight pianos were banged by an octavo of girls. Afc times the din was so great that Sir Alexander would hold his ears and rush out of the room to calm his shattered nerves. When he was little more than a lad, Sir Alexander won the Kinsr'a Scholarship ati the Royal Academy of Music. When h« went in for it he was engaged to play in an orchestra, and in order to attend the competition he stayed away 'rom a. reheareat without first obtaining permission to do so. At the next rehearsal the conductor told him his services would no longer be required, as he had taken "French leave." Younp Alexander got up to do, saying, a«. he did so: "Well, I don't care; I've won the King's Scholarship!" "Oh* you have, have you?" said the conductor, in an altered tone. "Very well ;j under the circumstances you may stay."

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