  This analysis is taken from the concert programme:— I. An invitation to Music to return to England: that is, in the sense that England should be again pre-eminent for music above other European nations, as she was in the sixteenth century. The three English graces are Liberty, Poetry, and Music. II. Music invited in the name of Liberty: the idea associated with the forest. III. Music invited in the name of Poetry: the idea of Poetry associated with pastoral scenes and husbandry. IV. The Sea introduced as the type of Love; isolating our patriotism, and making our bond with the rest of the world. V. The national intention gives way to wider human sympathies. Music here considered as the voice of Universal Love, calling and responding throughout the world. A national meaning also underlies, in respect of our world-wide colonization. VI. Sorrow now invites Music; asserting her need to be the chiefest. The occasion being the celebration of Purcell’s genius, her complaint implies a call for some musical lament for his untimely death. VII. Music replies with a DIRGE for the dead artist; offering no consolation beyond the expression of woe. VIII. The chorus consoled, praise dead artists, and pronounce them happy and immortal. IX. A picture of the ideal world of delight created by Art. X. The invocation repeated, with the idea of responsibility of our colonization. ODE TO MUSIC |
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