Old Scores and New Readings: Discussions on Music & Certain Musicians — Story, Setting & Ideas

Polemical Reassessments

Runciman's essays are not neutral surveys but arguments. He praises Purcell as 'our last great musician' and ranks Byrde near the top of European masters, imagining a future New Zealander 'twenty centuries hence' confirming his view. He is equally blunt about failures: Gounod's love, he writes, 'was purely animal, though delicately animal,' and Marguerite stands as 'the final expression of the most refined and voluptuous form of sensuality.' Such phrasing is typical—Runciman uses vivid, sometimes provocative language to jolt readers into reconsidering familiar reputations.

His method is comparative. He contrasts Gluck's reformist intentions with Mozart's ability to 'please first, and only in the second place to express himself,' yet concludes that Mozart 'went clean ahead' of Gluck and Beethoven in opera. The essays thus build a hierarchy based on dramatic truth and musical beauty, with clear winners and losers.

Opera as a Parting of Ways

A central argument in the collection is that Mozart's operas mark a divide. Before him, all opera writers were 'avowed ear-ticklers'; after him, the line split into two: those continuing the 'ear-tickling business' (Rossini, Donizetti, Meyerbeer) and those trying to express dramatic movement. Runciman describes Mozart's method as a 'musical Wheel of Life,' where the drama unfolds in jerks, each number advancing the story, held together by 'consummate tact' and 'exciting pace.'

He applies this framework to later composers. Gounod, he argues, began with the Mozartean method of the Don Giovanni period but lacked Mozart's 'fiery energy.' In Faust, which is 'not a drama but a series of scenes,' Gounod succeeded; in Romeo and Juliet, the method 'utterly broke down' because the stage was 'encumbered' with more characters. This structural analysis is typical of Runciman's approach: he judges works by how well their form serves dramatic expression.

Voice and Rhetorical Strategy

Runciman writes as a critic with strong opinions, often using the first person and addressing the reader directly. He admits to modifying opinions as he grows older, but also takes pride in having held a view 'so long ago.' His prose is conversational yet pointed, with short, punchy sentences: 'Byrde himself has rested peacefully in his grave for over three hundred years.' He uses hypotheticals ('if anyone were foolish enough to advance it') and vivid metaphors (the 'Kinetoscope' or 'Wheel of Life') to make his points memorable.

The essays are not systematic analyses but personal, often combative engagements with the music and its reception. Runciman is unafraid to dismiss sacred cows: he calls the notion that Byrde prepared the way for later church composers 'absurd,' and he ranks Mozart above Beethoven in opera. This rhetorical boldness gives the collection a distinctive voice, one that invites agreement or argument but never indifference.

Readers should approach these essays as period pieces of criticism, not as definitive histories. Runciman's judgments are deliberately provocative, and his evidence is often limited to his own hearing and preferences. The value lies in observing how a well-informed Edwardian critic constructed his arguments, deployed his metaphors, and positioned himself against prevailing opinion. The collection rewards attention to its rhetorical strategies as much as to its musical claims.

Runciman’s fierce arguments made me recall a quieter shelf of old scores, where names like Gluck sit among forgotten voices. There is a gentleness in that older book, a sense of music as lived memory rather than polemic. I found myself turning its pages the way one revisits a familiar tune. Music and Some Highly Musical People — Background and Themes felt like tea after strong coffee, still warm with the same passing shadows.